tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-51697327940970932992011-09-19T18:06:39.990+01:00headlong into the world of the small childCharles Fernyhoughnoreply@blogger.comBlogger1281100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5169732794097093299.post-83216342356014679422010-12-23T11:04:00.002Z2010-12-23T11:04:32.428Z

This blog has now moved. Please come and join me here.

Charles Fernyhoughnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5169732794097093299.post-16173027535097908422010-12-20T16:05:00.000Z2010-12-20T16:05:12.972Z

In my latest Psychology Today blog post, I pick up on the theme of memory development to examine the role played by conversations about the past in the organization of children's memories. This includes a look at some new research which shows that mothers' style of talking about the past with their preschoolers shows its influence even into adolescence. You can read the new post here.

Charles Fernyhoughnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5169732794097093299.post-14987501988762057662010-12-03T14:06:00.003Z2010-12-03T22:24:56.233Z

Adults forget their early childhoods, but can children remember them? In my latest post on my Psychology Today blog, I look at some new research that addresses this question.

Charles Fernyhoughnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5169732794097093299.post-835374673661132002010-11-15T20:25:00.001Z2010-11-15T20:26:27.087Z

My latest post on Psychology Today picks up on the theme of inner speech, and looks at the the connection with voice-hearing. You can read the post here.

Charles Fernyhoughnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5169732794097093299.post-10329115518142147732010-08-18T07:23:00.001+01:002010-08-18T07:23:46.404+01:00

Jad and the team at Radiolab have just released a new show, called Words. I talked to them about the role of language in the development of children's thinking. You can listen to the podcast here. And you really should check out the accompanying video as well. Quite a few things came out of the discussion which I wanted to comment on some more. So I have written a post on my PT blog to explain

Charles Fernyhoughnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5169732794097093299.post-81801390614134282912010-08-03T12:51:00.000+01:002010-08-03T12:51:38.773+01:00

The latest post in the Lego Stars Wars series is on the development of free will. You can read it over on Psychology Today. Meanwhile, over on the Facebook page, there are details of the summer giveaway - closing date coming up soon.

Charles Fernyhoughnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5169732794097093299.post-62528766084679868712010-07-30T10:23:00.000+01:002010-07-30T10:23:34.287+01:00

I've talked a fair bit about dreams on this blog, but I haven't come anywhere close to this: check it out.

Charles Fernyhoughnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5169732794097093299.post-5348380327973140192010-07-24T09:34:00.000+01:002010-07-24T09:34:24.520+01:00

Over at Psychology Today I've got a new blog post on repetitive behaviours in toddlerhood. You can read the piece here. Please come and say hello on Twitter. And check out the Facebook page for news of a summer giveaway!

Charles Fernyhoughnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5169732794097093299.post-37983410027496432342010-07-19T17:49:00.002+01:002010-07-19T17:54:13.289+01:00

I was saddened to hear the news from Moscow this week of the passing of Dr Gita L. Vygodskaya. Gita was Lev Vygotsky's eldest daughter and became an eminent psychologist in her own right. She had an important part to play in bringing Vygotsky's unpublished writings to publication, and she also wrote movingly about her memories of her father in an article entitled 'Remembering Father', which we

Charles Fernyhoughnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5169732794097093299.post-86985632042876990392010-06-04T08:23:00.000+01:002010-06-04T08:23:36.451+01:00

Readers of this blog will know that I'm a big fan of Paul Bloom's work, so it's exciting to see news of a new book from him. In How Pleasure Works, Bloom takes a look at how the science of essentialism can explain why we like what we like. Essentialism has become a hot topic in developmental psychology in the last few years, with Bloom himself at the forefront of the research. I'm going to have

Charles Fernyhoughnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5169732794097093299.post-36840179735899112492010-05-25T12:35:00.000+01:002010-05-25T12:35:22.863+01:00

Just a reminder that I'll be at the Institute for Cultural Research on Saturday. Full details here.

Charles Fernyhoughnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5169732794097093299.post-72764905802889690522010-05-12T07:45:00.000+01:002010-05-12T07:45:54.493+01:00

A new post on my Psychology Today blog: I'm writing about our work on mind-mindedness and the possibility - as yet not fully tested - that certain interventions might increase parents' mind-mindedness. Also this week, Paul Bloom's NYT piece on the moral lives of babies. Thanks to Rachel for pointing this one out.

Charles Fernyhoughnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5169732794097093299.post-77906195462349676662010-03-24T08:20:00.001Z2010-03-24T08:21:03.977Z

If you missed my recent talk at the Ri, there will be a chance to hear me talk on similar themes on 29 May, when I will be speaking at the Institute for Cultural Research in London. You can see details and book tickets by following this link. There was a recent review of the book in the Kansas City Parent Magazine.

Charles Fernyhoughnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5169732794097093299.post-5281664517533196192010-02-13T10:38:00.001Z2010-02-13T10:38:45.309Z

Last week on Psychology Today I posted a 'manifesto' for a new approach to parenting. The post has been tweeted about quite a lot, and I've had a couple of interesting comments on the post. See what you think - you can read the post here. Also, just a reminder that tickets for the Royal Institution event are on sale now.

