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A 15-year-old youth is facing a life sentence after being found guilty of stabbing a student to death in a row over conkers. The youth was found guilty at the Old Bailey of murdering architecture student Steven Grisales, 21. Mr Grisales died after he went over to remonstrate with three boys throwing conkers still in [...]

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Yesterday, I watched the film of Lionel Shriver’s novel We Need to Talk About Kevin with my teenage son. The story of how a mother’s dysfunctional relationship with her son results in a high-school mass murder shocked him into thinking, for the first time, how difficult parenting (as opposed to being parented) can be. “He’s [...]

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A teenage boy is accused of heading a group of hackers who targeted Tony Blair, MI5 and the BNP. TeamPoison claimed responsibility for hacking Scotland Yard’s anti-terrorist hotline and posted recordings on YouTube. The 17-year-old was arrested on Friday and police seized all of his computer equipment. He was released on bail over the weekend. [...]

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David Cameron is planning to stem the tide of child yobbery blighting Britain – by giving families £100 vouchers for parenting classes. Mothers and fathers will be able to collect the free vouchers at some branches of Boots from tomorrow, entitling them to up to ten two-hour sessions on how to bring up their children. [...]

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Pupils at Nick Clegg’s old school sang Hey Jude during prayers and staged a water fight in a Facebook-organised end-of-term rebellion. Students at the £23,000-a-year Westminster School refused to sing Deus Misereatur during Latin prayers and instead gave a rousing rendition of the Beatles classic. Up to 80 were said to have staged the water [...]

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A pair of teenage twin girls have been banned from a market town for repeatedly causing mayhem over a three-year period. The 18-year-old pair are not allowed to enter West Malling’s historic centre after being handed a two-year Asbo by magistrates. Sevenoaks Magistrates court heard that Chelsea Shannon Scott and her twin sister Leonie Vicky [...]

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Sir Michael Wilshaw, chief inspector of the education watchdog, said disruption during lesson times was often down to the use of mobiles and that the issue had to be stamped out.   In an interview yesterday, the former headmaster revealed a tough new inspection regime would be introduced in schools from next term. Under the [...]

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Pupils face a ban on mobile phones in school as part of a new Ofsted crackdown on classroom discipline. Schools will be penalised for failing to tackle persistent low-level disruption in lessons under a tough new inspection regime being introduced next term. This could force teachers to forbid mobile phone use by pupils – including [...]

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A council is having to re-house six families after after a blunder meant their personal details were passed on to a gang about which they had complained. The families were left fearing for their lives after the embarrassing administrative error led to all data on them being sent to each of the gang members. Staff [...]

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Teresa Atkins first noticed something out-of-the-ordinary when she began taking her son to a “mums and tots” group near her home in Northamptonshire. While other children were happy to stay in the main hall and play as their parents chatted, Jacob preferred to escape the hubbub and sit in a quieter side room where the [...]

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Children from a riot-hit area will be put into US-style summer classes to stop them forgetting what they learned at school the previous term. Disadvantaged youngsters from Edmonton will be enrolled into special lessons to give them a boost before starting at secondary school. The move follows research suggesting that poorer children go backwards academically [...]

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A prosecutor told a court that the sight of a 12-year-old boy in the dock for his second knife offence in two months was ‘enough to make you want to cry’. The youngster, dressed in a suit, shirt and tie, was appearing before Gloucester youth court where he admitted possessing a knife in a public place. [...]

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Jamie was ten years old when he saw his first pornographic sex scene. During a sleepover, a classmate offered to show him ‘some funny pictures’ on his laptop. ‘At first I found it a bit scary and a bit yucky,’ Jamie told me as he shifted uncomfortably on his chair during our therapy session. ‘I didn’t [...]

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The prospect of a drug to treat autism has been raised after symptoms of the condition were reduced in experiments on mice that were performed by the US National Institutes of Health. There is no cure for the condition. The results published in Science Translational Medicine showed increased social skills and less repetitive behaviour in animals [...]

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The family of a 17-year-old who died of anorexia are calling for changes to the way sufferers are treated by the NHS. Charlotte Seddon had eating problems since she was 13 but died at home near Burnley five months ago from heart failure. Charlotte’s family say the system doesn’t work and departments “don’t talk to each [...]

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A teenage gang who hacked a boy of 15 to death in front of horrified commuters received sentences totalling more than 100 years yesterday. Sofyen Belamouadden was punched, kicked and stabbed in a murder planned on Facebook following a feud between his school and a sixth-form college. A pack of up to 20 students aged [...]

