Talking about their generation

Aug 17 2006 By Hannah Davies, The Journal

Are our children's childhoods becoming "toxic"? One education expert believes so. Hannah Davies finds out more.

With Jamie's School Dinners, Supernanny, and House of Tiny Tearaways - we have never been more obsessed with our children's behaviour and eating habits.

We know something is up with our children.

But with a wealth of information around - and sometimes conflicting views - parents are negotiating a minefield in trying to bring up their kids.

One person who is trying to piece together this mess is Sue Palmer, a government adviser on education, who has spent three years writing and researching Toxic Childhood.

The book looks at how child-rearing has changed in the last decade and how factors ranging from bad nutrition to TVs in the bedroom affect our children.

The idea for the book came from Sue's primary schools experience as a literacy consultant.

She says: "More and more we were finding children's literacy skills had reduced to far below what they once were.

"Many teachers blame it on TV and I did too, but digging deeper I started to discover a whole host of other factors.

"Children couldn't learn. They wouldn't listen, they had no concentration and their language was going downhill.

"They weren't coming in with the old nursery rhymes, which was worrying. They are essential for children and help them to learn sounds essential for being able to read and write.

"Added to this a whole host of learning problems, from dyslexia to autism, were increasing at an alarming rate."

Sue's research into literacy decline and its causes began to broaden out and she realised there was a need to consider a lot of factors from modern-day living to see how they affected our children. She says: "I was horrified as I researched further and further into the number of different things that were impacting on children. I knew it was bad, but not how bad."

Sue interviewed dozens of experts, teachers and parents to build up a picture of modern childhood and what was affecting it - why a generation was being raised with reduced mental and physical health, no concentration and poor communication skills.

"Children are born with all of their brain cells in place, but it is the neuro-pathways stimulated as they learn through experience which make them into what they are today," she says.

"For many children now a lot of these pathways simply aren't being created or they are of the wrong sort.

"Children need first-hand real interaction with adults who love them. It is essential for their mental and emotional development.

"Studies prove TV is of no use as a language tool in very young children. Baby-talk is essential for children to learn not only language, but how to relate to their place in the world. The experiences today's children have changed very, very dramatically from those of 20 years ago." Sue points to play as an example.

She says: "Recent research shows two-year-olds are as sedentary as office workers. They are developing an electronic screen-based lifestyle, because parents at home are distracted by the electronic medium.

"Play habits have changed over a single generation. Children need play to develop social interaction skills and self-sufficiency, in addition to physical skills.

"Without experiences of play, enough sleep, quality family time, good nutrition and addressing problems thrown up by the dominance of electronic media, we are creating a toxic childhood situation."

The impact on future society, as well as individuals, looks bleak. Sue says: "Without getting the right sort of experiences, children are going to grow up less bright and less able to behave in a social manner.

"I've been shocked to hear primary school teachers speaking of violence in the classroom. Violence will become more dominant if children don't learn to inhibit anti-social behaviour.

"The older people get the more difficult it gets to break these patterns that have developed."

Sue hopes her book will be a wake-up call to those involved in raising children.

"A lot of the issues in the book when they are brought up are obvious really," she says. "The question is, `What are we all playing at?' We should be addressing all of these issues now.

"It is not just one thing affecting our children. They are all universally related and there are a number of small but significant changes that need to take place to get children's brains developing as they should be.

"For a healthy society people have to stop thinking only about their own children. Your child doesn't act alone. Unless we start to change things for our children we are all going to be in trouble and living in a much more troubled society."

* Toxic Childhood by Sue Palmer is published by Orion Books at £12.99.