Letters: Mental health

These children are not ill, just in need of care and discipline

Sir: Your headline "Children on the edge" (21 June) is yet another attempt to stigmatise children by labelling them mentally ill, when, in reality, they are merely not receiving adequate care or attention. The example you give of a "mental illness" is a "spread of stealing, lying and disobedience". When I grew up this was regarded as fairly typical behaviour amongst children who hadn't been taught any better.

In order to learn self-discipline it is necessary to be disciplined. It is disgraceful that the health professionals are all too happy to label children who are subject to poor parenting "mentally ill" because parents think it proper to relinquish all personal responsibility.

To tell a child who misbehaves that he or she is sick, rather than acting irresponsibility, to put a child on Prozac or offer therapy rather than give him or her due love and attention from its parents will only create a future generation who refuse to be accountable for their actions.

ECCY DE JONGE

LONDON WC1

Sir: Vivienne Nathanson states: "There is no one reason why childhood mental health disorders are on the rise" (21 June). The unhappiness that many children feel does indeed express itself in many different ways. At the bottom of it all though, there is one fundamental reason for their lack of identity and focus. Our society credits parents with none of the status and capability to do their important job which they need to do it well.

Adults may be respected and supported for what they do in paid employment but not for their crucial, unpaid role as mothers and fathers. They are constantly being told they should be somewhere apart from their children and that paid "experts" know their children and how to bring them up better than they do. Little wonder then, that many parents lack confidence in their own role to such an extent that many feel they have no moral authority on which to base parenting decisions.

If this administration is really serious about reducing the levels of mental health disorders among children it will stop trying to separate them from their parents by instituting wall-to-wall "day care", give proper tax allowances in respect of a parent who is looking after children full-time and refrain from voicing its opinions on how children should be brought up.

Until we allow parents to regain confidence in their all-important role, we will have increasingly frightening levels of mental, emotional and social problems among children.

KAREN RODGERS

CAMBRIDGE

A better way to deal with sex offenders

Sir: Johann Hari ("Paedophiles need help not persecution", 22 June) makes a hard-hitting and persuasive case against "Megan's Law". He is absolutely right to highlight, in contrast, the success of projects such as the Circles of Support and Accountability scheme, which Quaker Peace and Social Witness runs in Thames Valley, in partnership with police, probation and prisons. Circles of Support and Accountability has over a hundred trained volunteers working in that area to keep the community safer, each allocated to a small "circle" around a sex offender. Such has been the success that we are expanding this work into Hampshire.

QPSW is also supporting groups of people in various other parts of the country who want to start similar projects. Organisations such as the Lucy Faithfull Foundation and Community Chaplaincy are involved too. It feels as if there is a real groundswell of opinion which sees this as a more constructive way to involve the community in keeping children and adults safe from sexual abuse.

HELEN DREWERY

ASSISTANT GENERAL SECRETARY QUAKER PEACE AND SOCIAL WITNESS, LONDON NW1

Sir: Yet again we see a typically knee-jerk reaction to a judicial and criminal justice problem. A junior minister at the Home Office is to be sent to the USA to explore further the possibilities of community notification of serious sex offenders.

If they had been consulted I'm sure Home Office professional advisers would have alerted ministers to a quite extensive literature on this topic and the likely difficulties to be encountered if such notification was to be implemented (see for example the paper by Thomas in The Howard Journal, July 2003).

When will our politicians (and more especially Home Secretaries) learn to think before they act? One cannot be confident in any attempts to learn from American practice; sadly a country that does not currently have a very liberal and well thought-out approach to many aspects of criminal justice.

PROFESSOR HERSCHEL PRINS

MIDLANDS CENTRE FOR CRIMINOLOGY AND CRIMINAL JUSTICE LOUGHBOROUGH UNIVERSITY

Bring back direct grant schools

Sir: You say in your leading article (15 June) that it is "politically unrealistic" to consider bringing back the grammar schools. Why? Surely you are merely following the PC line about this.