Charles Fernyhoughnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5169732794097093299.post-8130681552205924732010-01-30T08:37:00.002Z2010-01-30T15:34:57.448Z

Image via WikipediaI've been thinking a lot about imitation recently, in preparation for an interview on Radio 4's Woman's Hour. A few things intrigued me about the most recent research, and I didn't get a chance to talk about them all in the interview. So here's a brief supplement: I knew about the classic work of Meltzoff and colleagues on neonatal imitation, but I'd struggled to see evidence

Charles Fernyhoughnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5169732794097093299.post-31863721526671188712010-01-18T21:43:00.000Z2010-01-18T21:43:14.144Z

Image via Wikipedia A rather belated return to blogging after the Christmas break—I hope you all had good holidays. Here's some advance warning about a talk I'll be doing later in the year, at the Royal Institution in London. The date is Monday 8 March, the topic is 'Little Minds, Big Ideas', and I'll be talking about four or five big ideas that are illuminated (I think) by the close study of

Charles Fernyhoughnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5169732794097093299.post-12242375027984095652009-12-24T09:00:00.000Z2009-12-24T09:00:02.884Z

Thanks for following the blog this year. I'll be back in the New Year with some more thoughts on children's development. In the meantime, have a look at the Facebook page, where there are details of a Christmas giveaway. Happy holidays to all.

Charles Fernyhoughnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5169732794097093299.post-12404254239401761332009-11-29T13:17:00.000Z2009-11-29T13:17:36.763Z

The second of my posts on the Lego Star Wars theme is now up. The theme: how babies come to establish a sense of their own identities through action. You can read the post here.

Charles Fernyhoughnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5169732794097093299.post-21121601459515997102009-11-21T11:38:00.002Z2010-01-30T08:00:05.131Z

Image by 12 : 00 ♥ via FlickrI've been thinking a lot about parenting this week. I've been helping to devise a new course on parenting for the School of Life, and that's involved reading lots of the research on how different parenting styles and practices are associated with different developmental outcomes. One impression that has been confirmed for me is that there is very little solid

Charles Fernyhoughnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5169732794097093299.post-51862187161501142372009-11-13T08:06:00.000Z2009-11-13T08:06:36.503Z

In case you missed this post on my Psychology Today blog, I was writing about my experiences of playing Lego Star Wars with Isaac on the Wii, and some recent research on how young children learn to collaborate. You can read the post in full here. Part II is coming soon... watch the skies.

Charles Fernyhoughnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5169732794097093299.post-58635826880515062102009-11-07T09:47:00.000Z2009-11-07T09:47:59.930Z

Image via Wikipedia BBC News ran a story yesterday on babies' ability to pick up certain aspects of their parents' accents in the womb. Before we get carried away by the image of neonates springing out into the world speaking broad Geordie or Brummie, we should look at the study (in press in the journal Current Biology) in a little more detail. The German researchers recorded and analysed the

Charles Fernyhoughnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5169732794097093299.post-32817991349420374952009-10-28T09:32:00.000Z2009-10-28T09:32:51.030Z

Image by kerim via Flickr I'm fascinated by this new post on the Psychology Today blogs, which suggests that children's drawings of the human body might tell us something about how the body is represented in the brain. The idea is that kids' characteristic distortions of the human shape, when they pick up a pencil to draw, reflect the varying importance of different body parts in their perception

Charles Fernyhoughnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5169732794097093299.post-64427248429334190212009-10-27T11:10:00.003Z2009-10-28T09:33:49.066Z

Maybe.

Charles Fernyhoughnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5169732794097093299.post-47714922902977279372009-10-21T09:27:00.001+01:002009-10-28T09:34:11.003Z

I continued this theme yesterday with a post on my Psychology Today blog: you can read the post here. It includes some further details on the research I mentioned in the Guardian article but which didn't make it through to the final piece.

Charles Fernyhoughnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5169732794097093299.post-36647401084222283902009-10-17T16:44:00.000+01:002009-10-17T16:44:00.874+01:00

Image via Wikipedia The Durham Book Festival starts on Friday and runs until 1st November. You can check out all the details at the festival website and also follow progress on Twitter. I'll be appearing at three events on Saturday 24th October. First, I'm doing a thing called 'Little Minds, Big Ideas' at the Gala Studio (1-2pm), exploring how the study of young children's minds can illuminate

Charles Fernyhoughnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5169732794097093299.post-19412993335916830452009-10-08T11:18:00.003+01:002009-10-08T11:23:17.994+01:00

I've had some really interesting feedback on my article on children's memory for lost family members, published in the Guardian last weekend. My starting point in the piece was the idea that autobiographical memory is fragile and very susceptible to manipulation, particularly in childhood. So parents who want to seed memories of departed grandparents find themselves in fertile territory. I don't

Charles Fernyhoughnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5169732794097093299.post-91719178697836568742009-10-06T20:38:00.000+01:002009-10-06T20:38:52.093+01:00

Thank you to the writers of the blogs that have supported the book over the last year or so: One Strangely Lush Mother, Hilery Williams, Sultanas under the carseat, The Briggle Blog, rabbitIng, Kickypants, Alpha Mummy, Mind Hacks, The Cedar Lounge Revolution, clearframe and Morning of Dystopia. And thanks to the readers in the books forums at Mumsnet and The Breast Way for mentioning the book.

