Society 'fails to value childhood'

British society's ambivalent attitude towards children is responsible for many of the problems it faces today, according to Professor Al Aynsley-Green, the Department of Health's national clinical director for children. Speaking in London last week at Early Intervention, Early Prevention, the first annual conference of the National Pyramid Trust for Children, Professor Aynsley-Green said, 'Many of the difficulties we find reflect society's failure to recognise the value of childhood.' He told delegates they should feel just as much outrage today as Victorian social reformers did about children forced to work in mills and mines, because the society we live in...