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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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?
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| 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.
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| 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?
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| 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?
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| 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?
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| 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.
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| Monday 19 March 2007 |
A tick-box attitude to toddlers
When even infants are expected to achieve ‘69 early learning goals’, you know that no area of life is free from New Labour’s tyranny of targets.
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| Thursday 28 December 2006 |
A hard cell
Eve Herold on why we should take sides in the Stem Cell Wars, and cheer those scientists pushing the boundaries.
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| Thursday 23 November 2006 |
Down with the Supernanny State
When ministers and TV gurus constantly bang on about the pitfalls of parenting, it is little wonder that some mums and dads feel they 'can't cope'.
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| Friday 17 November 2006 |
Back to skool
When officials offer parents lessons in singing nursery rhymes, it's no wonder some are losing confidence in their abilities.
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| Friday 20 October 2006 |
‘There’s no such thing as “stress”’
Angela Patmore has been branded a 'heartless bitch' for her attack on the stress management industry. Calm down and get a life, she tells her critics.
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| Friday 13 October 2006 |
Publish, and you can still be damned
An 'historic' judgement in the House of Lords might make it easier to defend a libel case, but leaves press freedom subject to a bad law.
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| Thursday 14 September 2006 |
Should childhood come with a health warning?
This week, a group of experts raised critical questions about how we mollycoddle children – but they also indulged some childish prejudices.
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| Tuesday 8 August 2006 |
A hairy moment for free speech
Tommy Sheridan’s libel win over the News of the World was no ‘victory’ for the working class. It was a victory for an archaic law over open debate.
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