Is the use of a forward facing pram really child abuse?

Professor Cathrine Folwer, a health expert in Australia, seems to be claiming that millions of parents around the world, myself included, are guilty of abusing their babies and small children. As I look across the table at my happy, well-adjusted, healthy son eating his home cooked lunch it’s hard to spot any signs of this harm I’m supposed to have inflicted on him from birth, but apparently I have.

Do record GCSE results mean kids are getting cleverer?

No disrespect to all those happy teenagers (mainly girls it seems) who are currently basking in the glow of their multiple A* passes, but all these results show is that of course exams have got easier over the last couple of decades. It’s either that or kids are getting brighter year-on-year – and it doesn’t take a genius to know that’s not very likely.

Celebrity? Big Brother

So it’s started again. I know because I heard the music, saw the eye and clocked a couple of people stumbling down a platform towards the cameras. Right after that my hubby came into the room with a cup of tea, gave me something of a withering look (edged with a hint of thinly veiled desperation) and said “No, really, you can’t make me watch this.”

Help! Police! I’ve been told to tidy my room.

It’s all happening with 11-year-old kids this week isn’t it. Over here in the UK we’ve got a girl being prosecuted for rioting and looting and in Germany, a boy calling a police emergency line and complaining he was being subjected to “forced labour” at home.

Naming & shaming those UK Rioters

The last week has all been about identifying, hauling in and prosecuting those horrible specimens responsible and the whole spectacle has certainly made for some interesting viewing, or at least a glimpse of some of the countries worst parents. Many have stood outside the court, effing and blinding at the press and declaring Thug Junior and Minni Oik to be a ‘misunderstood little angel in Adidas’.

Spare the Rod? No, bring back hardcore discipline.

More outbreaks of thuggery took place last night and even more juvenile delinquents were out swarming through the streets like a plague of locus, looking for a free pair of trainers, a new flat screen TV, or in the case of some, bags of Basmati rice and a wooden rocking horse. Many of these masked and hooded looters were only in their mid teens, but some of them were as young as ten. Yes, that’s ten. As in should be at home and under the constant supervision of an adult.

London riots – why, oh why?

So, injustice at this death aside, what the hell have these riots been about? From what I’ve seen it’s all about smashing windows, grabbing what they can and running away with their loot tucked up a hoodie. Wow, what a hard-hitting social and political statement they’re making. Why on earth aren’t the British public nodding with agreement and sympathising with their grievances..

Why kids must learn to boil an egg and climb a tree

The world has changed quite a bit in recent years; some say it’s changed more over the last few decades than it probably ever has. Technologically speaking that it. Millions of years of lumbering dinosaurs and slowly evolving amoebas, various cold snaps and the dawning of multiple civilizations have all been overtaken by a new era: The Age Of Electronics. It certainly seems that most things we use today come on a phone the size of your fingernail, as an app through an online store or on a touch screen gizmo that can even make you a cup of tea. They all call for some sort of computerised what-ya-ma-call-it or wireless thingy-ma-jig and require plugging in, charging up and regular (often badly timed) updates.

Why we moan and what we love

Some things are just so ingrained into the British way of doing things it really wouldn’t be stretching any sort of imagination to think they’re actually part of our DNA.

Oh Christmas Tree Oh Christmas Tree

Secure the tree that is, we’re not recommending tethering your toddler or pooch to the bookshelf with fishing wire over the coming weeks, no matter how tempting that idea might sometimes be.