Charles Fernyhoughnoreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5169732794097093299.post-40236522322247266832009-09-28T20:37:00.002+01:002009-09-28T20:52:36.547+01:00

I've been talking quite a bit recently about how the world looks to a newborn baby (see my Radiolab and Groks podcasts). So I found Tiny Eyes to be a lot of fun. This is a website, run by a couple of psychologists and a graphic designer, which allows you to upload your own pics and see how a baby would perceive the images. You can alter a couple of variables: the age of the baby (from newborn to

Charles Fernyhoughnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5169732794097093299.post-29658341143153140362009-09-15T11:50:00.003+01:002009-09-15T11:53:14.686+01:00

Over at Psychology Today I have been blogging about the psychological significance of children's private speech, a topic that will be familiar to readers of this blog. You can read the post here.

Charles Fernyhoughnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5169732794097093299.post-83649701857870969292009-09-10T20:27:00.003+01:002009-09-10T20:32:55.063+01:00

I had been planning to blog on our recent article on children's trust in the testimony of their mothers (and others), but Dave Sobel at Psychology Today beat me to it. Dave's is a thorough, enjoyable account of what we and others have been up to, so I'll just point you to his article - you can read it in full here.

Charles Fernyhoughnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5169732794097093299.post-61074285339290868412009-08-28T13:03:00.005+01:002009-08-28T14:39:21.344+01:00

Jad Abumrad from WNYC's brilliant Radiolab got in touch to say that the book had inspired some musings on the consciousness of his baby son, Amil. We had a fascinating conversation down an ISDN line, and you can listen to the resulting podcast here.

Charles Fernyhoughnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5169732794097093299.post-45915998001263445832009-08-19T15:58:00.002+01:002009-08-19T16:01:07.001+01:00

This is the title of a new post in the wonderful OnFiction blog, describing some new research linking imaginary companions to children's narrative abilities. You can read the post here.

Charles Fernyhoughnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5169732794097093299.post-88320817999915557522009-08-11T18:00:00.000+01:002009-08-11T18:04:05.363+01:00

Cover of Mother's MilkI enjoyed Jenny Turner's essay review on mummylit and dadlit in last week's Guardian Review, and I would support her call for a bit less niceness in our writing and thinking about babies. I would part company from her on a couple of points, though. Firstly, I personally found little in the writings of the "post-Freudian baby theorists" (such as Winnicott) that took babies

Charles Fernyhoughnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5169732794097093299.post-68156661525263332182009-07-27T11:28:00.000+01:002009-07-27T11:29:08.160+01:00

Image by BreckenPool via FlickrOver at Psychology Today, I've been writing about how young children learn some of the conventions of conversation. You can read the post here.Also new this week: my review of Alison Gopnik's new book The Philosophical Baby appeared in this weekend's FT. You can read the piece here.

Charles Fernyhoughnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5169732794097093299.post-5313187540017157122009-07-20T17:39:00.001+01:002009-07-27T11:29:50.756+01:00

I was pleased to see the book mentioned in Sally Emerson's piece in the Sunday Times. She has given me a lot to ponder, particularly with regard to the differing motivations and opportunities for male and female writers on this topic. Do readers agree with Emerson's conclusions?

Charles Fernyhoughnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5169732794097093299.post-12716318229398049242009-07-03T17:01:00.002+01:002009-07-03T17:10:22.101+01:00

The last of my three-part series of posts on this topic is now up at Psychology Today. The book has been reviewed this week in the Sarasota magazine SRQ, the Rome newspaper Il Messaggero and the Dutch site Kennislink.nl. There was a mention in USA Today and in the Montreal newspaper La Presse. The blog Mind Hacks picked up on the issue of scientists conducting research with their own children.

Charles Fernyhoughnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5169732794097093299.post-34946822457742064152009-07-01T08:50:00.000+01:002009-07-01T08:50:54.287+01:00

Image via WikipediaLet's face it, an awful lot of nonsense is written about attachment. I shall save my concerns about the misuse of attachment ideas (particularly by the parenting industry) for another day, but for now I'm delighted to catch up with a study by Susan C. Johnson and colleagues, which demonstrates some rare right-minded thinking about this most important of topics.The study,

Charles Fernyhoughnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5169732794097093299.post-72316968720715795912009-06-21T09:24:00.001+01:002009-06-21T09:25:41.619+01:00

I've been continuing the theme of investigations of small children's inner experience... the latest installment can be read here.

