Blog posts in October 2010 
-
Are mothers the greatest academic role models for daughters?
Friday 29 October 2010
Categories: Family Relationships, Girls' schools, Role Models
A recent study from Lancaster University Management School has revealed that mothers are the strongest role models with regard to their children’s education, and the bond between mothers and daughters is particularly strong. Maternal influence is found to be the leading factor over whether children stay on at school and go on to university, and it is therefore particularly important with respect to social mobility within the family.
This doesn’t surprise me. I set an essay...
-
When ignorance isn't bliss...
Tuesday 19 October 2010
Categories: Drugs and Alcohol, Education, Growing up, Personal Safety, Sexual Relationships
The rather sensational headline in a recent Daily Mail online article read: ‘Pupils to learn about rape and laws of consent in bid to cut violent crime’. The story went on to explain that the ‘lessons about rape and drunken sex’ are proposed by the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, in an attempt to reduce the rate of violent crime in the city. They would be part of the Personal, Social and Health Education programme.
Critics of the scheme, such as Margaret Morrissey, founder of...
-
Mums and girls - what's going on?
Monday 11 October 2010
Categories: Family Relationships, Parenting
Research for Netmums found that mothers admitted to being tougher on their daughters than their sons. They let their sons get away with what they call “cheek” while they criticise their daughters for being “stroppy”. Boy behaviour which brings on a wry smile triggers irritation when it’s a girl’s.
What is going on here? Are mothers perpetuating learned behaviour from their mothers? Perhaps it goes all the way back to the era of hunter-gatherers when a male needed to be...
-
How Ed Miliband destroys the myth of 'second child syndrome'
Friday 1 October 2010
Categories: Education, Family Relationships, Growing up
The very public spectacle of David Miliband’s defeat in the Labour leadership contest by his younger brother Ed may have been extraordinary but many parents and teachers have experience of trying to manage sibling rivalry.
In the Miliband case we heard protestations of brotherly love from both but, along with that love, the younger brother, in his decision to stand for election was effectively saying: I want that job too; you may be my older brother but I don’t think you are good...