children
Are We Getting Rid of the Germans at Last?
Sandra Gruescu boldly predicts another World Cup win for England
"...The German team had a fantastic start in this World Cup with four wonderful goals against Australia. The German daily BILD proclaimed “Ihr habt uns vierzaubert”, the country was happy and forgot their floundering coalition government for a while..."
The fall out from the IFS' latest study on marriage: time for a grown-up discussion?
Should we really still be arguing about who makes the best parents?
"...The Institute for Fiscal Studies yesterday published a report that found no positive influence of marriage per se on the outcome of children. However, children of married people seem to develop better which can be explained by differences in characteristics of those parents who choose to marry and those who don’t... it is not hard to guess the correlation correctly..."
The Single Father
Investigating a forgotten species
"...Lone parenting presents a range of difficulties, however being a lone father poses a unique conflict..."
Budget 2010 - Children and Families
Not the budget to end child poverty
"...The cost of child poverty is high – it is estimated to stand at £25bn per year – so the fight against it should be part of the plan for economic recovery, not something that can be treated on the sidelines..."
Fighting Fit
ResPublica's Sandra Gruescu on just how we deal with a problem like obesity
"...It won’t be enough to introduce fitness tests in schools and to simply send letters to parents berating them for doing a bad job because their children have failed..."
Poverty, Politics and Brain Size
ResPublica's Sandra Gruescu questions the emerging consensus on and use of neuroscience in parenting
"...brain size is affected, but the level of neglect has to be extreme. Unfortunately Mr. Duncan Smith forgot to mention that the study in question looked at 'extreme extremes': at children in Romanian orphanages who, before the madness of Mr and Mrs Ceausescu came to a violent end in December 1989, were kept in cages, tied to their beds and treated worse than animals over a prolonged period of time. The question we have to ask is the extent to which data based upon these horrific cases should be imported directly and applied to 'Broken Britain.'..."
Safeguarding Children (Or, My Son’s Bottom)
ResPublica's Sandra Gruescu on the how the 'rules' really don't help working parents
"...The next morning I spoke to the staff and they told me they are not allowed to wipe my son’s bottom because of ‘safeguarding children’ guidelines. One told me it is a national guideline, another told me it is a guideline that is in place just at this school. I asked her, “are you expecting me to leave work and come in to clean my son and then go back to work?” The answer was of course not a yes or a no, but “these are the rules...”
