The Today programme graced us with a report revealing that UK children are amongst the unhappiest in the world and 5Live followed up on that.
0850 A major international study ranks England 13th out of 16 countries when it comes to children’s life satisfaction. Jonathan Bradshaw is a professor of social policy at the University of York who co-edited the report.
I know that the BBC is trying to cut back on spending but does it have to recycyle old news?
From August 2015…the exact same old report …
Children in England ‘among unhappiest in world’
Children in England are among the unhappiest in the world, behind countries such as Ethiopia, Algeria and Romania, research suggests.
The Children’s Society report, which looked at 15 diverse countries, ranked England 14th for life satisfaction of its young people, ahead of South Korea.
If I looked closely would I find that this story is linked to some other that is designed as an attack on some government policy? Is this the BBC using its services to pressurise the government…or is this just a cock up?
In Britain, if Children are dumped in a Nursery because the feminists idea of equality is that Child rearing is the lowest status job for Women, then I am not surprised. Cameron wants more free Nursery care, so Woman can do something more important than look after a child, such as train to become an Engineer, but I heard that the ladies do not like to get their hands dirty, but only like to read the theory of Engineering, which entails reading books written by Engineers who got their hands dirty, and only wrote the material after retiring. The feminist attraction to Engineering seems to be about giving equal status to women, rather than women being attracted to the practical side of Engineering. And Britain is suffering from this Politically correct Feminist Educational lunacy.
“I know that the BBC is trying to cut back on spending but does it have to recycyle old news?
From August 2015…the exact same old report …”
It’s not the “same old report” Alan.
The one in August was from the “Church of England Children’s Society”. The one yesterday was from the “Jacobs Foundation”.
They are two separate reports, by two different organisations, which both just happened to come to the same conclusion.
“Is this the BBC using its services to pressurise the government…or is this just a cock up?”
No, it’s just you being a dick.
Alan replies……
Zero..you’re well named….zero between the ears.
Perhaps you should actually read things before jumping to conclusions in your hurry to show us your genius…two reports by the same people with the same conclusion….there’s no ‘coincidence’ that they just happened to come up with the same conclusion….both written by Gwyther Rees and Jonathan Bradshaw with others.
Both reports are actually from the Jacob’s Foundation, as their site shows, it is a joint research project with other charities:
• The good childhood report 2015 (English)
Authors: Larissa Pople, Phil Raws, Gwyther Rees, Gill Main and Jonathan Bradshaw
Children’s Society and University of York. 2015
This fourth report in the series of annual reports published by the Children’s Society about how children in the UK feel about their lives. The current report shows children’s in England ranked low with regards to bullying, their experience of school and their self image, compared to children in 14 other countries.
In other words it’s exactly the same data as they dish out in 2016 repackaged under another charity brand name in an attempt to win as much publicity as possible which the BBC is happy to provide.
Zero, I read your comment before looking at your name. But the last sentence told me it was you.
Something about your style.
Have a nice day.
Classic lefty modus operandi.
“just happened to come to the same conclusion” did they?
Maybe you could tell us how they measure “happiness” then.
Did they factor in
a) compulsory attendance at a crap school?
b) cBBC and the pernicious crap available to kids on computers-and the BBCs role in this
c) Effects of Ritalin and other drugs forced down our kids throats-largely white boys, by the way
d) family breakdown, no dads and divorce factors
e) school subjects that teach nothing but how to manage conflict in a way that the Left and Islam will always be happy with
f) self-loathing of your own culture…English in particular , but there`ll be others-but never liberalism, world order governance…and the needs of Islam and the EU of course.
How did THESE factrors play in the survey?…did they check on Christianity being a factor in being happy…or was it only Islam again, seeing as they know where the balsa knives are, and aren`t afraid to run with scissors, unlike the nannied, harried working class.
And no abuse either zero…if reports are made on the same thing, and there`s no evidence apart from Seldon or Diane Louise Jordans day trip tom Goldsmiths Polytunnel?…why then do they continue to repeat it?
It`s not as if antidepressants and skunk aren`t linked is it?….or don`t they check for that, for fear or upsetting Russell Brand or Richard Branson then?
Facts are sacred zero-give us a few and cut the abuse…wrong site for that, you`ll need CiF if you need to vent.
‘They are two separate reports, by two different organisations, which both just happened to come to the same conclusion.’
Oppps nero burned again !
‘Professor Jonathan Bradshaw from the Department of Social Policy and Social Work at York, whose research is supported by The Jacobs Foundation’
For years we have been on a long road of responsibility for raising children transferring from the family to the state. Aldous Huxley had it covered in ‘Brave New World’ in 1930 ish and he wasn’t far wrong.
Whether its safeguarding, very early years child care provision, the whole range of interventions to ‘save’ children from their errant families, or ‘elf ‘n’ safety’ in playgrounds and elsewhere, the state must intervene. In retrospect, I’m amazed I survived until my 20s.
Meanwhile, children apparently have little life satisfaction. Could there be a link?