Charles Fernyhoughnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5169732794097093299.post-90042960687558637182009-06-19T08:30:00.000+01:002009-06-19T08:31:20.239+01:00

Image by kingary via FlickrHave you ever fed a baby? Put a mental camera on yourself while you do so. If you're anything like me, you'll find that you're instinctively making your own mouth do the things you want the infant to do. Open wide, that's it; wrap those lips around the morsel; close them up and swallow. In fact, I would defy you to keep your own mouth closed while meeting this abiding

Charles Fernyhoughnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5169732794097093299.post-69090329827508102462009-06-09T17:05:00.000+01:002009-06-10T17:56:30.927+01:00

The Korean edition of The Baby in the Mirror is now published. The publisher is Woongjin.

Charles Fernyhoughnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5169732794097093299.post-91951078332204116532009-06-03T21:01:00.003+01:002009-06-03T21:06:23.151+01:00

The Dutch translation of the book is now available. The publisher is Contact and the translator is Rogier van Kappel. More information on the edition is available here. You can order the book here.

Charles Fernyhoughnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5169732794097093299.post-37065717994120196142009-06-02T11:48:00.003+01:002009-06-02T11:50:40.103+01:00

Thanks to @alphamummy and @DulwichDivorcee: I can't resist reposting this.

Charles Fernyhoughnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5169732794097093299.post-24838210306802049552009-06-01T16:05:00.006+01:002009-06-01T16:14:45.125+01:00

Image via WikipediaI had a nice email from Mohit at flipkart, the online books retailer in India. He tells me that A Thousand Days of Wonder is on sale through their online catalogue. You can see the catalogue entry here. If you're reading the book in India, it would be great to hear from you.

Charles Fernyhoughnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5169732794097093299.post-6180425114767747052009-05-25T09:33:00.003+01:002009-05-25T09:39:17.348+01:00

Image by Christine ™ via FlickrAs you might have guessed from the previous post, I have been writing about how exposure to digital recording technologies might affect children's developing memory and sense of self. This has also given me a chance to reflect on how Athena and Isaac might have been affected by the attention they've received. You can read the final piece (which appeared this weekend

Charles Fernyhoughnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5169732794097093299.post-12596990061357398232009-05-19T16:17:00.006+01:002009-05-19T16:45:55.412+01:00

Image via WikipediaOne question came up a few times at the readings last week, and it's not the familiar one about what Athena will make of all the attention. Is there a chance, some people asked me, that Isaac will be miffed that I didn't write a book about him? Am I guilty of parental favouritism, by omitting to give him the same treatment that I gave his big sis? Readers of this blog will know

Charles Fernyhoughnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5169732794097093299.post-23022728608905154592009-05-16T10:10:00.008+01:002009-05-16T10:23:33.762+01:00

Image via WikipediaThanks to everyone who came along to the events in London this week. I had some great conversations and had to deal with some searching questions, some of which I'll try to answer in more detail in future posts.I recently spoke to Dr Alvin Jones for his radio show in Durham, NC. You can listen to our conversation by going to his website and scrolling down until you see the US

Charles Fernyhoughnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5169732794097093299.post-2476671535960405912009-05-11T08:26:00.002+01:002009-05-11T08:27:34.525+01:00

I'll be talking about the book in Balham tomorrow night - for details, click here. This is in addition to the other events listed here.

Charles Fernyhoughnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5169732794097093299.post-71524303600550881622009-05-08T11:28:00.002+01:002009-05-08T11:30:48.559+01:00

If you're planning to come along to any of the events next week, please do feel free to bring the little ones along - I always think these events go better when there are some small people there to set me straight!

Charles Fernyhoughnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5169732794097093299.post-74553271032235152162009-05-07T08:06:00.005+01:002009-05-07T08:33:07.520+01:00

Image by Brian Negus via FlickrAt bedtimes, we have been reading Michael Morpurgo's tale of blindness and Arthurian legends, The Sleeping Sword. Isaac is fascinated by my half-remembered recounting of the tales of King Arthur, but he is less impressed with my account of the legendary king's ontological status. He wants to know what Arthur looked like, where he lived and when.'Well,' I say, 'if he

Charles Fernyhoughnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5169732794097093299.post-78545554401138166122009-05-04T15:00:00.000+01:002009-05-04T15:02:47.543+01:00

I'll be in London next week, doing a number of events to promote the paperback. There were some details on these in an earlier post - please do come along if you can!

Charles Fernyhoughnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5169732794097093299.post-22783651110371820292009-04-30T20:31:00.003+01:002009-04-30T20:47:56.664+01:00

Over at Psychology Today I've posted the first piece of a multi-parter on young children's inner experience. You can follow this new blog on Facebook here.

