Parenting in 2008 - Yes, it’s okay to say ‘no’

BECAUSE we all love China this week it may be appropriate to quote a Chinese politician on a visit to America. “The Americans,” he said, “are wonderful, people, they do everything their children tell them to.”

We may not be able to laugh at that as easily as we would have once because, for a plethora of reasons, we are closer to Boston than Beijing on this than we might care to imagine.

Yesterday, one of the country’s leading experts warned parents to stop their children wearing overtly sexual clothes and watching unsuitable television to protect them from premature sexualisation.