UK Reform

Kingsley (Kip) Miller is an educationalist, as well as a UK campaigner for the civil liberties of fathers and their children. He has an even Toddlers Need Fathers website, a Youtube page, and an even Toddlers Need Fathers book.

Miller was given the unique right by the Court of Appeal in the UK to publish the County Court judgments from the family proceedings in his case because of his, “history of responsible campaigning and writing on issues relating to family relationships”. – LORD JUSTICE THORPE, Vice President Family Division, 30th July 2004

“I am very grateful to all those, like yourself who have written and particularly where you have been able to demonstrate your own thinking from the experiences you have had. Congratulations on your battle”. — Former Home Secretary and father DAVID BLUNKETT, 22 March 2005

“It was thoughtful of you to enclose a copy of your book ‘even Toddlers Need Fathers’ and HER MAJESTY has noted your concerns”. – BUCKINGHAM PALACE, 26 July 2006

“The PRIME MINISTER has asked me to thank you for your recent letter and enclosure. The Prime Minister does not issue photographs of his children and therefore has to decline your request. He has however asked me to pass on his best wishes”. – 1O DOWNING STREET, 8 March 2001

Shared Parenting – Research – UK

In January 2006 in the Court of Appeal LJ Thorpe sitting with LJ Wall stated that the whole tenor of recent authority had been to liberate trial judges to elect for a regime of shared residence, if the circumstances and the reality of the case supported that conclusion. The effect of their judgment was to elevate the father in the proceedings from a so-called contact parent to a parent with what was termed a “full parenting” role.

Unreliable Evidence – UK Family Courts – Fathers’ Rights

Extract from the BBC Radio 4 programme first broadcast on 21 January 2009. Clive Anderson presents a series analysing the legal issues of the day. Will opening the family courts to the media improve justice?

A Good Childhood: Searching for Values in a Competitive Age – Commissioned by The Children’s Society 2009 – Lord Layard discusses the inquiry with John Humphrys on the BBC Radio 4 Today Programme – 2 Feb 2009

Report Summary

Most of the obstacles children face today are linked to the belief among adults that the prime duty of the individual is to make the most of their own life, rather than contribute to the good of others. The inquiry report, A Good Childhood, says excessive individualism is causing a range of problems for children including: high family break-up, teenage unkindness, commercial pressures towards premature sexualisation, unprincipled advertising, too much competition in education and acceptance of income inequality.

Parents should:

- Make a long term commitment to each other.
- Be fully informed about what is involved before their child is born.
- Love their children, each other and establish boundaries for children. .
- Help children develop spiritual qualities.

Teachers should:

- Help children to develop happy, likeable social personalities.
- Base discipline on mutual respect.
- Eliminate physical and psychological violence from school.
- Make Personal, Social and Health Education statutory.
- Present sex and relationships education not as biology but part of social and emotional learning.
- New tests on emotional and behavioural well being should be carefully piloted.

Government should:

- Introduce non religious, free civil birth ceremonies.
- Offer high quality parenting classes, psychological support and adolescent mental health services throughout the country.
- Train at least 1,000 more highly qualified psychological therapists over the next five years.
- Automatically assess the mental health of children entering local authority care or custody.
- Raise the pay and status of all people who work with children including teachers and child care workers.
- Give a salary supplement to teachers taking jobs in deprived areas.
- Replace all SATS tests with an annual assessment designed mainly to guide a childs learning.
- Stop publishing data on individual schools from which league tables are constructed by the media.
- Start a major campaign to persuade employers to offer apprenticeships.
- Build a high quality youth centre for every 5,000 young people.
- Ban all building on sports fields and open spaces where children play.
- Ban firms from advertising to British children under 12.
- Ban adverts for alcohol or unhealthy food on television before 9 pm.
- Reduce the proportion of children in relative poverty from 22% to under 10% by 2015.

The media should:

- Rethink the amount of violence they put out, the unbalanced impression they give of the risks that children face from strangers and the exaggerated picture they
portray of young people threatening our social stability.

Advertisers should

- Stop encouraging premature sexualisation, heavy drinking and overeating.

All Society should:

- Take a more positive attitude to children. Welcome them into society and help them.

Bonding – The Attachment Theory

If parenting is not innate or instinctive how do children benefit from access or contact?