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LONDON: Childhood is the golden era in one's life. But, a new study has found that it now effectively ends at the age of 11 with parents increasingly succumbing to "pester pressure" from their kids. Researchers in Britain have found that children are forcing their parents to authorise freedoms that belie their years in contrast with the traditional upbringings experienced by their moms and dads. According to the study, more and more teenagers are being allowed to drink alcohol, stay out late, sleep over at their boyfriend's or girlfriend's house and have sex, The Daily Telegraph reported on Monday. Little...

More than half of parents believe that childhood is now over by the age of 11, according to a survey. The poll shows that children, desperate to keep up with their peers, are forcing parents to authorise freedoms that belie their years, in contrast with the traditional upbringings experienced by their mothers and fathers. Teenagers are increasingly being allowed to drink alcohol, stay out late and sleep over at their boyfriend or girlfriend's house, according to the survey for Random House Children's Books. But many adults feel that parents are wrong to succumb and that youngsters grow up alarmingly quickly,...

On a drizzly Tuesday night in late January, 200 people came out to hear a psychiatrist talk rhapsodically about play — not just the intense, joyous play of children, but play for all people, at all ages, at all times. (All species too; the lecture featured touching photos of a polar bear and a husky engaging playfully at a snowy outpost in northern Canada.) Stuart Brown, president of the National Institute for Play, was speaking at the New York Public Library’s main branch on 42nd Street. He created the institute in 1996, after more than 20 years of psychiatric practice...

Hillary Clinton isn’t the only woman struggling to find an ideal mix of feminism and femininity, one that allows a woman to behave both like and unlike a man without being penalized either way. Mothers of daughters, even if they don’t support the former first lady, feel, if not her pain, at least her conflict. You need only look at the staggering success, in a publishing industry gone soft, of two advice manuals for young women, “The Daring Book for Girls” and “The Girls’ Book: How to Be the Best at Everything.” Those volumes were inspired by “The Dangerous Book...

Boys' learning 'helped by toy guns' 31 December 2007 Boys' learning is aided by playing with toy weapons and should not be discouraged at nursery schools, the government has claimed. In new guidance on the issue of boys' education, the government has claimed that development in boys is improved when they are allowed to play and act out their games. The guidance says that staff should resist the 'natural instinct' to stop boys from playing with weapons, although this has been criticised by a number of groups, which have claimed that toy guns and weapons are a symbol of aggression....

French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau is credited with the famous remark, "La guerre! C'est une chose trop grave pour la confier à des militaries" -- war is too serious a matter to be entrusted to the military. The idea that Clemenceau was trying to project through these words is that experts are often incapable of seeing beyond their profession and understanding the greater domains of necessity. Here in Hawaii, we are facing a transportation infrastructure crisis of the highest degree of peril. I assert to every single man, woman, and child of these Hawaiian Islands that our future is too...

Children at Oakdale School here in southeastern Connecticut returned this fall to learn that their traditional recess had gone the way of the peanut butter sandwich and the Gumby lunchbox. No longer could they let off youthful energy — pent up from hours of long division — by cavorting outside for 22 minutes of unstructured play, or perhaps a vigorous game of tag or dodgeball. Such games had been virtually banned by the principal, Mark S. Johnson, along with kickball, soccer and other “body-banging” activities, as he put it, where knees — and feelings — might get bruised. Instead, children...

We have your son. We will make sure he will no longer be able to care for himself or interact socially as long as he lives. — Autism SO reads one of the six “ransom notes” that make up a provocative public service campaign introduced this week by the New York University Child Study Center to raise awareness of what Dr. Harold S. Koplewicz, the center’s founder and director, called “the silent public health epidemic of children’s mental illness.” Produced pro bono by BBDO, an Omnicom agency that worked on two previous campaigns for the Child Study Center, the campaign...

How much to you know about the lives of the presidential contenders before the election campaign? Take the quiz to gauge your expertise.

...I argue frequently with my students about whether a child can succeed in school without parental support or involvement. Students believe in the power of the strong individual but often the playing field is too slanted, the teams too uneven. As early as preschool and Head Start, certain three-to-five-year-olds are already at a great advantage because of parental educational support while other children are beginning a lifelong struggle to keep pace. ...Children who are not learning basic skills in the home during the most important years of brain development (0-5 years) will enter kindergarten already at an educational disadvantage. Since...

