Category Archives: Family

Councils in England call for ‘radical’ means testing of Send school transport

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Demand is rising at unsustainable rate and could cost £3.4bn by 2030-31, local authorities warn

Families who have children with special educational needs and disabilities (Send) should be means tested for school transport, according to councils in England, who say demand is rising “at an unsustainable rate”.

Local authorities are urging the government to be “radical” in its Send reforms, which are expected imminently, warning that annual costs on home-to-school transport for children with Send could rise to £3.4bn by 2030-31, up from £2bn last year.

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‘Loud and proud’: UK summit kicks off new conversation for working dads

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Organisers of event urge fathers to push for more equal parental rights in face of Britain’s current poor offering

“Who’s in your team?” asked Elliott Rae, pumping up the crowd in central London at what he billed as the world’s first Working Dads’ summit. “Who’s your goalkeeper, your defender, your striker? Do you have a full 11? Do you have subs on the bench?.”

Football analogies are generally rare at events about parenting, particularly those that seek to tackle gender equality. But then, so are men. At the Working Dads’ summit – almost certainly the first in the UK – both were in plentiful supply, as fathers were urged to “create a new idea of masculinity”.

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Verbally abused children more likely to have poor mental health as adults, study finds

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Analysis suggests long-term damage to wellbeing can be worse than for children experiencing physical abuse

Parents who ridicule, threaten or humiliate their children risk leaving them with a 64% higher chance of having poor mental health as an adult, a study has found.

The research also found physical abuse experienced among the research participants reduced over time, while verbal abuse increased.

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Ministers urged to overhaul and raise carer’s allowance

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Resolution Foundation says unpaid carers on low incomes pay ‘very heavy price’ for looking after loved ones

The carer’s allowance benefit should be overhauled and the basic rate of payment increased to lift more unpaid carers and disabled people out of financial hardship, according to a living standards thinktank.

The Resolution Foundation said unpaid carers on low incomes were paying a “very heavy price” – a typical penalty of 10% or as much as £7,000 a year compared with non-carers – for looking after loved ones full-time.

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Parents in Britain to be granted bereavement leave after miscarriage

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Mothers and partners will gain the legal right if they lose a baby before 24 weeks, in Labour workers’ rights reform

Parents in Britain will be granted the right to bereavement leave after suffering a miscarriage as part of Labour’s changes to workers’ rights, it has been confirmed.

In a change to the law made via amendments to the employment rights bill, mothers and their partners will be given the legal right to at least one week’s bereavement leave if they have suffered a pregnancy loss before 24 weeks’ gestation.

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‘Dad strikes’ in London and Edinburgh demand better paternity leave

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Hundreds of fathers protest with children to call for two weeks’ statutory paternity leave to be increased

Hundreds of fathers took to the streets of London and Edinburgh on Wednesday to demand better paternity leave, in a protest that was billed as the world’s first dad strike.

They came with babies in papooses and pushchairs, as they brandished placards and dad jokes to call for an overhaul of the meanest paternity leave system in Europe.

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Japan introduces rules to put outlandish baby names to bed

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The change is designed to halt the use of kirakira (shiny or glittery) names that have proliferated among parents hoping to add a creative flourish

Parents in Japan will no longer have free rein over the names they give their children, after the introduction this week of new rules on the pronunciation of kanji characters.

The change is designed to halt the use of kirakira (shiny or glittery) names that have proliferated among parents hoping to add a creative flourish to their children’s names – creating administrative headaches for local authorities and, in some cases, inviting derision from classmates.

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Forgive and forget? Both sides must be accountable after a family fallout

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Prince Harry and King Charles will need to put past grievances to one side if they are to move on from their estrangement, experts say

For most families, fallouts and squabbles are a regular occurrence. But what happens when those rifts deepen to an estrangement, such as appears to have beset the royal family and the Beckhams, and how can relationships be rebuilt?

According to the following psychologists and psychotherapists, family reconciliation requires both sides taking accountability for their behaviour and not letting past grievances and trauma block efforts to meaningfully re-engage with estranged relatives.

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Being shouted at by parents can alter child’s brain, experts tell UK MPs

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Meeting will hear how exposure to verbal abuse leads to biological changes and can make mental ill-health likelier

Being shouted at by their parents reshapes children’s brains and makes them more likely to have mental ill-health and struggle to maintain friendships, MPs will hear on Monday.

Verbal abuse by adults can leave children unable to enjoy pleasure and seeing the world as threatening, experts in child development and mental health will tell a meeting at Westminster.

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Woman becomes first UK womb transplant recipient to give birth

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Grace Davidson gives birth to baby Amy Isabel after receiving her sister’s womb in 2023

Surgeons are hailing an “astonishing” medical breakthrough as a woman became the first in the UK to give birth after a womb transplant.