I was one of the beneficiaries of the direct grant system in Bristol. I was appalled when my old school (Bristol Cathedral School) was confronted by the city council with the options of closure or becoming a sixth-form college (which would have eliminated the choir school), and I therefore reluctantly supported the school's decision to go fully independent.

The social consequences for the school were disastrous: as a direct grant it had drawn pupils from the whole community, irrespective of class or income: as an independent its social base contracted to the children of the well-to-do. Thanks to its own generous scholarship schemes (supported by its alumni) it is now recovering. But I suspect that all involved with the school (and with the other former direct grants in the city) would be delighted to return to something like direct grant status.

The abolition of the direct grants - which offered a real chance of upward mobility - has prevented me from ever voting Labour, nor can I bring myself to vote for the other main parties who are also too in thrall to political correctness to reverse that tragic decision.

The direct grant scheme could be recreated more or less overnight: the old terms could be offered to the old direct grants and to foundation schools and others who wished to participate and could raise a minimum amount of sponsorship from the local community. If we do not revert to some kind of selection we can only look forward to educational, social and economic decline.

BILL PROCTOR

CHISLEHURST, KENT

Sir: Richard Tice, of London W1, says that "the comprehensive system has utterly failed to deliver the social mobility and equality its supporters hoped for" (letter, 21 June). I challenge the existence of the comprehensive education system in W1 or anywhere else in the country. Far from bringing children together, this government has not just allowed segregation of the next generation but has actively supported it. Our laws encourage segregation by gender, by religion and by parental ambition. Show me a real comprehensive school and then let's pass judgment.

MAGGIE HUMPHREYS

LIVERPOOL

Service people who turn against war

Sir: Deborah Orr's piece "Look how far we have travelled down the wrong road in Britain and the US" (17 June) incorrectly claims that the Armed Forces Bill will be tantamount to making conscientious objection a crime. This could not be further from the truth.

Conscientious objection is not and never will be a crime. There is a well-established appeal procedure for Service personnel who develop a genuine conscientious objection to be discharged on compassionate grounds. We have absolutely no plans to alter this.

I believe you have confused this issue with the entirely separate subject of desertion. Under present Service law, desertion is an offence punishable by a maximum penalty of life imprisonment. Under the Armed Forces Bill it will remain an offence, but life imprisonment will only apply in the most serious of cases.

When approved, the Bill will modernise and harmonise the three separate Acts that have provided the basis of Service discipline since the 1950s. This intention was announced in 1998 in the Strategic Defence Review. Therefore, it is also nonsense to suggest that the timing of the Bill is linked to Iraq.

TOM WATSON MP

UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE MINISTRY OF DEFENCE LONDON SW1

Etiquette for cyclists meeting pedestrians

Sir: John Davy (letter, 19 June) suggests the voice is the best warning device for cyclists, rather than a tinging bell. I agree, but how about a bit of politeness as well? I find that "Excuse me, please," followed by "Thank you," works well.

BOB STEPHENS

BOVEY TRACEY, DEVON

Sir: My route to work takes me along a lane popular with students on foot. If I ring my bell as I approach from behind it induces irregular walking behaviour: they start zigzagging ahead of me. Most inconvenient. I blame J K Rowling and Diagon Alley.

PETER SHAW

SCHOOL OF BIOMEDICAL SCIENCES UNIVERSITY OF NOTTINGHAM

Sir: Charles Hunt (letter, 22 June) asks about rules for cycling on the pavement. Whatever he decides to do, I hope he doesn't copy a cyclist who nearly ran me down this morning on a busy pavement in our urban village. "Watch where you're going!" he shouted as I jumped out of his way.

JANE BARRY

BIRMINGHAM

Islamic 'lifestyle' imposed by force

Sir: Thanks but no thanks. Many of us have fled the Islamic "lifestyle" Dominic Lawson advocates for Britain (Opinion, 20 June). Islamic laws are anything but lifestyle choices. They are imposed by brute force.

