Category: English

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Trudy Meehan, Lecturer, Centre for Positive Psychology and Health, RCSI University of Medicine and Health Sciences

When a man stabbed Jewish people in Golders Green, London, in what police declared a terrorist incident, the story spread fast – through news alerts, social media and the whispered conversations of anxious adults. When this happens, children notice.

Whether they catch a fragment of a TV bulletin, overhear a parent on the phone, or simply sense that something has shifted in the atmosphere at home, the news has a way of reaching them before they are ready. The question isn’t really whether to talk to children about violence and fear; it’s how.

First, it’s important to know that children have the resilience and capacity to process difficult topics, but bear in mind that this needs to happen in a supportive environment.

Start with safety. Ensure your child feels relaxed and secure. Safety comes from routines, keeping daily rhythms and practising rituals that remind everyone you are together and safe – for example, a nighttime story or song, a special time on the couch after dinner.

Your capacity to deal with issues like violence and fear is the most important factor in contributing to your child feeling safe during these conversations. If you feel overwhelmed or anxious, wait until you feel calmer and more grounded, or have someone to support you with the conversation.

Some families – particularly those who face racism or other forms of discrimination – will already be familiar with these conversations. But if this is new to you, the main thing to do is to be honest and clear. Be direct and specific. Avoid metaphors and euphemisms and vague ideas like “bad people”.

Adjust your language to the child’s age, but don’t overthink it. Simply pause often, ask questions, and watch their face for confusion.

Children don’t stay afraid for long. They move in and out of difficult feelings quickly, which is why short, repeated conversations work better than one big, serious talk.

Come back to them to check understanding and listen for misunderstandings. Ask them if they have any questions. And don’t be surprised if the child looks particularly bored or disinterested. Children prefer delight and joy and play rather than serious adult conversations. It doesn’t mean they are not listening or appreciating the explanation, it just means their priorities are elsewhere – and that’s a good thing.

Keeping children grounded amid fear

Limit media exposure and try to avoid talking about scary events around them – they are always listening and there’s huge room for misunderstanding when they hear rather than take part in conversations.

Research shows that if children are exposed to media and talk about fearful events, that it’s important what they hear is mediated through a supportive adult who can explain the content appropriately. They can pick up on the signs of fear and anxiety from adults, particularly in times of uncertainty, even if they can’t fully understand the words in the conversation.

Follow your child’s lead. Your job is to open the door. They decide whether to walk through it and when to leave. Don’t mistake silence for shutdown. Children often process fear through movement, play, singing, dancing, making and even breaking things.

It’s OK to say “I don’t know” to questions you can’t answer. And it’s OK to say: “I know the answer, but it’s too much information for you at your age, I’ll tell you a little bit now and explain more when I think you are old enough.”

Most important of all, for you and your child, look at your circle of safety. Remind your child they are safe here and now with you, that there is a community that you live in and link with who are there to support you and keep you safe. Focus on hope and efficacy and on what can we do right now for the future we want.

Trudy Meehan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. How to talk to children when terrorist attacks and violence dominate the news – https://theconversation.com/how-to-talk-to-children-when-terrorist-attacks-and-violence-dominate-the-news-281879

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Sarah Gerson, Lecturer in Developmental & Health Psychology, Cardiff University

What’s the point of play? Is it simply a way to keep children occupied, or something more? For some, it’s about learning literacy and numeracy. For others, it’s how friendships form and relationships deepen. But it can be all of these at once, and more.

Most parents recognise that play matters. But there’s less agreement on what kind of play is best. Should children be guided towards activities designed to build specific skills, like sports for coordination, or construction for maths and engineering? Or should the child’s own interests lead the way, regardless of perceived educational value?

Our research focuses on a type of play often dismissed as “just for fun” – playing with dolls. Across a series of studies, we found that doll play can help children understand other people’s thoughts and feelings. This is a skill that underpins social interaction throughout life.

