Zac Goldsmith, one of David Cameron’s key policy advisers, yesterday backed the Hold on to Childhood coverage in The Daily Telegraph and said he was worried at the ease with which doctors prescribed pills to tackle children’s emotional upsets…

On Monday his magazine will publish a detailed report into the crisis of British childhood, echoing many of the themes of Hold on to Childhood, which was itself sparked by a letter from 110 children’s experts, authors and doctors.

The Ecologist article, written by Rachel Ragg, a former Leeds University lecturer and mother of two, points out that almost 400,000 children were last year prescribed Ritalin, a drug almost unknown in Britain in the early 1990s…

“They have provided financial incentives to parents to go back to work, and pressurised them to send children to nurseries by implying that their children will be economically, academically and culturally disadvantaged if they aren’t in a nursery by the age of two. In fact, all evidence suggests this is the reverse of the truth.

Source: Telegraph.co.uk
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