Ladies and gentlemen it has come to my attention, despite desperate attempts to ignore it, that I am getting older. In truth, I’ve known about this for a while. Time may heal all things but it does diddly squat for old age. I’m afraid time is so often mediated and perceived through a youthful filter. … Continued
In my last blog I spoke about the lack of resources in our care system which are committed to recognising and treating the long term effects of early life events on children in care. A related issue, but unaddressed in the last blog, concerns the events that precipitate intervention and action by a social worker. … Continued
I would like to start this blog on a slight tangent… Take a look at the picture below. I’m sure many of you are already familiar with this wretched story. To those of you who are not it revolves around a 12-year-old girl and her father, a gun toting, NRA loving, … Continued
I’ve written a number of times about discipline, parental supervision and technology. There is some pretty good advice out there on the net and a plethora of online communities that exist to provide support to newly minted parents. One theme that has run through many of my posts is the risk and challenges presented by … Continued
Medical experts in Australia have concluded, following the result of a royal commission into domestic violence in the state of Victoria (the first of its kind in the country), that children are affected by it even before birth. Statistics show that the number of cases of domestic violence in the country has increased by 136 … Continued
In 2013 a 17.5 million pounds initiative was announced by the government which aimed to support 16,000 young mothers by 2015. The move was inspired by similar programmes in the USA which claimed to reduce the incidents of domestic violence and child abuse in these households. It’s an interesting experiment, but it also highlights a … Continued
Professor Richard Layard and his colleagues at the Wellbeing research programme at the London’s School of Economics’ centre for Economic performance, have reached a perhaps obvious but nonetheless important conclusion that…. having an emotionally healthy childhood is the key to happiness in later life. And furthermore, that being a happy child begets a happy satisfied … Continued
We hear an awful lot about the problems with young people today. The headlines tend to favour the negative stories such as the ASBOs, underage pregnancies, the increasing frequency of teenage on adult violence and so on, but I have some real sympathy for what children face today. Consider what we now know about the … Continued
As knowledge of science and the human animal move forward it becomes ever more apparent of the interrelational nature of things. Our species has a propensity to compartmentalise the world and to some degree this makes sense. To deal with everything in its entirety is overwhelming, impractical and impossible. However, there are circumstances in which … Continued
Borderline Personality Disorder: What a parent can learn from a therapist’s experience. I was lucky enough to attend a really fascinating workshop on this personality disorder recently and I realised that as a therapist the insights gained were incredibly useful in themselves but I also realised that there was a lot of learning for mothers … Continued