On Facebook, we’re free to set our relationship status to ‘it’s complicated’ if cookie-cutter boxes of being single or partnered don’t seem to fit. It turns out that ‘it’s complicated’ also sums up the relationship triangle between many parents, their children and digital...
parenting
Dads get sad, too
Viren Swami withdrew from his newborn son. Here, he considers the lack of research and support around postnatal depression in fathers
...
As a researcher I have worked on a number of trials evaluating the effectiveness of parenting programmes (PPs) when delivered to the most vulnerable parents in the community. Every trial typically has its own challenges, not least the very basics of...
We imagine our children before they are born, yet nothing fully prepares us for the realities of parenthood. Any parent takes time to adapt, and the path may be filled with greater obstacles if our child is disabled. When my son was born I thought that being a psychologist...
Much questionable cleaning up goes on during the latest psychologically punishing piece from Vincent Dance Theatre, which focuses this time on young people and the care system. At various points, the dancers bring on brooms, and sweep away at the piles of paperwork that keep...
I would like to add a voice to the discussion around paternal mental health, which we read about in Viren Swami’s article (May issue) and further in...
Do our genes determine who we are? Does the environment have an independent impact on our development, or are so-called environmental effects actually reflective of the ways particular genes cause us to interact with the environment? Do parents and family ‘matter’ in child...
Autumn 2018, and American psychologist and geneticist Robert Plomin’s new book Blueprint: How DNA Makes Us Who We Are exploded onto the scene, to headlines of '...
Many parents will commiserate over the daily struggle to get their children to sit down and focus on homework. With increasing pressure to participate in extracurricular sports and clubs, and with the widespread availability of video, computer and tablet games – each more...
At times throughout my career, I have found it difficult to empathise with addicts. In my current post working with looked after children, many of whom come from homes ravaged by addiction, it can be hard to understand how someone can put a substance before the needs of their...