In the New York Times, Gary Cross, a professor of history at Pennsylvania State University, pens a confusing op-ed on the dangers of, not only outsourcing toy manufacturing, but allowing "licensed toys" (Dora, Barbie, etc...) from being introduced to kids. "Young people" just haven't developed the critical judgment necessary to, gulp, deal with "consumerism." Like any good nannyist, Cross uses a scare (the recent Mattel recall, in this case) to kick things off. We quickly jump to commercials. ….In the early 1970s, child advocates like Action for Children's Television recognized that television ads for toys had a magical power over...

Many of you may have seen the following reflection many, many times. I had not. It brought back many pleasant memories of growing up "American." So, for those who have not read it, I share it with a whimsically nostalgic wink and smile: TO ALL THE KID S WHO SURVIVED the 1930's, 40's, 50's, 60's and 70's!! First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they were pregnant. They took aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing, tuna from a can, and didn't get tested for diabetes. Then after that trauma, we were put to sleep on our...

Springs elementary gives tag a timeout By BRIAN NEWSOME THE GAZETTE On the playground of a northern Colorado Springs elementary school, tag is not “it.” The touch-and-run game and any other form of chasing was banned this year at Discovery Canyon Campus’ elementary school by administrators who say it fuels schoolyard disputes. “It causes a lot of conflict on the playground,” said Assistant Principal Cindy Fesgen. In the first days of school, before tag was banned, she said students would complain to her about being chased or harassed. Fesgen said she would hear: “Well, I don’t want to be chased,...

PERHAPS YOU'VE HEARD of the hot new book, "The Dangerous Book for Boys." It has been a mad bestseller in England and is now topping the lists here, too. It was written by two British brothers who wanted to bring back the idea of free and unfettered boyhood, when boys were not tempered with excessive scheduled activities or indoor play. The idea of the book intrigued me, but I was afraid of it. Was this going to be like some junior version of the TV show "Jackass," where boys did stupid things like riding on a skateboard attached to the...

When I was 10, I founded an international organization known as the Black Cat Club. My friend Richard was the only other member. My younger brother, Hal, had "provisional status," which meant that he had to try out for full membership every other week. We told him we would consider his application if he jumped off the garage roof - about 8 feet from the ground. He had a moment of doubt as he looked over the edge, but we said it wouldn't hurt if he shouted the words "Fly like an eagle!" When he jumped, his knees came up...

A new guidebook reaffirms boyhood in all of its politically incorrect glory. The frontispiece in Conn and Hal Iggulden’s The Dangerous Book for Boys says it all—a skull and crossbones boldly heralds adventure, treasure, and unbridled boyish fun. According to its English authors, this is a book for boys who want to be “self-sufficient and find their way in the stars.” It’s a delightful compendium of knowledge, life tips, building projects, games, and hands-on invention. At its heart, the book unabashedly reaffirms and celebrates the traditional moral leather that has guided untold generations of men in their voyage through life. ...

When I had a son of my own six years ago, I looked around for the sort of books that would inspire him. I was able to find some, but none with the spirit and verve of those old titles. I wanted a single compendium of everything I'd ever wanted to know or do as a boy, and I decided to write my own. We began with everything we had done as kids, then added things we didn't want to see forgotten. History today is taught as a feeble thing, with all the adventure taken out of it. We wanted...

How children lost the right to roam in four generations http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=462091 http://tinyurl.com/yt6geg By DAVID DERBYSHIRE Last updated at 01:03am on 15th June 2007 When George Thomas was eight he walked everywhere. It was 1926 and his parents were unable to afford the fare for a tram, let alone the cost of a bike and he regularly walked six miles to his favourite fishing haunt without adult supervision. Fast forward to 2007 and Mr Thomas's eight-year-old great-grandson Edward enjoys none of that freedom. He is driven the few minutes to school, is taken by car to a safe place to ride...

The Final Word: Maybe it's time to let boys be boys — outside http://www.usatoday.com/life/columnist/finalword/2007-05-01-final-word_N.htm http://tinyurl.com/ythtr3 By Craig Wilson, USA TODAY May 1, 2007 E-mail Craig Wilson at cwilson@usatoday.com

Parents' fears are robbing children of their childhood. ___ My three boys sprawl on the couch, fingering their Game Boys. I wish I could shoo them outside until dusk. I wish they could tromp to the marsh to search for polliwogs. I wish we didn't have to live in a fortress. But we don't let our children play in the front yard, because a sex offender lives two doors down. Instead, like other families in this neighborhood, we've built private playgrounds in the back. From my kitchen window, I see two wooden play structures, three trampolines, and four basketball hoops,...