CHILD REARING FOR FUN
By Anne Atkins
Zondervan. 288 pages. £8.99
ISBN 0 310 25417 5
Anne Atkins is probably best known for her plain-speaking and sometimes controversial ‘Thought for the day’ broadcasts on BBC Radio 4. She is an author of several novels and her latest book is written to the ‘amateur parent’. Her emphasis throughout the book is that childrearing is not so much a highly-complicated skill that needs to be learned but rather an instinctive act of love.
Anne skilfully uses her plain-speaking approach to challenge the shallowness of the materialistic outlook which too easily holds sway over many parents within our society, instead entreating parents to ‘trust their instincts’ and concentrate on providing children with other, more priceless gifts such as security, joy, etiquette, manners, self discipline and intellectual rigour.