There is pressure on parents to create the “right” environment for development, often filled with toys that promise clear educational outcomes. STEM-focused toys (science, technology, engineering and maths), in particular, are widely seen as beneficial for learning. Doll play, on the other hand, can be viewed as having little educational benefit.

Our findings challenge that assumption.

More than make-believe

When playing with dolls, children often play out scenes between characters. These may seem simple on the surface but could present opportunities for the child to develop social and emotional skills.

As parents, it seems obvious that playmates are important for building and learning about relationships and other people, and recognising others’ emotions (empathy). But what if children can develop these skills even when playing alone?

Previous studies have found that children who engage more in pretend play tend to have stronger social understanding and empathy. Earlier studies, however, didn’t often use controlled methods to separate out the different factors linking pretend play and social understanding.

So, we set out to test this more directly. We worked with children aged four to eight, assessing their ability to understand that others can hold different beliefs and desires to their own. This is an important milestone in social development. If children recognise that their own mental states may vary from others, this should help them better understand other people and know how to interact with them.

After that initial assessment session, children were randomly assigned either a set of dolls or a tablet with open-ended creative games. They were asked to play several times a week, with parents logging how and when play occurred. We didn’t instruct children how to play because we wanted to understand their natural behaviour.

Read more:
How realistic is Mattel’s new autistic Barbie?

After approximately six weeks, both sets of children came back and again completed the task about understanding others’ mental states. We found that the children who had been assigned dolls to play with, rather than tablets, showed a greater improvement in their understanding of others’ mental states during the intervening period.

The findings suggest that doll play can actively support the development of social understanding. This is consistent with prior research of ours showing that areas of the brain linked to social processing are activated during doll play, and that children use more language about thoughts and feelings when playing with dolls than when using tablets.

Why it matters beyond childhood

For parents, the message is reassuring – playing with dolls lets children practice skills that they can also use when playing with playmates, like understanding others, anticipating behaviour and responding appropriately.

These abilities matter far beyond childhood. They help us collaborate, resolve conflicts and navigate relationships. In a world that often feels increasingly divided, the capacity to see things from another person’s perspective is not just useful – it’s essential.

Sarah Gerson received funding for this project from Mattel Inc.

Ross E Vanderwert received funding from Mattel for this research.

Salim Hashmi received funding for this research from Mattel Inc.

– ref. Dolls beat screens for building children’s social skills, study finds – https://theconversation.com/dolls-beat-screens-for-building-childrens-social-skills-study-finds-280330

Source: The Conversation – UK – By David B Roberts, Associate Professor, School of Security Studies, King’s College London

Two months into the Iran war and the Strait of Hormuz is still mostly shut. Vessel traffic is running at a fraction of pre-war levels, with the patchwork of ceasefires, blockades and re-closures since February 28 not restoring confidence on the bridge of any tanker.

Hormuz has long been understood as one of the world’s central trade chokepoints. It normally carries around 20 million barrels of crude and oil products each day, as well as roughly a fifth of global liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports. A third of the world’s helium and a similar amount of the urea that ends up as fertiliser also pass through the strait.

Plans and projects to diversify away from Hormuz have been on drawing boards for decades, and those workarounds are now being stress-tested as never before. The bypass infrastructure is doing roughly what architects had hoped, providing around 3.5 million barrels to 5.5 million barrels a day of crude capacity.

But this is still nowhere near enough.

Hormuz workarounds

The most important pipeline on the planet right now runs across Saudi Arabia. The East-West Pipeline – also known as Petroline – was built in the 1980s during the original Tanker war, when Iran and Iraq attacked merchant vessels in the Gulf as part of their wider conflict.

The pipeline’s capacity was expanded to a 7 million barrel emergency ceiling in 2019. However, the loading terminals in the city of Yanbu on Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea coast were never designed to carry this much oil this fast, and analysts tracking tanker traffic estimate that less oil is currently flowing through the pipeline than its theoretical ceiling.

