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The Sunday Times:
Our children's blighted lives

1 February 2009

Ask yourself this: do you ever fight with your other half in front of the children? Do you leave them to their own devices when they are on the computer? Have you ever sat them in front of the television instead of taking them out for a walk?

According to A Good Childhood - a report commissioned by the Children's Society and produced by the independent Good Childhood Inquiry, which undertook the biggest investigation into childhood conducted in the UK - these types of parental shortcomings are the hallmarks of British parenting.

In an attempt to assess how we could do it better, a group of experts, including Richard Layard, emeritus professor of economics at the London School of Economics who heads its investigations into wellbeing, have spent two years sifting through reports and contributions from some 35,000 people. They have tried to understand why British kids fare the worst of all the children in the 21 developed nations. That's worse than Germany, Scandinavia, Finland and even France.

Read the full article Our children's blighted lives, from The Sunday Times published 01 February 2009.

Related Publications
A Good Childhood: Searching for Values in a Competitive Age by Richard Layard. Details

Related Links
Richard Layard webpage
Wellbeing Programme webpage
The Children's Society - The Good Childhood Inquiry