Toxic Childhood

As a result of concern among the teachers she's met around the UK and Europe, Sue has spent the last three years researching into the influence of contemporary culture on children's development – particularly their capacity to learn. This has led to a book, Toxic Childhood (Orion Publishers 2006) and numerous presentations at conferences, including the 2006 Education Show and the Edinburgh International Book Festival.

Over the last twenty-five years, huge technological and cultural changes have transformed the lifestyle of people in the developed world – largely for the better. But it's all happened so fast we haven't noticed that changes which benefit adults aren't always so good for children. A toxic cocktail of the side-effects of cultural change is now damaging the social, emotional and cognitive development of a growing number of children, with knock-on effects on their behaviour.

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Toxic Childhood

• summarises research findings on how cultural influences have affected child-rearing practices in each of these ten areas
• discusses the implications of these findings for child development
• provides starting points for detoxing childhood in each area
• provides starting points for detoxing childhood in each area