The penalty for gambling, doing drugs and drinking alcohol is execution under Islamic law and so too is it for having an affair, acts incompatible with chastity, apostasy, blasphemy, and so on.

With the rise of the influence of political Islam in the heart of Europe, Mr Lawson should be very careful what he wishes for.

MARYAM NAMAZIE

LONDON WC1

Sir: I was aghast at Dominic Lawson's article. It appears the man has come through a time-portal direct from the 17th century, advocating arranged marriages and the prohibition of gambling in a way not seen in this country since Cromwell. These social ethics, now thankfully long overturned, undermine the core values of liberal democracy, those of personal autonomy and choice, which have been fought for tirelessly for the last century.

If we want to see the real "benefits" of Islamic society we need only look to the Middle East, where tensions are caused almost entirely by some inter-religious dispute or other.

MEREDITH LLOYD

BATH

Sir: Dominic Lawson's article was thought provoking, but like many columns written about Islamic traditions, it makes mistakes about the nature of Islam.

Arranged marriage is not a religious requirement in Islam, like prayer and haj. The British media confuses Islamic religious prescriptions with traditions practiced by Muslims from certain cultures. Not all Muslim peoples practice arranged marriage, and indeed not all arranged marriage occurs in Muslim communities.

NADIA IDLE

HARROW, MIDDLESEX

Face it: climate change is coming

Sir: Yes, I have worked out the implications of constantly rising temperatures and no, I'm not all right, Jack. I'm as concerned as R J Snell (letter, 19 June) about polar melt-down and all the other consequences of global warming.

It is not a question of "allowing it to happen"; chaos is what climate scientists predict will happen, even if we and all the other countries fulfil the terms of the Kyoto protocol. Therefore we need to act now to save everyone in this world, rich and poor. We must protect all of humanity from the consequences of climate change, not waste our time searching for a silver bullet to solve realities we cannot bear to face up to.

ANTHONY DAY

YORK

National sloth

Sir: Congratulations to Mary Dejevsky for pricking the grossly hyped football bubble (Opinion, 21 June). What she fails to mention is that the so-called national game remains largely a spectator sport. The ever-increasing attention that it receives in the media is matched by an equally relentless increase in the average national girth.

ANTHONY CAMPBELL

LONDON N14

Blair's Boeing

Sir: You report that Blair Force One is "likely to be a Boeing 737". I guess that means a Boeing Business Jet (BBJ), which is based on the 737. But our very own Airbus makes just such a machine. It is called the Airbus Corporate Jet (ACJ); it is based on the Airbus A-320 family and it is selling well to corporate travellers and aircraft leasers. Surely it couldn't be that Mr Blair wants the world to think that the UK supports the US over Europe?

SEAN MAFFETT

BOURTON-ON-THE-WATER, GLOUCESTERSHIRE

Britain's bomb

Sir: Gordon Brown has nailed his colours to the mast over the costly replacement of the Trident missile system. This is a blow to peace and to non-proliferation. How can we criticise Iran when we fail to meet our obligations under the Non-Proliferation Treaty? How can anyone committed to peace now remain in the Labour Party and support Brown for 10 years?

ROB JARRETT

HOVE, EAST SUSSEX

Even chance

Sir: Whilst I can see where Steve Connor is coming from in his article on the termination of foetuses which may potentially carry the Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy defective gene ("IVF: the next generation", 19 June), it is disingenuous for him to say that there is only a 50:50 chance of the gene being passed to the son. I'm sure if he were to have an operation (or develop a crippling terminal disease) in which there was a 50:50 chance of survival he might think the probability a little more significant.

LAWRENCE EAST

LONDON SE10

Canadian heroes

Sir: In response to your feature on superheroes (21 June), I feel that I have to say that you didn't do quite enough research. Captain Canuck may certainly be a pale imitation of Captain America, but Wolverine is Canadian - and he's nobody's copy.

T MILROSE

WORTHING, WEST SUSSEX

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