There were press reports today about cumulative long-term research which shows that vast numbers of fathers lose touch with their children after a divorce or similar. More men fail to keep in touch if they go on to have a second family than if they just move to live...

Laney is the older of two children. She is pretty, and popular at school some years. Last year she was not popular and her mother worried about her a lot. Laney used to come home from school crying – of course her mother worried. School said that there was not a...

Smacking is a hot topic – always has been. Actually, that’s not true. Fifty years ago, it was understood that parents smacked their children. Pretty nearly all parents did, was the impression. So what!!! Then, at least in the UK, there was a change. Lots and lots of...

My daughter’s baby is almost 12 weeks old. He is very sweet.  We have just been swimming with two other babies who are three weeks younger and eight weeks older. The three babies were quite different in the pool. All had been to a swimming pool before. The littlest...

Adey came to see me because he had no friends. And yet he is a delightful boy. He is 9, smiles a lot, and is good company. He seems bright. He is an only child and his parents were worried that he was never invited to other peoples’ houses and people never came to his...

Adam was scared of injections. He came to see me because he needed an injection so that he could go to a family wedding in Cuba. Actually, he didn’t care so much about going but his parents were not happy about leaving this twelve year old behind. The family had...

Sometimes I wonder whether someone ‘Up there’ is organising things. After seeing a very small child last week, in two days I have seen three boys who are tall – look older than their age. Two are 11 and one is almost 12 and has gone to Secondary School. For all of...

A teacher was asking me how to persuade some parents that their child has a problem? This is not a rare occurrence. Understandably, parents want to feel that their child is perfect – or, if not perfect, has only a bit of a difficulty. And, from the teacher or...