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A woman who gave her daughter a boob job voucher for her sixth birthday is to start holding children’s parties in a Botox clinic. Sarah Burge, who is known as the ‘human Barbie’, will organise pageant parties for young girls in the salon where the injections and breast enhancement procedures are performed. The 51-year-old plastic [...]

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Emma Moore first became aware of the craze for children’s makeup when her daughter, then four, was given a compact in a party bag. When they got home Moore threw it in the bin. Now she and her twin sister Abi, with whom she runs the group Pinkstinks opposing the gender stereotyping of children, have [...]

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Twin brothers from England face US civil charges for allegedly defrauding investors out of $1.2m (£745,000) through a bogus stock-picking robot. Alexander and Thomas Hunter, of Whitley Bay, North Tyneside, were aged 16 when, in 2007, they devised the scheme of the robot, dubbed Marl, say US officials. The Securities and Exchange Commission said the [...]

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Children, stop throwing bread rolls, fold your napkins and prepare for the shock of your cosseted little lives. Parents, put down that second carafe of house red (yes, you can have it back later), and hark: can you detect something terrifying yet exhilarating in the air?   As of today, chef will be unveiling a [...]

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The moment Cherry Willoughby saw a photograph of the two angelic-looking girls she was about to adopt is forever etched on her memory. ‘My hands were trembling as I opened the brown envelope,’ she recalls, ‘but when I saw their little faces, my heart leapt.’ A week later Cherry, a portrait artist, and her husband [...]

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David Cameron is a kind man, I think too kind for politics, perhaps. He was in the papers this week because he wants the nation’s education system to toughen up. He wants “real discipline, rigorous standards, hard subjects”. As opposed to “half-arsed discipline, sloppy standards and babyishly easy subjects”, his wish-list sounds pretty sensible to [...]

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Children can be comically fierce in their ideas of which toys are or aren’t appropriate: “It’s for babies!” or “It’s for girls!” they will insist. But when, on a recent visit to a toy shop, Emma Moore’s daughter announced that farm animals were for boys, Emma was disappointed. “All the signage was blue and there was a [...]

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Health visitors and nursery teachers should intervene earlier when families are struggling with young children, the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence has said in draft guidance. Plans should be drawn up to ensure children under five are ready for school by helping them learn to socialise with other children, take instructions from a teacher [...]

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If you’ve been growling and hissing at news of the Renaissance tot who’s already signed up to Mensa aged four, then retract those Tiger Mother claws, sister – French needlepoint and advanced calculus are, officially, passé.   Today, the only quotient that counts is how your child scores on the National Trust’s new Bucket List [...]

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Traditional games of tag, dressing up or making a den have been supplanted by expensive toys and gadgets because of fears over health and safety and a belief that playing should always have a “goal”, the research shows. At the same time parents admit they have lost the art of making up stories for their [...]

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Pupils should be routinely reported to the police after making unfounded claims simply to get their own back on teachers, it was claimed. The NASUWT union said lying schoolchildren “must understand there is a consequence” to making allegations that are “unjust and malicious”. The comments came as new figures showed the vast majority of claims [...]

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Growing up in the Sixties, I was a free-range child — we all were. From the age of eight or nine, at weekends and during school holidays, my mum would pack me off to  explore the outside world. As I went out the door, she gave me one simple instruction: ‘Be back home for tea.’ [...]

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You were born on Christmas Day 2002, wrenched from the warmth of my womb, into this harsh, cold, judgmental world. You were placed on my empty belly covered in blood, your little chest heaved as your cry pierced the air. Your miniature body looked so perfect, your tiny hands and fingers looked like they belonged [...]

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Growing numbers of children are being allowed to get away with serious cases of misbehaviour, verbal abuse and bullying simply because of their academic record, it emerged. In other cases, it was claimed that the “matey” relationship between senior management and unruly pupils got in the way of the imposition of proper discipline rules. The comments [...]

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Assaults, accidents, injuries and discrimination in the workplace have seen teachers collectively secure millions of pounds in compensation claims, according to figures released by three teaching unions to coincide with annual conferences over the Easter holidays. The NASUWT, one of the country’s largest teaching unions, secured £12.6m for its members for claims overall – representing [...]

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The mother of a teenage girl who posts shocking videos of herself posing as a ‘living doll’ has defended her daughter’s lifestyle. Margaret Palermo claims 15-year-old Venus is an ‘innocent and good girl who likes frills and ribbons’. Venus, known online as Venus Angelic, became an internet sensation after her online tutorials, in which she [...]

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Some middle class parents are turning their children into “little Buddhas” by “waiting on them hand and foot” at home, a teachers’ leader has said. Association of Teachers and Lecturers general secretary Dr Mary Bousted warned spoilt children had “disproportionate” consequences for behaviour in schools. Parents needed to be confident in saying no to their [...]

