today I want to confess something to you
but first of all I'm going to ask you a
couple of questions how many people here
have children and how many of you are
confident that you know how to bring up
your children in exactly the right way
okay I don't see too many hands going up
on that second one and that's my
confession too I've got three boys
they're three nine and twelve and like
you and like most parents the honest
truth is I have pretty much no idea what
I'm doing I know I want them to be happy
and healthy in their lives but I don't
really know what I'm supposed to do to
make sure that they are happy and
healthy I mean there's so many books out
there offering all kinds of conflicting
advice it can be really overwhelming so
I've spent most of their lives just
making it up as I go along however
something changed me a few years ago
when I came across a little secret that
we haven't written it's helped me become
more confident about how I bring up my
own children and it's revealed a lot
about how we as a society can help all
children I want to share that secret
with you today for the last 70 years
scientists and Britain have been
following thousands and thousands of
children through their lives as part of
an incredible scientific study there's
nothing quite like it anywhere else in
the world collecting information on
thousands of children is a really
powerful thing to do because it means we
can compare the ones who say do well at
school or end up happy or healthy or
wealthy as adults and the ones who
struggle much more and then we can sift
through all the information we've
collected and try to work out why their
lives turned out different this British
study it's actually a kind of crazy
story so it all starts back in 1946 just
a few months after the end of the war
when scientists wanted to know what it
was like for women to have a baby at the
time they carried out this huge survey
of mothers and ended up recording the
birth of nearly every baby born in
England Scotland and Wales in one week
that was nearly 14 thousand babies the
questions they asked these women back
then are very different than the ones we
might ask today they sound really
old-fashioned now they ask them things
like during pregnancy did
get your full extra ration of a pint of
milk a day how much did you spend on
smokes corsets night dresses knickers
and brassieres and this is my favorite
one who looked after your husband while
you were in bed with this baby now this
war time study actually ended up being
so successful that scientists did it
again they recorded the births of
thousands of babies born in 1958 and
thousands more in 1970 they did it again
in the early 1990s and again at the turn
of the millennium altogether more than
70,000 children have been involved in
these studies across those five
generations they called the British
birth cohorts and scientists have gone
back and recorded more information on
all of these people every few years ever
since the amount of information that's
now being collected on these people is
just completely mind-boggling it
includes thousands of paper
questionnaires and terabytes worth of
computer data scientists have also built
up a huge Bank of tissue samples which
includes locks of hair nail clippings
baby teeth and DNA they've even
collected 9,000 placentas from some of
the births which are now pickled in
plastic buckets in a secure storage
warehouse this whole project has become
unique so no other country in the world
is tracking generations of children in
quite this detail these are some of the
best studied people on the planet and
the data has become incredibly valuable
for scientists generating well over
6,000 academic papers and books but
today I want to focus on just one
finding perhaps the most important
discovery to come from this remarkable
study and it's also the one that spoke
to me personally because it's about how
to use science to do the best for our
children so let's get the bad news out
the way first perhaps the biggest
message from this remarkable study is
this don't be born into poverty and when
to disadvantage because if you are
you're far more likely to walk a
difficult path in life many children in
this study were born into poor families
or into working-class families that had
cramped homes or other problems and it's
clear now
that those disadvantaged children have
been more likely to struggle on almost
every score they've been more likely to
do worse at school to land up with worse
jobs and to earn less money now maybe
that sounds really obvious but some of
the results have been really surprising
so children who had a tough start in
life also more likely to end up
unhealthy as adults they're more likely
to be overweight to have high blood
pressure and then decades down the line
more likely to have a failing memory
poor health and even to die earlier now
I talked about what happens later but
some of these differences emerged to
really shockingly early age in one study
children who were growing up in poverty
were almost a year behind the Richer
children on educational tests and that
was by the age of just three these types
of differences have been found again and
again across the generations it means
that our early circumstances have a
profound influence on the way that the
rest of our lives play out and working
out why that is is one of the most
difficult questions that we face today
so there we have it
first lesson for successful life
everyone is this choose your parents
very carefully don't be born into a poor
family or into a struggling family now
I'm sure you can see the small table
here we can't choose our parents or how
much they earn
but this British study has also struck a
real note of optimism by showing that
not everyone who has a disadvantage
start ends up in difficult circumstances
as you know many people have a tough
start in life but they end up doing very
well on some measure nevertheless and
this study starts to explain how so the
second lesson is this parents really
matter in this study children who had
engaged interested parents once who had
ambition for their future were more
likely to escape from a difficult start
it seems that parents and what they do
