Tag: parenting

What not to tell a child: “Clear your plate or there’s no dessert!”

How not to eat your spaghettiTonight’s meal will be steak with all the trimmings and I can’t wait. Nothing – bar a heard of wildebeest running through the dining room – will stop me from finishing it. For I know it will be delicious and that the meat was expensive. My mother has taught me well: ‘waste not, want not.’

Many of us believe it is important to eat everything on our plate. I have yet to find anyone who wasn’t told by their parents at some point to “Clear your plate – and think of all the starving children in ______” It’s the kind of parenting instruction that seems common-sense but it not taught everywhere; in several East Asian cultures, for example, it is far more courteous to leave some leftovers at the end of a meal. Our peculiar attitudes to plate-clearing are almost certainly a throwback to wartime health campaigns. In years of hardship through both World Wars, government posters would read “Leave a clean dinner plate: thousands are starving in Europe”. Oh, how times change: In 2015, one in four adults in the UK are obese (in the USA, it is one in three). Frighteningly, childhood obesity is also on the rise and today a third of all UK 10-11 year olds are overweight or obese.

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‘Breastfeeding is best’ unless you’ve been drinking alcohol

Mano! by Aurimas Mikalauskas, on FlickrBeing a medically trained doctor, I have learnt to always be on my guard. Not only for those inflight medical emergencies (of which I have experienced) and people collapsing in the street, but for the less urgent “will you have a look at my rash?” questions posed by neighbours. Even at parties I must be ready to give impromptu answers to medical questions.

And so it was at one jovial celebration that a good friend, glass of red wine in hand, asked me: “When I drink alcohol, does it get stored in my breast milk?” (She had recently given birth.) It was a time of celebration and she had finally managed to get her baby tucked up in his cot. It was certainly not the time for me to be a party-pooper. Sometimes, however, people say they wish they had never asked… Read more

When is it right to Smack a Child?

This post was chosen as an Editor's Selection for ResearchBlogging.org“Spare the rod and spoil the child”

A punishment cane from 1973Last week I received an odd request from a local radio station. They phoned to ask if I would take part in an on-air discussion about parenting issues – I was more than a little bemused. Having no experience of parenting (babysitting doesn’t count) – I felt ill qualified. But I simply couldn’t resist the temptation to indulge in a fiery radio debate: In the league table of dinner party topics to avoid, the rights and wrongs of parenting ranks at the top. (possibly only just pipped to the post by a discussion of body odour problems).

The latest progeny-raising hot-potato to leap out of the pram is that of spanking: should smacking, hitting and spanking our precious bambinos be outlawed? Advocates and apologists are so irreconcilable – it would seem to be easier to get Richard Dawkins to convert to Catholicism than to get parents to agree.

The Welsh Assembly have just decided to ban smacking and spanking. So – why not take the opportunity to enter the debate – blog style? Does smacking harm a child?, Does it help discipline?, Is it a parent’s right to spank? Dipping into the wealth of research data, the two opposing views thrash it out… (in a non-physical way, of course).

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