Grace Davidson, 36, who was a teenager when diagnosed with a rare condition that meant she did not have a uterus, said she and her husband, Angus, 37, had been given “the greatest gift we could ever have asked for”.

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UK parents with babies in neonatal care gain right to paid leave

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Measures hailed as lifeline for parents will allow people with sick babies to take up to 12 weeks’ leave

Parents with children in neonatal care will gain a day-one right to paid leave and pay in a move hailed as “a lifeline for parents” with sick babies.

From Sunday, the measures will allow eligible parents to take up to 12 weeks of leave and pay, on top of maternity and paternity leave.

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Police officers ‘mocked and ostracised’ for paternity leave in England and Wales

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Exclusive: Most only take a week’s leave, and paternity pay for back-office staff in Met is nearly three times higher

Police officers have described being ostracised for taking paternity leave, as it is revealed that back-office staff in the Metropolitan police are entitled to proportionately nearly three times as much paternity pay as frontline fathers.

A freedom of information request has revealed that most serving police officers in England and Wales only take one week of paternity leave, with some describing being on “blue lights” duty and carrying Tasers a week after the birth of their babies.

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DNA testing firm 23andMe files for bankruptcy as CEO steps down

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Co-founder Anne Wojcicki to pursue independent bid as California attorney general tells users to delete data

The genetic testing company 23andMe has filed for bankruptcy protection in the US to help sell itself, as its chief executive quit to pursue a bid for the business after several aborted attempts.

23andMe said late on Sunday that it had started voluntary Chapter 11 proceedings in the US Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Missouri to “facilitate a sale process to maximise the value of its business”. It added that it is operating as usual throughout the sale process.

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Most school leaders in England, Wales and NI say pupils’ parents have abused them

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Parents banned from school sites after leaders spat at and trolled, poll finds

Four in five school leaders in England, Wales and Northern Ireland say they have suffered abuse from pupils’ parents in the past year, according to a poll that found they had been spat at, trolled on social media and even physically attacked.

The problem has become so serious that more than two out of five (42%) of those who took part in the survey said they had been forced to ban parents from the school site in the last year. Nearly a third (32%) have reported parents to the police and almost three-quarters (72%) have issued a warning letter or email.

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Sibling rivalry: parents favour older children and daughters, study finds

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International research also reveals conscientious or agreeable children are likely to receive preferential treatment

As Philip Larkin once noted, your mum and dad have a lasting effect on you. Now, researchers have revealed which siblings in a family are more likely to be favoured: it is bad news for sons.

Researchers have found daughters, older children and those who are more conscientious or agreeable are likely to receive preferential treatment.

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‘Hotel of mum and dad’ in UK at its fullest in two decades, study finds

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Almost a fifth of adults aged 24-34 are living with parents, particularly in areas of high-cost housing

The “hotel of mum and dad” is the busiest it has been for two decades as an increasing number of young adults in the UK choose – or are forced by low wages and rising rents – to live with their parents, research has found.

The prohibitive cost of renting, let alone buying, a home explains why more twenty- and thirtysomethings are “co-residing” with family at an age when their parents would have been living independently, the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) said.

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Baby Remi, among the first born of new Beta generation, arrives in Australia just minutes after new year

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Baby girl born in NSW’s Port Macquarie base hospital at 12.05 belongs to generation Beta, many of whom will live to see 22nd century

A baby girl named Remi, born just minutes into the new year on the NSW midnorth coast, is believed to be the first Australian birth of 2025 – and the first of “generation Beta”.

Tzu-Ling Huang and Liam Walsh had a quiet New Year’s Eve planned at their home in Comboyne, but their daughter surprised them and arrived two weeks early.

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Finnish fathers taking nearly double length of paternity leave since 2022 reform

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Dads say rule change granting both parents equal time off has helped build bond between children and fathers

Paternity leaves in Finland have nearly doubled in length after a 2022 reform of the parental leave system, the social benefits agency has said.

The change granted both parents equal amounts of leave for the first time: 160 days each of paid leave, to be used before the child turns two. Sixty-three of the days can be transferred to the other parent, if desired.

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Comedian Joe Lycett says he has become father of a baby boy

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TV presenter praises and thanks staff at Birmingham women’s hospital for ‘exceptional’ care his partner received

The comedian Joe Lycett has announced he has become a father to a baby boy.

Lycett, 36, shared a picture on Instagram of him holding the infant, whom he said was born at Birmingham women’s hospital.

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Branded UK school uniforms cost more than double high-street prices, analysis reveals

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The Children’s Society urges schools and government to ensure ‘undue financial strain’ is not placed on families

Parents are routinely paying more than double the price for branded school uniforms compared with similar items offered by supermarkets and high-street stores, an analysis by the Observer reveals.

Despite government guidance to reduce costs, the analysis shows that parents who are required by state schools to buy clothing featuring official school logos are still paying significantly more than for unbranded blazers, jumpers, ties and sports kit.

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