are really really important especially
in the first few years of life let me
give you an example of that in one study
scientists looked at about 17,000
children who were born in 1970 they
sifted all the mountains of data that
they had collected to try to work out
what allowed the children who'd had a
difficult start in
I have to go on and do well at school
nevertheless in other words which one's
beat the odds the data showed that what
matters more than anything else was
parents having engaged interested
parents in those first few years of life
were strongly linked to children going
on to do well at school later on in fact
quite small things that parents do are
associated with good outcomes for
children talking and listening to a
child responding to them warmly teaching
them their letters and numbers taking
them on trips and visits reading to
children every day seems to be really
important too so in one study children
whose parents were reading to them daily
when they were 5 and then showing an
interest in their education at the age
of 10 were significantly less likely to
be in poverty at the age of 30 than
those whose parents weren't doing those
things now there are huge challenges
with interpreting this type of science
these studies show that certain things
that parents do are correlated with good
outcomes for children but we don't
necessarily know that those behaviors
cause the good outcomes or whether some
other factor is getting in the way for
example we have to take genes into
account and that's a whole other talk in
itself but scientists working with this
British study are working really hard to
get it causes and this is one study I
particularly love in this one they
looked at the bedtime routines of about
10,000 children born at the turn of the
millennium with the children going to
bed at regular times or did they go to
bed at different times during the week
the data showed that those children who
were going to bed at different times
were more likely to have behavioral
problems and then those that switch to
having regular bedtimes often showed an
improvement in behavior and that was
really crucial because it suggested it
was the bedtime routines that were
really helping things get better for
those kids here's another one to think
about in this one scientists looked at
children who were reading for pleasure
that means that they picked Arthur a
magazine a picture book a storybook the
data showed that children who were
reading for pleasure at the ages of 5
and 10 were more likely to go on and
score better on average on school tests
later in their lives and not just test
of reading but tests of spelling and
maths as well this study really tried to
control for all the confound
factors so it looked at children who
were equally intelligent and came from
the same social class background so it
seemed as if it was the reading which
really helped those children go on and
score better on those school tests later
in their lives now at the start I said
the first lesson from this study it was
not to be born into poverty or into
disadvantage because those children tend
to follow more difficult paths in their
lives but then I said that parenting
matters and that good parenting if you
can call it that helps children beat the
odds and overcome some of those early
disadvantages so wait does that actually
mean then that poverty doesn't matter
after all you could argue it doesn't
matter if a child is born poor as long
as their parents are good parents
they're going to do just fine I don't
believe that's true this study shows
that poverty and parenting matter and
one study actually put figures on that
so it looked at children who are growing
up in persistent poverty and how well
they were doing at school the data
showed that even when their parents were
doing everything right they were putting
me to bed on time reading to them every
day and everything else that only got
those children so far good parenting
only reduced the educational gap between
the rich and poor children by about 50%
now that means that poverty leaves a
really lasting scar and it means that if
we really want to ensure the success and
well-being of the next generation then
tackling child poverty is an incredibly
important thing to do now what does all
this mean for you and me are there
lessons here we can all take home and
use I mean as a scientist and a
journalist I'd like to have some science
to inform my parenting and I can tell
you that when you're shouting at your
kids to go to bed on time it really
helps to have the scientific literature
on your side
I wouldn't it be great to think that all
we had to do to have happy successful
children was to talk to them and be
interested in their future put them to
bed on time and give them a book to read
our job would be done now as you can
imagine the answers are quiet aren't
quite as simple as that
for one thing this study looks what
happens to thousands and thousands of
children on average but that doesn't
necessarily say what will help my child
or your child or any individual child in
the end each of our children is going to
walk their own
and that's partly defined by the genes
they inherit and of course all the
experiences they have through their
lives including their interactions with
us their parents I will tell you what I
did after I learnt all this it's a bit
embarrassing I realized I was so busy
working and ironically learning and
writing about this incredible study of
British children that there were days
when I hardly even spoke to my own
British children so at home we
introduced talking time which is just 15
minutes at the end of the day when we
talk and listen to the boys I try better
now to ask them what they did today and
to show that I value what they do at
school of course I make sure they always
have a book to read I tell them that I'm
ambitious for their future and I think
they can be happy and do great things I
don't know that any of that will make a
difference but I'm pretty confident it
won't do them any harm and it might even
do them some good ultimately if we want
happy children all we can do is listen
to the science and of course listen to
our children themselves thank you
[Applause]
[Music]