video
Childhood and adolescence
The unique fellowship between teens and young puffins on a remote Icelandic island
20 minutes
essay
Psychiatry and psychotherapy
The therapist who hated me
Going to a child psychoanalyst four times a week for three years was bad enough. Reading what she wrote about me was worse
Michael Bacon
essay
Gender and identity
Silencing of the girls
Girls are still in a bad bargain with patriarchy: the price of relationship is keeping their true thoughts to themselves
Carol Gilligan
video
Childhood and adolescence
Striking shadow puppetry illuminates a skater kid’s memories of Boy Scout camp
12 minutes
essay
Stories and literature
The best stories smell
When scents are used to intensify a narrative, they heighten young readers’ emotions and enrich their memory banks
Natalia Kucirkova
video
Religion
From God’s shoes to satellites in heaven – children weigh in on religion
8 minutes
essay
Human evolution
How to grow a human
Our childhood is preposterously long compared to other animals. Is it the secret to our evolutionary success?
Brenna Hassett
essay
Family life
Amazonian childcare
In the eyes of the Runa people, Western kids grow up indulged, over-mothered and incapable of facing outward to the world
Francesca Mezzenzana
essay
Education
Unschooling
It takes nerve to go against the grain and take your child out of school. But, for some, that’s when learning really starts
Naomi Fisher & Heidi Steel
video
Life stages
At 14, Asal is excited about her engagement. Her relatives all have their own opinions
33 minutes
essay
Personality
Born that way
Confident or shy, our temperament is mostly baked-in from birth. But how that influences our lives is up for grabs
Gina Mireault
essay
Stories and literature
Leave them alone
Parenting advice from D H Lawrence: don’t smother your children with love. They are more sagacious than you think
Lara Feigel
essay
Subcultures
The utopian machine
For children like me, growing up in an utopian community, life was a bewildering chaos of freedom and indoctrination
Susanna Crossman
essay
Subcultures
The great regression
To understand why so many adults are acting just like children, don’t blame Millennials – look to Japan in the 1990s
Matt Alt
video
Childhood and adolescence
When Paradise, California burned, its teens became instant climate refugees
23 minutes
essay
Childhood and adolescence
The parentified child
When parents cast a child into the role of mediator, friend and carer, the wounds are profound. But recovery is possible
Nivida Chandra
essay
Sex and sexuality
Idealising the predator
How did certain French intellectuals get away with preying upon young girls, shamelessly, in public and over decades?
Lily Dunn
video
Work
‘Why does life have to be so complicated?’ A school trip to the world of work
12 minutes
video
Philosophy of mind
Forget babbling and toddling – mindreading is babies’ most incredible skill
7 minutes
video
Sex and sexuality
What does the Dutch model of comprehensive, ‘shame-free’ sex-ed look like?
9 minutes
video
Teaching and learning
The charity that teaches underprivileged kids to humanely hunt their next meal
10 minutes
essay
Addiction
The addiction trap
Our inability to treat substance use disorders stems from a narrow-minded view that brains and genes are their real cause
Judith Grisel
essay
Childhood and adolescence
We’re all teenagers now
Adolescence isn’t a time of life so much as a frame of mind. Liberating yet damaging, it’s transformed the US and the world
Paul Howe
essay
Childhood and adolescence
Attached
From cradle to grave, we are soothed and rocked by attachments – our source of joy and pain, and the essence of who we are
Mostafa El-Kalliny & Zoe R Donaldson