|
|
 |
| Wednesday 29 July 2009 |
Bullying the public
The latest NSPCC/ChildLine initiative on bullied children presents both adults and kids as toxic beings.
|
|
| Friday 24 July 2009 |
Restating the case for human uniqueness
Despite all the media hype about ‘clever chimps’ using tools and feeling emotions, in truth there is nothing remotely human about primates.
|
|
| Friday 26 June 2009 |
Restating the case for human uniqueness
A brilliant new book cuts through all the media-oriented research about ‘clever chimps’ using tools, doing maths and feeling emotions, and reminds us that, in truth, there is nothing remotely human about primates.
|
|
| Friday 24 April 2009 |
It’s time to move beyond the nature/nurture divide
In advising parents to ignore hectoring experts, Judith Rich Harris’s book still packs a punch 10 years on. But its use of evolutionary theory and social psychology to explain how people are ‘shaped’ leaves much to be desired.
|
|
| Thursday 19 March 2009 |
Chimps are like humans? Stop monkeying around
This week it was revealed that chimps use sticks to smash open beehives. But there’s nothing remotely ‘human-like’ in such behaviour.
|
|
| Monday 2 February 2009 |
The mother of all interventions
We should roundly reject the new UK report which argues that time-stretched parents are producing damaged children.
|
|
| Friday 23 January 2009 |
‘Autistic children are now seen as a burden’
Dr Michael Fitzpatrick talks about how raising an autistic child is made infinitely harder by the charlatans waging the ‘war on autism’.
|
|
| Monday 29 December 2008 |
‘Autistic children are now seen as a burden’
Dr Michael Fitzpatrick, author of Defeating Autism, talks to Helene Guldberg about how raising a child with autism can be made infinitely harder – emotionally, financially and practically – by the charlatanic ‘war on autism’.
|
|
| Monday 17 November 2008 |
Don’t outlaw boisterous banter in the playground
As Britain launches another Anti-Bullying Week, the author of Reclaiming Childhood says demonising teasing can do more harm than good.
|
|
| Wednesday 27 August 2008 |
The shame of Salman Rushdie’s secular fatwa
In using England's archaic libel laws to have books pulped, the former free speech martyr puts himself in the same camp as censorious mullahs.
|
|
| Wednesday 6 August 2008 |
Don’t blame parents for ‘cotton-wool kids’
Today is Playday, a celebration of children’s ‘right to play’ - and an ideal time to have a kickabout with the culture of fear that imprisons our kids.
|
|
| Thursday 26 June 2008 |
No defender of liberty should use the libel laws
England’s law of defamation is the enemy of free speech. So why did the head of Liberty threaten a minister with a writ?
|
|
| Thursday 28 February 2008 |
Heart disease: we need medicine not moralism
Fear of rising heart deaths is unfounded. And if we're serious about lowering the death rate even further, we need better treatment not lifestyle lectures.
|
|
| Friday 18 January 2008 |
Humanity, thou art sick
Shyness is now ‘social phobia’, and dissent is ‘Oppositional Defiant Disorder’. How did everyday emotions come to be seen as illnesses?
|
|
| Thursday 3 January 2008 |
Shooting down the feminist Thought Police?
The UK government says adults should chill out and let boys play with toy guns. But who made us so uptight about kids’ play in the first place?
|
|
| Friday 21 December 2007 |
Humanity, thou art sick
With shyness diagnosed as ‘social phobia’, and dissent as Oppositional Defiant Disorder, more and more emotions are being psychologised. Or perhaps I’m just suffering from Book Review Hyperactivity Dementia?
|
|
| Wednesday 14 November 2007 |
A playground tumble can do you good
More experts recognise that a scraped knee can be a positive experience for a child. Let's hope they now relax about other 'dangers' in kids' lives.
|
|
| Tuesday 16 October 2007 |
The myth of stressed and depressed schoolkids
If we’re not careful, claims that young people can’t cope with the ‘intense pressure’ of exams could become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
|
|
| Friday 24 August 2007 |
A childish panic about the next generation
Many of those fretting over the state of contemporary childhood, concerned that kids are passive, cooped up and sedentary, are motivated by naked nostalgia - sometimes even by snobbery.
|
|
| Monday 11 June 2007 |
Are children being held hostage by parental fears?
A new report calls on parents to let their kids venture out unsupervised. That might be easier if scaremongering officials put a sock in it.
|
|
|