From Yanbu, oil bound for Europe still has to cross Egypt via the Sumed pipeline, which has a capacity of just 2.5 million barrels per day. Although oil flows through this pipeline have surged by 150% since the start of the war, its comparatively small capacity remains a binding constraint on European supply.

Iran noticed the geoeconomic importance of Petroline and has targeted it accordingly. An Iranian drone strike on a pumping station in April knocked 700,000 barrels a day offline. Saudi Aramco, the operator, had the line back at full capacity within three days. While the repair time is reassuring, the fact of the strike is not.

The other half of the Gulf bypass story runs through the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The Abu Dhabi Crude Oil Pipeline (Adcop) goes from Habshan to Fujairah on the Gulf of Oman side of the country. With a capacity of just under 2 million barrels per day, Adcop is the only major bypass that exits the Gulf directly into the Indian Ocean.

But as with Petroline, it has been targeted during the war. Iranian drone strikes on Fujairah on March 3, 14 and 16 set storage tanks on fire and suspended loadings. While Adcop offers some diversification for the UAE, it does not solve the targeting problem.

The situation is worse for the Gulf region’s other big oil producers. Iraq’s 3.4 million barrels per day of pre-war crude exports went almost entirely through the southern port city of Basra and the Strait of Hormuz.

There is one northern pipeline, connecting oil fields in Kirkuk to Ceyhan in Turkey. This pipeline was reopened in September 2025 after a two-and-a-half-year halt, with flows ramped up to 250,000 barrels a day in March. But this volume pales in comparison to what Iraq has lost.

Kuwait has it worse still. Pre-war crude exports ran at around 2 million barrels per day, with every barrel exiting through Hormuz. Kuwait has no pipeline alternative. Kuwait Petroleum Corporation declared force majeure in March, temporarily allowing it to suspend its obligations to meet delivery contracts.

This was extended on April 20, with the oil company saying it could not meet contractual obligations even if Hormuz reopened. Overcoming the damage that has been inflicted on Kuwait’s production base – and then ramping up production – will take months.

Qatar’s vulnerability is a different shape. Its pre-war crude exports were smaller than its Gulf neigbours, at around 0.6 million barrels per day. These exports all left Qatar via the strait. For Qatar, the story is gas. Its 77 million tonne LNG capacity at Ras Laffan is the largest in the world, supplying about 19% of global LNG trade. There is no alternative to shipping this gas through Hormuz.

Iran itself has built a Hormuz bypass: a 1,000-kilometre pipeline from Goreh at the head of the Gulf to a terminal at Jask on the Gulf of Oman. It is designed for 1 million barrels per day. But in practice, sanctions and unfinished terminal infrastructure have kept actual throughput at a fraction of design.

The US Energy Information Administration estimated that, in summer 2024, under 70,000 barrels per day were flowing through the pipeline. Loadings stopped altogether that September. According to Kpler, which provides real-time data on global shipping movements, only a single tanker – around two million barrels – has loaded at Jask in the war so far.

A call for more pipes in the Gulf, as there have been since the war began, is understandable. But it is no answer. Replicating Hormuz in pipelines would cost hundreds of billions of US dollars and a decade of construction. And at the end of it, new pipelines and terminals at Yanbu, Fujairah and wherever else would be no harder to reach with a drone than the old ones.

David B Roberts does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. What alternatives do Gulf states have to the Strait of Hormuz? – https://theconversation.com/what-alternatives-do-gulf-states-have-to-the-strait-of-hormuz-281805

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Gemma Ware, Host, The Conversation Weekly Podcast, The Conversation

Pope Leo’s words on Palm Sunday were pointed. “Jesus does not listen to the prayers of those who wage war”, he said during an address at the Vatican.

