The meeting was addressed by Professor Tanya Byron who is a psychologist, writer and media personality, best known for her work as a child therapist on television shows Little Angels and The House of Tiny Tearaways. She also writes in The Times newspaper.
Professor Byron said that the Bailey review was balanced. It had taken notice of earlier reviews and had cranked the agenda up a notch.
As a clinician concerned about the mental health of children, she was concerned at the ever increasing number of children requiring help and the lowering of the age at which this could be identified. She sought recognition for the fact that children were also involved in family systems and educational systems and that these impacted upon them also. The current behaviour of children is evidence of a society which does not care for its children.
She was wary of knee-jerk responses to issues such as debt and poverty. Sometimes too readily people knee jerked back to “the good old days” and did not think about what it is like to be a child today. She had written quite a bit about children who do not have manners There seemed to be basic issues like manners, respect and respect for authority, which the generation present at the meeting understands and which “we need to pass on to children”.
Referring to the behaviour of Members of Parliament during Prime Minister’s Questions, there seemed to be an absence of an awareness by the members that they were also role-models.
Parents did not seem to know how to say “no” to their children any more. She remarked, if you don’t want your child to be a pole dancer, then don’t buy it a pole. The MU had been absolutely right in its Bye Buy Children campaign.
Turning to the use of the internet, she said that children engage with the internet is the way that children engage with the world.
“Today, children are raised in captivity. We do not have free range children any more. Most kids do not leave their bed-room or their back-yard”, she stated. Media exposure of tragedies like Maddy McCann had increased parental anxieties. There are no more paedophiles around than there ever were.
She continued, “We are in a risk adverse society” – no conkers, no snowballs, and no climbing trees. In A & E departments there were increasing numbers of injuries caused because “children do not know how to fall anymore”. Children do their childhood online. Their parents did not grow up in an online world.
“Technology is great”, Professor Brown stated. Kids learn and play online. Children with learning difficulties can learn by playing online. She likened the risk assessment of the internet to the varieties of provision in swimming pools for children of different ages and experience. Like the pools there was a need for a learners area for the internet. Parents needed to insist on passwords. “No one under thirteen years of age should be on social networks”, she advised. “There are more five, six and seven year olds on Facebook than ever before”.
“We need to produce responsible digital citizens… We need to be responsible about our children in the digital culture. Enjoy the benefit of the online world, but recognise the risks. Everyone needs to be responsible digital citizens.”
She concluded by examining the particular stresses placed upon boys by a culture of too much targeting and testing in the education system which had driven down boys’ self-esteem.