Writing

Blog

For Tim’s blog posts, head for this website’s home page. Use the archives, categories and tag links to browse or search. Subscribe – it’s free – to get new posts as soon as they are posted. ‘Like’ the home page to get feeds on Facebook.

Selected journalism

Tim contributes regularly to the Guardian‘s Comment is free website. Read his views on risk aversion, parents, early education, childhood in the UK, traffic and planning, bullying, adventure playgrounds, vetting and child protection and other topics.

The Guardian newspaper has also published these op-ed comment pieces (most are included in Tim’s CiF pages, though not all):

• ‘The end of zero risk in childhood?’ (July 11)
• ‘Cotton wool revolution’ (Oct 07)
• Nature play (Aug 05)
• Children’s moral development (April 05)
• The extinction of the outdoor child (Sept 04)

Feature articles:

• Risk and learning in the early years, Early Years Update magazine, reproduced here (Oct 10).
• Child-friendly neighbourhoods in Children and Young People Now magazine (Jul 10).
• ‘We don’t need no supervision’ Ode Magazine (Jan 08).
• Comment piece on child safety, Hello! Magazine (Dec 07) (true!)
• Ecologist magazine cover story on outdoor play (Sept 05). An edited version was published in the Independent. An edited version has also been published in the book Foundations of Playwork.

Selected academic & discussion papers

• ‘Risk, resilience and childhood freedoms: A plea for a balanced approach’
  Chapter in the publication Tussen Kind en Samenleving: Over het sociale actorschap van kinderen (Children and Society: On children’s social agency) published by Kind en Samenleving (2010, chapter in English).
• ‘Keeping it Real: Why and how educators should be expanding children’s horizons’
  Chapter in the publication Born Creative, edited by Charlie Tims and published by Demos (2010).
• ‘Space-oriented Children’s Policy: Creating Child-friendly Communities to Improve Children’s Well-being’
  Paper in Children & Society vol 22 issue 2 (2008). Subscription needed, or email Tim for a copy. A shorter version of the paper in the Smith Institute monograph – see below.
• ‘Children’s well-being in a changing world – are services an adequate response?’
  Chapter in the monograph Advancing Opportunity: Children, rights and social justice published by the Smith Institute (2007).
• ‘Home zones in the UK: History, policy and impact on children and youth’
  Paper published in Children, Youth and Environments vol 16 issue 1 (2006). Available to download in English and Japanese (thanks to Kenta Kubo).
• ‘UK Policy on Children: Key themes and implications’
  Co-author with Di McNeish; paper for Children’s Geographies, vol 4 issue 1 (2006). Subscription needed.
• ‘Play, child care and the road to adulthood’
  Paper in Children & Society vol 13 issue 1 (1999). Subscription needed.
• ‘Home zones’
  Paper in Children & Society vol 11 issue 4 (1997). Subscription needed.