Why do parents and children feel so anxious these days?
Parents are keeping their children indoors for fear of predators lurking around every corner and children are spending their days in front of screens or in supervised activities, over-controlled and growing steadily fatter and more unhappy. But it doesn’t have to be like this. Commercial interests ensure that parents feel anxious and filled with fear simply to sell them more stuff, when in fact childhood has never been safer; the rates of child mortality, injury and sexual abuse are lower today than at any time since records began.
Lenore Skenazy (Author and founder of the 'Free Range Kids' movement) : 'Another great addition to the Free Range Kids’ movement. Funny and outraged! …Can it be that our kids are really in constant danger from everything they do, see, eat, wear, touch, hear and encounter? ... Is this what parenthood has to be? False alarms and constant terror? Well, maybe, but that doesn't mean we can't fight for our sanity and the sanity of our kids. This book, thank goodness, shows us how.’
ABOUT COTTON WOOL KIDS
'Cotton Wool Kids' reveals the media-fuelled madness of paranoid parenting and describes how a more relaxed attitude to raising children can lead to happier, healthier families.
This highly acclaimed book exposes the truth behind the scary stories and gives parents the information and the confidence to free themselves from the treadmill of after-school activities and over-supervision that has become common today.
In this book parents are provided with strategies to learn how to handle the relentless pressure from society and the media to provide a 'perfect' childhood, and instead to raise their children with a more relaxed and joyful approach, more in touch with the outdoors and the community around them.
comments from the media
For us paid-up members of the over-parenting generation Stella O'Malley's common sense is a huge relief' -Brendan O'Connor
'Groundbreaking' - Pat Kenny ‘
Magnificent book … terrific.’... 'Filled…with knowledge and common sense' John Masterson - Sunday Independent
'A book I really enjoyed. A great handbook' George Hook (The Right Hook - Newstalk)
‘There is no other way to start this book review than to say that for parents, carers, concerned relatives, childcare workers, teachers, ministers for children, education or health, this is the must-read of 2015’ - INMO'
Some really interesting points in there' Tara Loughrey Grant (The Tubridy Show - RTE 2fm)
'A really good read for anyone out there, even new parents.' Maura Derrane (RTE Today Show)