At a recent screening in Twickenham of the 2016 American film ‘Resilience’, Sir Vince Cable, Leader of the Liberal Democrats and MP for Twickenham, Whitton, Teddington, and The Hamptons, summed up the post-film discussion with a question, “What do children need to thrive, and how can we help parents to provide this?” He said, “They…
Talk to me! Is an expectant mother aware that her child is tuning into her voice? In the early months of life it is the sound of her voice that will stimulate the learning centres of her baby’s brain, and it is especially high-pitched ‘baby talk’, sometimes called ‘Motherese’, that will have the greatest impact….
Is self-harm really about the teenage years – or the early years? There has been much in the press recently about teenage girls harming themselves. The figures are alarming – 1 in 5 – and social media is often blamed. But is there something else going on? It is interesting that girls are in the…
A few years ago, I was introduced to the Research Summaries on the website of What About the Children? As a Science graduate and mother of two children, I was interested in the brain development of the under-threes and how my hours of work might have affected the children. My conclusion was that being made…
Earlier in the year a parliamentary petition entitled, “Provide additional funding to councils to protect Children’s Centres”.was circulated. The petition was calling for action to address the serious decline in the number of Children’s Centres, since 2010 over a third have closed. Austerity has caused a significant reduction in Government funding to local authorities and…
Do you sometimes read a sentence in a newspaper article that hits you between the eyes at the casual lack of understanding it shows of the need of a young baby for its mother? I was particularly struck by an observation from one celebrity who made the following comment in a newspaper interview recently, “I’ve…