Charles Fernyhoughnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5169732794097093299.post-17938641012072494792009-04-28T21:48:00.000+01:002009-04-28T21:49:10.803+01:00

We spent last weekend building a board for Isaac's electric train set, and now we're practising running one train into the siding while the other loops around the main circuit. Isaac wants to run them both together and 'have a race'. Which engine will go faster? The bigger one, obviously. It's a battle between the Mallard (which any schoolchild knows was the fastest steam engine ever built) and a

Charles Fernyhoughnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5169732794097093299.post-43901974594610896652009-04-20T11:06:00.010+01:002009-04-20T21:08:22.071+01:00

Image by Ed Yourdon via FlickrHow much are children attuned to the troubles of the world? Quite a lot, it seems. A report out today, based on 1000 face-to-face interviews with six- to twelve-year-olds, shows that concerns about the global recession are topping the lists of children's reported worries. Fears of violence to self and others also loom large in children's lives, with 30% of

Charles Fernyhoughnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5169732794097093299.post-59107928070764083912009-04-17T14:26:00.005+01:002009-04-17T14:39:55.769+01:00

Image via WikipediaThose who are following the book on Twitter will have noticed this new development. Why anti-parenting? I think I'm simply trying to underline the point about this not being a parenting book, but rather an exhortation to use science and imagination to reach a better understanding of where small children are coming from. I'm hoping the tweets will be daily(ish).

Charles Fernyhoughnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5169732794097093299.post-3316224074117862322009-04-16T22:16:00.002+01:002009-04-16T22:21:42.285+01:00

I'll be doing several events in May to support the paperback edition of The Baby in the Mirror. On Wednesday 13 May I'll be at Borders, Islington from 2pm. Later that day I'll be at The Bookseller Crow in Crystal Palace. And on Thursday 14 May I'll be at the Stoke Newington Bookshop from 8pm. Do come along if you can!

Charles Fernyhoughnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5169732794097093299.post-7689110601746048522009-04-16T16:35:00.001+01:002009-04-16T16:36:41.429+01:00

Image via CrunchBaseI'll be using Twitter again, but in a more focused way. Come and join us here.

Charles Fernyhoughnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5169732794097093299.post-32684516304238305752009-04-06T18:01:00.003+01:002009-04-15T16:59:19.809+01:00

I've just started blogging for the magazine Psychology Today. My first post is on the joys and pitfalls of writing about your own children; you can read it here.

Charles Fernyhoughnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5169732794097093299.post-28174793467212775902009-04-05T20:52:00.006+01:002009-04-05T21:03:03.391+01:00

I'm in Denver, feeling slightly dazed at the end of the SRCD meeting. SRCD rolls around once every two years, and draws thousands of developmental psychologists to North America from all over the world. It's been an intense three days of symposia, posters and networking. I caught up with plenty of old friends and made some new ones, but also managed to get a feel for some new developments in the

Charles Fernyhoughnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5169732794097093299.post-88197979609837830192009-04-02T09:45:00.000+01:002009-04-02T20:29:01.141+01:00

A Thousand Days of Wonder is now published in the US. The book was a Parade Pick this weekend.

Charles Fernyhoughnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5169732794097093299.post-61339244538896185742009-03-25T15:50:00.003Z2009-03-25T16:08:21.102Z

Readers will know how fond we are of toddler art. I last reported on four-year-old Marla Olmstead's paintings, which formed the basis of a 2007 documentary. Now we hear that a two-year-old Australian girl's paintings have been exhibited in a Melbourne gallery. Aelita Andre, the artist in question, produced the works when she was 22 months. The gallery owner was surprised when he heard the truth,

Charles Fernyhoughnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5169732794097093299.post-55500121456944962442009-03-24T11:45:00.001Z2009-03-24T13:10:43.596Z

Image via WikipediaThe primatologist Sarah Blaffer Hrdy is interviewed in the New York Times about her new book on cooperative parenting. Babies call out social responses in us, and are themselves amazingly responsive to those reactions. Coupled with humans' neoteny, or extended period of immaturity, that means that human mothers rely on sharing out the work of parenting to conspecifics who are

Charles Fernyhoughnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5169732794097093299.post-13249559725890277272009-03-19T11:30:00.002Z2009-03-19T11:34:37.996Z

I'll be launching the UK paperback with a talk at Ustinov College, Durham, tonight. There will be a Waterstone's bookstall and free wine and coffee. These will be the first copies of the paperback on sale anywhere. Come along if you can!

Charles Fernyhoughnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5169732794097093299.post-65703980901396700422009-03-16T08:13:00.016Z2010-12-08T16:45:39.649Z

Image via Wikipedia'Dad?' 'Mm?' 'How do stars explode?' It is early on a Monday morning. The alarm clock has beeped once. I'm not even going to think about getting up until it has done it again. 'I don't know.' But I should know. 'We'll look it up later.' There's a pause. Isaac, five, is supposed to be having a sleepy cuddle with both of us. But his curiosity knows no Monday-morning lethargy.

Charles Fernyhoughnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5169732794097093299.post-8495959469498828892009-03-13T12:28:00.002Z2009-03-13T12:30:22.002Z

I have just created a Facebook page for the book which will carry news about the forthcoming US and UK (paperback) editions. You can find it here. 

Charles Fernyhoughnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5169732794097093299.post-43108928090039139892009-03-06T14:04:00.000Z2009-03-06T14:11:08.489Z

A quick plug for the new publication from Durham University's Institute of Advanced Study. With an introduction by Durham's Chancellor, Bill Bryson, Thinking About Almost Everything is a multi-disciplinary collection of short pieces on ideas that are motivating research and thought today. You'll find articles on the role of feelings in thinking, the dual nature of thought, irrationality in

Charles Fernyhoughnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5169732794097093299.post-30131759541204183492009-02-26T08:10:00.003Z2009-02-26T08:13:32.998Z

This weekend I'll be leading the Family course at the School of Life. There are still a couple of places available so do get in touch if you would like to come along. 

