Blog posts in January 2012 
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The rise of parent power?
Monday 30 January 2012
The Times Educational Supplement (27 January) reports on the developing role of parents with respect to their children’s education. It talks of the rise of parental influence and how this is changing the relationship between schools and families – in some respects positively, in other respects perhaps worryingly. The article explains: ‘Long gone are the days when the majority of parents turned up unquestioningly at the school gates, dumped their kids and headed off.’
To what...
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Body image - it's all about perception
Friday 27 January 2012
Categories: Health, Media Influence, Self-esteem
Young people have always been concerned about their appearance, but this generation is under greater pressure to look good than ever before. On average British children are spending between six and eight hours a day looking at screens, during much of which they are being bombarded with images of the “beautiful”. Men’s and women’s magazines present distorted images of human perfection. At present the average model weighs 23% less than the average British woman, so it is no surprise that at...
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How can we help girls to be more confident?
Tuesday 3 January 2012
Categories: Education, Parenting, Self-esteem, Teenagers
Our bright, talented, good looking, hardworking girls should be proud of themselves but all too often they lack confidence. Why is this? As parents we may praise, reassure and encourage our daughters but somehow this can fail to penetrate their fragile egos. Once adolescent hormones kick in many girls become self-conscious about their looks, their bodies and their talents. They compare themselves, unfavourably of course, with their peers, with the images they see in the media and their...