Our survey says...

I'm never entirely convinced by the conclusions of academic studies because most seem to have wasted months of intelligent (or so the letters after their names would  have us believe) people's time and undoubtedly plenty of money too, to reach a conclusion so bleeding obvious my three year old could have come up with it. You know the sort of thing, where it's taken researchers years to conclude that grass is green or the sky is blue, like you need a Phd to work that out. 

This is why I never have any faith research designed, it seems to me, solely to make parents guilty. Those surveys that tell you are emotionally scarring your child for life if you work/don't work, send them to nursery/don't send them to nursery, let them watch television/don't let them watch television. For such clever people these academics are disturbingly indecisive.

The latest quack theory to come out is that we are ruining our children by praising them too highly. Now I admit I am guilty of telling my sons that everything they do is amazing, from their tuneless songs to their scribbled drawings, but that's because, to me, they are amazing. 

What do these boffins suggest I do when my son presents me with his latest glitter-coated offering? Question his excessive use of Pritt Stick and critique his colour combinations? I don't care what any survey says, I am sure that would leave my boys with a whole lot more emotional problems than growing up in the sure knowledge that mummy is the one person in the world who will always appreciate their efforts, no matter how cack-handed. 

The only thing that slightly weakens my theory is that I fervently pray it doesn't lead to any of my children becoming one of those deluded X-Factor contestants who warbles like a stuck pig at the judges and when asked who told them they could sing, answers 'My mum'.