I am a school governor at a school in a very deprived area. The Head thinks the breakfast club is good for the pupils because they are in school in time for lessons and they have a healthy breakfast to start the day. I have my reservations as I see it as one less responsibility for the parents.
You`re right Deborah.
He`s wrong-and it will be back to bite him soon enough.
Anything that Nick Clegg would have either supported or originated since 2010 is BOUND to end in hellish consequences…
I`d have thought that parents who have the munchies at the school gate might be able to benefit from the free Frosties…and possibly a free hand wash of their jim jams too…maybe a few ideas for Mr Chippy next time he shuffles by, checking hemlines as the system burns around him…but he`ll think it`s only adding value to the toasts carbon content, so OFSTED won`t care for THAT performance indicator.
(Eccles 1.15)
Nick who?
Yesterday’s fish and chips.
Feed a child breakfast and you will have to feed him for life.
Teach a child to make his own breakfast and he will feed himself.
JimS, well said . Lefties need people to be dependent on Government to get their votes so they discourage self-sufficiency in children. It is a kind of child abuse
I once attended a lecture on Bhutan, which wants to replace Gross National Product with Gross National Happiness as the indicator of success. When you delve a little deeper into the philosophy you learn that Bhutan keeps it’s citizenship ‘happy’ by severely limiting their options and even the knowledge that such options exist. It sounded more than a little fascist to me, even if packaged as ethnic and therefore OK.
When I read about the survey I couldn’t but think that at best it is comparing apples and pears. The unhappiness of the British child who doesn’t like his Math teacher is nothing compared to the Syrian who found a can of tinned peaches that was missed in the bombardment of the local grocery shop, opens it and discovers they have spoilt..
Whereas truth is not dependent on context, regardless of what some believe, opinion is inseparable from the context in which it is embedded.
The unhappiness of children is undoubtedly a matter of opinion – either their own, or that of their carers, parents, teachers (or perhaps their peers, if we are being particularly clever). So it is intrinsically problematic to compare the happiness of children who live and grow up in such radically different societies as the UK, Ethiopia, Algeria, or Romania. Just what is it they are happy, or unhappy, about? Their possession of tangible objects of wealth? Their position in a competitive (or anti-competitive) school environment? Their standard of loving care by their parent(s)? Or any set of factors about which they are (all? some?) contented or discontented?
Cultures differ – they are comparable in some respects, but not in all. The distinction between poverty and deprivation is just one of those measures which is beset by incommensurability. Perhaps these studies have overcome such barriers, but if they have, then that is at least as important and interesting in itself as any simple metric outcome..
Imagine how miserable they`d be if they had to listen to Radio 4 all day…
The BBC should have to pay back some of its money to pay for suicide compo, for driving people to the edge with their crap.
Lots of mentally fragile people out there-how come the BBC alone is able to spook them with lies and false pretences that Tories or climate change cause their problems…and if we took more Muslims and legalised their drugs…why, then they`d be happier.
And don`t start me on Winifred Robinson and her perpetual whine testing….no wonder the old are on the sherry and can`t cope with the grandkids if they listen to her carping over greyhound rights not being protected etal.
For an awful long time we have been subjected to scare stories about how pollution, noise, fat, sugar, salt, alcohol, smoke, sunlight, cold, heat etc. will shorten our lives by some percentage of very little.
By the same token the continual stream of depressing stories from our so-called national broadcaster must have some negative effect on our life expectancy?
Comedians like Ken Dodd exercised our chuckle muscles and made us feel good; so-called comedians like Jeremy Hardy and Susan Calman, (did you hear about her wife?) are dystrophic.
Greyhounds are actually treated particularly badly.
I live in Gambia, one of the poorest countries in the world, but the children seem to be much happier than UK children. I wonder why that is ?
PS Maybe some Lefty can give me a smartarse explanation for that !
Easy. It’s because in the Gambia the children are not fed a daily diet of entitlements/how badly off they are/ what their rights are/ how the state is going to look after them/ how disadvantaged they are/what’s wrong with (insert chosen public service here)/nothing is their fault/they can do anything and get away with it.
Mind you, I draw the line at being called a Lefty.
The disintegration of schools into ethnic cliques is I believe a factor (though not the only one) making children unhappy. If they fall out with their friends, instead of there being numerous alternative sets to join the other sets are Polish, Muslim, black.
Yes there are ethnically ‘mixed’ groups too, but it does reduce the options.
Aerfen, I think you are right here.
The exposure of children in school to multiculturalism is a kind of ‘premature sectarianisation’. Just as the compulsory exposure to, and engagement with, the bizarre extremes of human sexuality (a strange Martian take on what Freud referred to as ‘polymorphous perversity’, a juvenile trait linked to a specific phase of development and normally outgrown without trace), amounts to ‘premature sexualisation’.
And the organisations that should be protecting children from these forms of what amounts to institutionalised child abuse, are actively colluding with it – no wonder our children are beset by unhappiness.