A few days later in early April, when Timothy Broglio, the archbishop for US military services, was asked on CBS’s Face the Nation if the Iran war is a “just war” in the tradition of the Catholic church, he said: “It is not. While there was a threat with nuclear arms, it’s compensating for a threat before the threat is actually realised.”

US Vice President JD Vance – a recent convert to Catholicism – and Mike Johnson, speaker of the House, pushed back, arguing that the conflict does fit within the church’s just war tradition.

Just war theory, first articulated by St Augustine in the fifth century, outlines the church’s moral guidelines for political and military leaders to consider before choosing to go to war. But it’s not static, and the church’s own position has become more restrictive in recent years.

In this episode of The Conversation Weekly podcast, Jerry Powers, the director of Catholic Peace Building Studies at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana, explains how the Catholic church’s just war tradition evolved and the influence it’s had on US military thinking. Powers was a senior advisor on international policy for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops during the Iraq war, and was involved in efforts to persuade the Bush administration not to invade.

He sets out the difficulty now facing Catholics serving in the US military, whose archbishop has now spoken out against the war they’re being asked to fight. “It puts military officers and especially soldiers in a real conundrum,” says Powers. “A soldier has no choice but to obey orders, and if you disobey orders you could very serious repercussions. The officer question is a different one because officers are more senior, and I think officers have to just resign their commission if at some point, they think this is an immoral war.”

Listen to the interview with Jerry Powers on The Conversation Weekly podcast. This episode of The Conversation Weekly was written and produced by Katie Flood and Mend Mariwany and the executive producer was Gemma Ware. Mixing by Eleanor Brezzi and theme music by Neeta Sarl.

Newsclips in this episode from CB S News, AP Archive, BBC, CBS Sunday Morning, ABC News, Rome Reports, KREM 2 News, MS NOW and WUSA 9.

Listen to The Conversation Weekly via any of the apps listed above, download it directly via our RSS feed or find out how else to listen here. A transcript of this episode is available via the Apple Podcasts or Spotify apps.

Gerard F. Powers received a grant from the Nuclear Threat Initiative that helped support the Catholic Peacebuilding Network’s Project on Revitalizing Catholic Engagement on Nuclear Disarmament. He is an expert consultant (unpaid) to the Holy See Mission to the UN. From 1987-2004, Powers was a senior advisor on international policy for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

– ref. What is a just war? Inside the war of words between the Trump administration and the Catholic church​ – https://theconversation.com/what-is-a-just-war-inside-the-war-of-words-between-the-trump-administration-and-the-catholic-church-281788

Source: The Conversation – UK – By Joey Baxter, PhD Candidate in Biosciences, University of Sheffield

To mark International Dawn Chorus day we’ve asked wildlife experts to make their case for why their favourite songbird deserves your vote. Cast your vote in the poll at the end of the article and let us know why in the comments. We hope their words will inspire you to step outside and soak up some birdsong this spring.

Song thrush

Championed by Cannelle Tassin de Montaigu, Research Fellow in Ecology and Evolution, University of Sussex

When people talk about the UK’s best bird songs they often go straight for the big names – loud, dramatic performers that grab your attention. But quietly in the background is the song thrush, a bird whose song is far more impressive than it first appears.

What sets the song thrush apart is not volume or flair, but structure. Its song is built from short, clear phrases, each repeated two or three times before moving on. It’s as if the bird is politely checking that its audience is paying attention. In a dawn chorus that often feels a bit chaotic, there’s something refreshingly organised about it. It’s a bird that’s actually thought things through.

It might not have the dramatic flair of the common nightingale, and it’s less showy than some of the usual favourites. There are no soaring crescendos or dramatic flourishes. But that’s part of its charm. The song is neat, rhythmic and surprisingly memorable once you start listening for it.

In the early morning soundscape, where many birds seem determined to out-sing one another, the song thrush isn’t trying to steal the spotlight. It just quietly does its thing, and does it very well. Underrated? Definitely. Worth your vote? I’d say so.