Charles Fernyhoughnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5169732794097093299.post-73453235427688863332009-02-14T08:48:00.005Z2009-02-14T14:02:41.709Z

Image via WikipediaTo Cambridge on Tuesday, to give a talk at the Centre for Family Research. I'll be pondering some ways in which we can strive for imaginative reconstructions of the consciousness of the small child. An article on the topic is planned; news will appear here.

Charles Fernyhoughnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5169732794097093299.post-25393954552787954792009-02-13T16:21:00.003Z2009-02-13T16:23:37.574Z

A few weeks ago, I spoke to Laura Kelly from The Big Issue in Scotland about modernising influences on children's fairy tales. You can read the article here. 

Charles Fernyhoughnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5169732794097093299.post-71374159288075047542009-02-03T13:59:00.003Z2009-02-03T15:30:13.939Z

I'll be at the British Library on Tuesday, talking about how digital technologies help in our understanding of children's minds, and what the costs and benefits are for children themselves. In an earlier post, I talked about how the selectivity of the video record might lead children to mistrust memories for which they don't have documentary evidence. If recent posts are anything to go by, they

Charles Fernyhoughnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5169732794097093299.post-27716274912128892142009-01-24T09:52:00.000Z2009-01-24T10:31:10.889Z

It's clear enough that most adults do not have accurate memories for events from toddlerhood and infancy. But do small children recall their own earlier childhoods? If you ask the questions early enough, do you find evidence for remembering that would usually not survive the amnesia of the early years? This question is at the heart of an intriguing case study just published in the journal Infant

Charles Fernyhoughnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5169732794097093299.post-37810205768192555562009-01-01T13:05:00.010Z2009-02-14T15:45:48.547Z

I've talked a bit about children's ability to distinguish fantasy from reality. One much-loved child in the shape of an adult is Father Dougal McGuire, who was on our screens last night in a New Year Father Ted special. In the very first episode, entitled 'Good Luck, Father Ted', Dougal tells Ted about a funfair that is coming to Craggy Island. He tries to persuade him that one of the main

Charles Fernyhoughnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5169732794097093299.post-50667362381209071212008-12-30T18:05:00.001Z2009-10-07T15:28:54.773+01:00

One group of people who need to know about children's minds are those who deal with them in a legal capacity. Among other things, lawyers, judges and law enforcers need to understand about young people's capacity to give consent, how they respond to the social context of questioning, and how they represent past events about which they might be asked to testify. The British Psychological Society

Charles Fernyhoughnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5169732794097093299.post-8663758587338690632008-12-27T22:22:00.004Z2008-12-28T14:57:51.696Z

Developmental psychologists like their laboratories and their experimental tasks, but they also recognise that many of the complexities of children's development only reveal themselves amid the noise of everyday life. In their search for naturalistic contexts for their observations, those who study children's minds have often seen the value of family mealtimes. Mealtimes follow pretty set scripts

Charles Fernyhoughnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5169732794097093299.post-9925460022227736032008-12-24T07:32:00.005Z2008-12-24T09:00:35.711Z

Isaac can't wait. Today is Christmas Eve, which means that tonight Santa Claus will come down the chimney and 'drink some of that special wine that he likes'. 'Single malt whisky,' I correct him. 'I'm so excited,' he says. 'I want him to come now.'I wrote about children's perception of time in the book. In the chapter entitled 'The Young Doctor Who', I describe some experiments conducted by my

Charles Fernyhoughnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5169732794097093299.post-9007980169701503442008-12-17T08:25:00.011Z2008-12-18T11:25:12.247Z

To the Wellcome Collection for Shona Illingworth's moving and thoughtful installation, 'The Watch Man'. The piece, which forms part of the current exhibition on War and Medicine, recreates the experience of a war veteran who witnessed one of the most shocking events of the Second World War. I was particularly struck by the way that Illingworth used sound and film together, and sometimes working

Charles Fernyhoughnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5169732794097093299.post-5476450461600989112008-12-11T08:07:00.004Z2008-12-11T08:14:18.176Z

In April next year, Avery (a division of Penguin USA) will publish The Baby in the Mirror in its US edition. Here's what the jacket will look like. You can see the catalogue entry by clicking here and scrolling to p. 84. I'll be posting more details about the US edition in the New Year. The book can be pre-ordered from Amazon.com by clicking in the box on the right. You can also order through

Charles Fernyhoughnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5169732794097093299.post-37408587635448194552008-12-09T15:09:00.004Z2008-12-09T15:35:55.352Z

Enough people have asked me this question to make me think it needs some kind of public answer. Is that Athena on the cover of the book? For some people who have asked this question, it has been a way of cautiously seeking confirmation of something that has already been assumed. Given that there is so much of us already in this book, why wouldn't I have gone the whole hog and put a picture of

