Right from the start
Investing in parents and babies
Alan Sinclair
Scotland languishes in the second division of global child well-being. One child in every four is judged to be ‘vulnerable’ when they enter primary school. How can this be in a nation where politicians’ aim is to ‘make Scotland the best place in the world to bring up children’?
In this powerful, sometimes shocking, book Alan Sinclair reveals the harm inflicted on so many of our youngest, most defenceless citizens through a toxic mix of poor parenting, bad health and a society focused on dealing with consequences rather than causes.
He explores the latest science which lays bare the traumas that babies can suffer from their parents’ behaviours and habits, even while still in the womb. And he starkly explains why we lag so far behind most of our European neighbours when it comes to loving young children.
But Sinclair also sets out a routemap for us to start putting children first in our society, by helping us all to become better parents.
a must read for every Scottish citizen Jackie Brock, Chief Executive Children in Scotland
understand this message and we have grounds for optimism
Matt Forde, Head of NSPCC Scotland
Alan Sinclair does Scotland and beyond a great service in writing this book Professor John Frank, Director Scottish Collaboration for Public Health Research and Policy
Alan Sinclair created the Glasgow-based Wise Group, the UK’s first social enterprise dedicated to providing jobs for long-term unemployed people. He has spent a decade investigating our national parenting challenge.