Robin

Championed by Judith Lock, Principal Teaching Fellow in Ecology and Evolution University of Southampton

The European robin is a delightfully common sight in gardens. You will very likely have heard the characteristic “tic”, followed by a tuneful verse lasting a few seconds. In noisy urban environments they sing louder, less complex songs, in order to be heard.

The male robins use their spring song (January to June) to signal their quality to females, then forming breeding pairs, and to signal competitive ability to other males. The spring song lasts one to three seconds, composed of four to six short motifs. They have an impressive repertoire of about 1,300 motifs, indicating that song is the particularly important for robins, in comparison to birds that rely more on colourful plumage or behavioural displays to communicate with each other.

Most birds sing mainly in the morning but robins sing all day. People often mistake their lovely evening song for a nightingale’s. Constant territory defence from non-migrating robins means that the robin song is a year-round soundtrack too. From July to December, both males and females sing the autumn song, of higher-pitched long, descending notes, with interspersed warbles. This song is to defend their individual winter territories. This indicates that song first evolved first in songbirds to ensure survival, before it became a signal used by males for reproduction. Each robin’s song is dynamic, constantly changing in response to the condition and age of the bird, and their rival.

Great tit

Championed by Josh Firth, Associate Professor of Behavioural Ecology, University of Leeds

Its song may not be as flashy as the nightingale or as poetically melancholy as the blackbird. But scientists have been taught so much by the great tit’s song, heard across British habitats from ancient woodlands to urban gardens. This spring marks 80 continuous years of UK-based scientists studying great tits at Wytham Woods, Oxford, the world’s longest-running study of individually-marked animals.

The unique dataset includes a family tree totaling over 100,000 great tits, with some birds’ lineages traceable back 37 generations. Early research on
Wytham’s great tits during 1970s-1980s resulted in some the first studies to inform the scientific world about how bird song can help males find mates and defend territories, how larger song repertoires can bring more reproductive success, and how young birds learn these repertoires from neighbours (not just their fathers).

And a pioneering study published in 1987 taught us how male great tit song even tracks female fertility, increasing their singing efforts as their female partner’s egg-laying period approaches, and then quietening after she starts laying. Modern technological advances are allowing insight into the hidden meaning embedded in great tits’ songs. In-depth processing of 109,000 recordings of great tit songs has revealed how each bird’s melody tells the story of their own identity as well as that of their local culture and social circles.

A great tit’s age also affects their song: older males keep singing rarer, fading song types while younger birds adopt newer ones. So, Britain’s greatest song belongs to the great tit’s “teacher-teacher” call, for all it has taught us, and for all we have left to learn.

Chaffinch

Championed by Joey Baxter, PhD Candidate in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Sheffield

Why change a winning formula? As far as I’m concerned, the chaffinch sings the biggest banger that UK birds have to offer. While the blackcap attempts to impress with ostentatious bells and whistles, the chaffinch keeps things simple with a catchy riff. Where the starling goes for quantity and novelty, with a frankly plagiaristic repertoire of mimicry, the chaffinch goes for quality, singing proudly in the knowledge that it is delivering a true earworm.

Bubbling trills accelerate before tumbling downwards, slowing to rich watery chirps and finishing with the final flourish. This jaunty lick, the real hook of the song, is often punctuated by an upward inflection at its end, the rising intonation giving it the air of an unanswered question. The chaffinch’s song has rhythm, it has melody, and it’s instantly recognisable. It possesses the wisdom that sometimes it is better not to do everything, but to do one thing well.

Joey Baxter receives funding from UK Research & Innovation (UKRI), via the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC).

Josh Firth receives from UK Research & Innovation (UKRI), via the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC).

Cannelle Tassin de Montaigu and Judith Lock do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Which bird has the best song? These experts think they know – https://theconversation.com/which-bird-has-the-best-song-these-experts-think-they-know-281259