Charles Fernyhoughnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5169732794097093299.post-82773959942875292442008-12-05T07:33:00.000Z2008-12-05T08:15:02.301Z

News this week that mothers are lulling babies to sleep with pop songs rather than traditional lullabies. We know that even very young babies have a capacity to recognise melody, and that some of this learning takes place even before birth. Music provides a source of organised perceptual stimuli that probably helps to shape processes of synapse formation, neural pruning and cortical

Charles Fernyhoughnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5169732794097093299.post-30862576888281053762008-12-03T11:55:00.002Z2008-12-03T22:36:54.551Z

Not a post on children's development today, but something much more important. This weekend Athena and I will be dressing up as Santa and running 4km in support of the Sunshine Fund and Zoe's Place Baby Hospice. You can support these good causes by clicking on the links. There are more details on the event here. 

Charles Fernyhoughnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5169732794097093299.post-52272281621159629772008-11-22T08:00:00.004Z2008-11-22T08:17:05.742Z

I've been speaking this week to Isabel Berwick from the FT, who is interested in the particular phenomenon that is Horrid Henry. You can read her piece here. Like Isabel, I am intrigued by the apparent lack of moral structure in these stories, but I think it makes a bit more sense when we think about what young readers are having to do in terms of entering the storyworld of the books. This is one

Charles Fernyhoughnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5169732794097093299.post-663338690948862212008-11-18T10:28:00.000Z2008-11-18T10:36:23.528Z

Children and silence: surely two incompatible notions. As followers of this blog will know, I have spent much of my time recently arguing that young children's thought processes are all on the outside, at least initially. Children conduct their dialogues of thought externally, for all to hear. For this reason alone, being with a toddler is a noisy place to be.But it somehow feels odd to be

Charles Fernyhoughnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5169732794097093299.post-43346912450785121692008-11-05T12:30:00.004Z2008-11-18T09:58:25.198Z

I've been blogging away from home this week, on the topic of tonight's radio talk. You can see my post on the School of Life's blog by clicking here. I'll be saying more on the topic at our IAS-sponsored Thinking with Feeling workshop in Durham on Saturday.

Charles Fernyhoughnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5169732794097093299.post-13765907401586398962008-10-29T13:30:00.002Z2008-11-18T09:58:43.258Z

The talk mentioned in the previous post will be broadcast on Radio 3 at 11pm on Wednesday 5th November. You can see a few more details here.

Charles Fernyhoughnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5169732794097093299.post-68064591341093600622008-10-28T09:28:00.003Z2008-10-28T09:41:41.863Z

I write this on a train to London, where I'm due to record a talk for Radio 3 on children's thinking. I'll be talking about Vygotsky's theory of inner speech development and drawing some connections to the experience of voice-hearing. I'll post further details on the talk when I know them. Writing the talk has made me think a lot about how we might get more reliable information about young

Charles Fernyhoughnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5169732794097093299.post-37129570931795120362008-10-19T08:21:00.004+01:002008-10-19T08:55:24.097+01:00

Join me tomorrow (Monday 20 October) for a talk at Café Scientifique, Urban Café, Dance City, Newcastle upon Tyne. My title will be 'How Studying Children's Minds Leads to Big Ideas', and I will be focusing on some biggies like identity, rationality, love and God. The event is free and you can just show up; no need to book. The Newcastle Journal ran a piece by me on Saturday, unfortunately not

Charles Fernyhoughnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5169732794097093299.post-54035746117237041522008-10-17T08:14:00.005+01:002008-10-17T09:09:59.466+01:00

'Daddy. I've got to tell you what I did last night when you were out.'He has come into our bed for a cuddle. It is a dark early morning, and nobody really wants to get up.'OK,' I yawn. 'What did you do?''I made something. It's to do with making.''What did you make?''I made a r... r... r...'I know this game, because we play it with him all the time. We keep in mind the idea we want him to guess,

Charles Fernyhoughnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5169732794097093299.post-65398010505257000942008-10-13T11:37:00.005+01:002008-10-14T08:47:57.418+01:00

'Did God get the world started and the builders finished it?'  And so we have frequently, in recent months, come to debate the Big Fella's role in furnishing us with what there is. I am pretty convinced about evolution by natural selection, although I did spend much of my Cambridge interview trying to convince the indulgent don opposite that the universe had not been around long enough for us to

Charles Fernyhoughnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5169732794097093299.post-57577752662742384492008-10-05T13:46:00.002+01:002008-10-05T13:51:04.757+01:00

Many thanks to all who have been following the blog. I'm constantly looking for ways to improve it, so if you have ideas about things to be included or changes to make then please let me know. You can find me on Facebook here, or you can send an email through my website by clicking here. Otherwise just leave a comment on this post. I look forward to hearing from you! 

