Book Review – Bringing Up Brits by Meghan Peterson Fenn

The global world that we now live in has presented us with a whole selection of possibilities that were once the preserve of the minority. With the increase in global communication and reach the chances are that you know, or are someone who is living in another country with your spouse. The prevalence of ex-pat parents is common enough for most of us not to think about it as a significant occurrence.

However, bringing up children in a country not of your own can be the burden that breaks a family. Imagine being a mother in a foreign country, without the language, but with children to support, teach and nurture. This can be a challenge over and above the normal trials of life.

Book Review – The Art of Roughhousing by Anthony DeBenedict & Lawrence J Cohen

Do you remember your own childhood? Mine wasn’t like Swallows and Amazons – adventures including sailing, exploring and general crime fighting. Mine was full of cycling round the our small estate on my bike, falling off and generally getting to know my own limitations and realising that there were consequences for getting it wrong.

Nowadays, understandable fear has replaced that childhood with one that appears to have more cotton wool attached. Every bump and scrape is a major event and children are permanently joined to the family home either by sight or a mobile phone. We feel a little safer in our version of the modern world, but is that world the right one to bring children up in?