A rare collection of 300-year-old petitions gives voice to the forgotten women who cared for England’s most vulnerable children while battling their local authorities.
Hunter-gatherers can help us understand the conditions that children may be psychologically adapted to because we lived as hunter-gatherers for 95% of our evolutionary history. Paying greater attention to hunter-gatherer childhoods may help economically developed countries improve education and wellbeing.
Family courts are misunderstanding and misusing research around how children form close relationships with their caregivers, say an international group of experts.
Expectant parents’ emotional struggles predict emotional and behavioural problems in 2-year-olds, new research shows. The same study reveals, for the first time, that couple conflict helps explain emotional problems in very young children.
Wanting your child to have the best chance in life is natural for any parent. But by focusing too much on the ‘skill’ of parenting, are we losing sight of things that matter more – how we talk to and play with children? Cambridge researchers are examining how parents can best help their children in their early years through nurturing rather than shaping.
Welcome to our new ‘Spotlight on children’, a focus on research taking place at the University of Cambridge relating to children and childhood – from health to education, language to literacy, parents to playtime, risk to resilience.
New research shows beetles that received no care as larvae were less effective at raising a large brood as parents. Males paired with ‘low quality’ females - those that received no care as larvae - paid the price by dying younger, researchers found.
Families come in many guises. Some parents are same-sex; others are single by choice. Growing numbers of children are conceived through assistive reproductive technology. What do these developments mean for the parents and children involved? Professor Susan Golombok’s book, Modern Families, examines ‘new family forms’ within a context of four decades of empirical research.
Research into adoptive families headed by same-sex couples paints a positive picture of relationships and wellbeing in these new families. The study, which was carried out by Cambridge University, suggests that adoptive families with gay fathers might be faring particularly well.
Siblings, and even sibling rivalry, can have a positive effect on children’s early development and their ability to form social relationships later in life, according to a new study.
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