Charles Fernyhoughnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5169732794097093299.post-40057094182126001932008-09-30T20:13:00.001+01:002008-09-30T20:35:46.205+01:00

Two BBC journalists have posted an intriguing video of an informal experiment carried out in what I guess is their journalistic HQ. The film shows them acting as mum and dad to a kind of robot dinosaur called a Pleo. I'm not sure what AI wizardry makes the Pleo's behaviour so lifelike, but it is certainly convincing. Of most interest to me, though, is the contrast the film draws between two

Charles Fernyhoughnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5169732794097093299.post-29005167545320878772008-09-26T17:02:00.001+01:002008-09-26T17:16:30.500+01:00

Angelique Richardson has also responded to Alison Gopnik's TLS review, mentioned in a previous post. She draws our attention to 'one fine child psychologist', Charles Darwin, quoting from his 1873 work The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals. Darwin was indeed a pioneer of infant observation, which was most memorably documented in his short article 'A biographical sketch of an infant',

Charles Fernyhoughnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5169732794097093299.post-56288655703797001782008-09-20T08:10:00.000+01:002008-09-20T08:10:43.176+01:00

The arrival of hard-disc recording has transformed our television habits. No matter how enthralling the programme—try dragging Athena away from an episode of the Australian kids-soap Mortified, for example—a press of the button will freeze it in time and unfreeze it when it is safe for the action to resume. Usually the hiatus lasts only as long as it takes to communicate essential orders about

Charles Fernyhoughnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5169732794097093299.post-76830447450915630752008-09-15T20:41:00.004+01:002008-09-15T20:55:43.225+01:00

Avid readers of the TLS will have noticed that it recently carried a review of The Baby in the Mirror by Alison Gopnik. You can read Gopnik's review here. I responded to the review and the letter was published this week. You can read my response here.

Charles Fernyhoughnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5169732794097093299.post-40851035870707705952008-09-05T11:30:00.002+01:002008-09-05T12:06:55.337+01:00

'Is playing with my train set using my brain?' Isaac asks. I blame the video games for this current obsession. His activities now divide neatly into those that involve using your brain and those that don't. Colouring and looking at storybooks are good because they employ your grey matter; playing Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games confers no such benefits. Ever since he discovered Athena's

Charles Fernyhoughnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5169732794097093299.post-68023643418609439812008-08-30T14:01:00.001+01:002008-08-30T14:02:15.634+01:00

I talked in an earlier post about the idea that we come to understand other people's mental states through learning to project ourselves, through imagination, into the point of view of another person. In gaining a grasp of my mental states, Athena has to learn to novelise me, or run a mental simulation of my own beliefs, desires and intentions in order to predict and understand how I will act,

Charles Fernyhoughnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5169732794097093299.post-68864073801601589552008-08-24T10:24:00.002+01:002008-08-24T10:27:22.879+01:00

My websites are back on line. You can view my home site here and the microsite for The Baby in the Mirror here. Please do pay a visit. 

Charles Fernyhoughnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5169732794097093299.post-73065974942580874772008-08-20T18:17:00.000+01:002008-08-20T18:28:49.306+01:00

We are not killjoy parents when it comes to life's small pleasures. Sweets are allowed in moderation, and fizzy drinks occasionally (I personally find Coke the perfect hangover cure, so couldn't exactly ban it without looking like the vilest hypocrite). Our kitchen/living-room often jitters to the sound of video games. The kids are allowed to watch TV, although we try to steer them away from the

Charles Fernyhoughnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5169732794097093299.post-9958379948015587872008-08-16T09:10:00.002+01:002008-08-16T09:13:30.022+01:00

Apologies if you were looking for my website or the Baby in the Mirror microsite. I am arranging new hosting for these and am hoping they'll be up and running in a week or so. You'll be able to read about the book on this blog in the meantime. 

Charles Fernyhoughnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5169732794097093299.post-57154533995070252692008-08-12T19:24:00.013+01:002008-08-13T12:12:12.458+01:00

More adventures for precocious, adverbally-challenged Lola in Lauren Child's I am too absolutely small for school. In this story, Lola's big brother Charlie is trying to persuade her that she needs to join him in getting a school education. As usual, Lola has plenty of reasons why she doesn't need to bother with all that classroom rubbish. In desperation, Charlie suggests that going to school

Charles Fernyhoughnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5169732794097093299.post-52185164911794196632008-08-09T15:25:00.012+01:002008-08-09T21:32:51.781+01:00

I'm pleased to see that Roddy Woomble at the Sunday Herald has been enjoying the book as he prepares for fatherhood. His comments on the commercialisation of modern parenthood put me in mind of Pamela Paul's recent exposé of the 'billion-dollar baby business' in her book Parenting Inc. You can read a Guardian interview with Paul here. I confess that I wasn't familiar with Woomble's current

Charles Fernyhoughnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5169732794097093299.post-49040049844737187402008-08-01T09:39:00.006+01:002008-12-10T16:09:18.952Z

I was pleased to see the School of Life's website and blog launched this week. Working from its amazing premises and shop in Bloomsbury, the School is offering courses, holidays, consultations with experts and much more, all aimed at helping people to explore ideas relevant to their lives. I co-wrote the Family course, which will be running for the first time in November. One of the most

Charles Fernyhoughnoreply@blogger.com0