100% Attendance Awards are growing in popularity with most UK primary and secondary schools now using them to encourage better attendance and less truanting by pupils. Some schools are spending upwards of 25K a year on rewards such as IPods, bicycles and Kindles, and are convinced that the spike in...

I don't mean to show off or anything. I mean, I'm not the sort of parent who is forever boasting about her offspring's achievements on Facebook - you know, 'well done to my little Jamie for getting a distinction in his piano exam!'. But, I'm sure you will all agree...

Actually, my daughter is not technically a teenager. At 11 and a half, she is classed as a 'tween'; that awkward, in between stage that all would-be teens must endure, when they oscillate (quite violently sometimes) between the sweet little child they were and the attitudinal angst-fest that they will...

My Facebook pal, Debbie, in America was at a drive-thru Starbucks the other day. Nothing unusual in that, but this time, when she put her order in, she was informed that the car in front of her had paid her bill. The car in front had 'paid it forward' -...

Here in Manchester and other parts of the UK, many of us have been in a state of deep disappointment for over a week now. Whilst most of the UK has been buried in inches of the white stuff, our little pocket protected by the Pennines, has escaped most of...

Road rage, car rage, plane rage... there seems to be a rage for everything these days! Rarely a week goes by without some report in the media about someone who has 'lost it' as the red mist descended. There are angry people in supermarkets (trolley rage), on buses, in cinemas,...

Returning to work in the New Year can seem very boring compared to the excitement of Christmas. Traditionally, workplace boredom has been associated with negative outcomes, like poor performance, more errors and de-motivated staff.

Yet boredom, like most emotions which I study, has a purpose and despite widely held views...