When teenagers go off the rails, who should take the blame - the parents, or the children themselves..?

FROM anti-social behaviour to youth crime and truancy, teenagers often make headlines for all the wrong reasons, with the finger of blame firmly pointed in the direction of the parents.

Blame the Parents, a new BBC2 series, follows five families from Southampton with troublesome teenagers.

"I hear an awful lot about parents who don't care, who allow their kids to hang around and get into trouble. In my experience I have never met one of these parents," said Islay Downey from the Wessex Youth Offending Team

After years of helping parents, Islay Downey has a great deal of sympathy for those who struggle to keep control of their unruly youngsters.

On Thursday evening, TV viewers will see Islay in action with five families from the city who agreed to take part in BBC 2's Blame the Parents.

There is Reg and Jenny, who struggle to cope with their daughter Jennifer's tantrums; single mum Mary who wants to be able to control her teenage son, Ciaran, but needs to control her own temper first; Cathy who has difficulty coping with her son Troy's Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD); Sue who doubts her son's problems can all be put down to ADHD, and Marilyn, who is facing the prospect of going to court to explain her son Daniel's behaviour.

Faced with the fact that they can no longer keep their teenagers in line, the parents have volunteered to join a government-run course to teach parenting skills and help them keep their kids out of trouble.

Video footage captures the rows, tantrums and angry confrontations - revealing why these parents are at their wits' end, as they struggle to cope with their troublesome teens. With the pressure piling on at home, the series provides a "warts and all" portrait of family life and follows each parent's progress on the course, as they attempt to take back control and mend severed family relationships.

Islay has helped some of the city's most troubled families but believes it is all too easy to lay the blame solely with the parents.

"As a society we blame the parents - and parents do it themselves. They feel incredibly guilty when kids do something wrong.

"We need to stop blaming each other and focus on what can be done to make things better - we all have a part to play," she said.

"It's surprising how common it is for parents to encounter challenging behaviour with their teenagers and even the most understanding mums and dads can be pushed to the limit on occasion.

"Most of us have times when our kids challenge us - to say these teenagers are a different breed is quite ridiculous," she said.

Parenting courses have become an integral part of the youth justice system, and a key component in the fight against teenage crime and anti-social behaviour. The series offers an insight into how these groups work, what parents learn there and how they able to put the help and advice into practice at home - but most importantly an intense and dramatic insight into the troubled relationship between the generations.

The idea of the programmes is to raise awareness of the issues involved in parenting and to use the Southampton stories to illustrate what action can be taken.

Communication is the key to any relationship and the ability to listen is also a talent that parents need to master.

"You have to remember that it's very normal for teenagers to push the boundaries. They are moving away from the parents. There are enormous pressures on parents to provide the latest designer goods and to buy whatever the children want.

"We don't wait anymore, we use credit - and hence we don't know the value of anything.

"But we don't have to buy all these things. Our children must have their needs such as shelter, warmth, clothing, food, safety, love and affection and building their self-esteem fulfilled - if they don't they will go out and find other inappropriate ways. "But you don't have to fulfil their wants," she said.

Blame the Parents starts Thursday, March 10 on BBC2 at 9am.