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One in ten children who are severely autistic at the age of three outgrow many of the disorder’s symptoms by the time they are eight, according to a new study. The report published today in American journal Pediatrics showed one reason could be the child’s socio-economic background, with ‘bloomers’ tending to come from better-off families. Study [...]

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Your background is in music and presenting – how did you get onto a technology show? I’ve always been a technology fan. I thought my Game Boy was the most amazing thing ever as a kid. At 16 I got a mobile – a real brick – and I was obsessed. Since then I’ve loved [...]

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Pupils are being allowed to run wild with a “total disregard of school rules” because of a lack of proper discipline in the home, it was claimed. The Association of Teachers and Lecturers warned that a quarter of members had been physically attacked at school in the last 12 months, with staff being pushed, scratched, punched, [...]

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UK children are losing contact with nature at a “dramatic” rate, and their health and education are suffering, a National Trust report says. Traffic, the lure of video screens and parental anxieties are conspiring to keep children indoors, it says. Evidence suggests the problem is worse in the UK than other parts of Europe, and [...]

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An airplane was grounded mid-flight on Tuesday after two young children refused to fasten their seatbelts. The Alaska Airlines flight was scheduled to travel between Long Beach, California, and Vancouver, Canada. But it was forced to land in Portland, Oregon, when the children, aged three and eight, refused to stay in their seats. The children [...]

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Major internet firms were yesterday accused of being ‘complicit’ in exposing children to hardcore pornography and violence online by continuing to refuse to give parents the choice of blocking material that no child should see, but that is too easily available on every device now in the home. Their defiance comes despite an independent inquiry into [...]

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The veteran Italian cook said children should be served the same food as adults when at home or eating out. “I hate the idea that because you’re a child you should have a portion of fishfingers. Food specially prepared for children? No. Children have to grow up eating everything. They might not appreciate everything but they [...]

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Children should be taught to stand up when their parents or teacher walks into the room, David Cameron said yesterday. In a speech on handing more power to schools, the Prime Minister called for a return to ‘real discipline’. He said: ‘Give headteachers and their staff the freedom to teach and run their schools; give parents [...]

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A coroner warned yesterday that the “gross failure” of mental health services to help an autistic boy, who was bullied and committed suicide, could be a national problem affecting others with similar behavioural needs. Bradford coroner Paul Marks said the death of Gareth Oates, from Stowmarket, Suffolk, could probably have been averted if it had not [...]

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A coroner warned yesterday that the “gross failure” of mental health services to help an autistic boy, who was bullied and committed suicide, could be a national problem affecting others with similar behavioural needs. Bradford coroner Paul Marks said the death of Gareth Oates, from Stowmarket, Suffolk, could probably have been averted if it had not [...]

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A teenage girl who has twice been on the brink of death has overcome her troubled past to become one of Britain’s Olympic hopes. Monique Newton, 19, battled brain cancer when she was a child, then went on to survive an attempted overdose at the age of 15. Now the London-born athlete has triumphed over [...]

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The Prime Minister made the remarks in a speech praising the return of “real discipline” to British schools. He said reforms to the education system would lead to “fantastic outcomes” like children who observe the old-fashioned practice of rising in the presence of an adult. Mr Cameron also applauded schools where children are allowed to [...]

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Major internet companies were yesterday accused of being ‘complicit’ in exposing children to extreme violence and hardcore pornography online. Broadband providers reiterated their refusal to give parents the choice of blocking pornography coming into the home on every household device. Their defiance comes despite an independent inquiry into online protection by MPs warning that a [...]

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A generation of girls is now being sexually corrupted by the web Insecure and desperate for male attention, Becky was just 15 when she began meeting strangers for sex via the internet. Sadly, her story is becoming all too common… Low self-esteem: When she was a teenager, Becky became addicted to having sex with strangers [...]

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Are the children of working mums braver than the offspring of stay-at-home mums? This question vexed a group of my friends as we sat in the twilight of a chilly Cornish evening on the last day of the Easter holiday. We were watching our youngsters play in the garden. Mine were racing around in pyjamas [...]

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Before I had children, people were always very keen to give advice. But one situation they never prepared me for was for the time when Darrell, my then four-year-old son, insisted on being lifted up on to an imaginary horse named William Wallace. We were taking a stroll through our village at the time, with [...]

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The fires were still smouldering and the rubble had barely been swept away, but that didn’t stop the victims of last summer’s riots being called upon to forgive the thugs who had not only shattered their shop windows, but destroyed their faith in humanity. The Rev Sally Hitchiner went a step further. She asked her [...]

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