Top 10 facts about children

TODAY is Universal Children’s Day, celebrated annually on November 20, the date of adoption in 1959 of the UN Declaration of the Rights of the Child.

1. ‘Children’ is one of only three words in modern English which are plurals formed by adding the old suffix -en. The others are brethren and oxen.

2. Worldwide, the average woman gives birth to an estimated 6.89 children.

3. The highest fertility rate is in Niger, where women give birth to an average of 7.58 children. The lowest is Singapore at 0.8 per woman.

4. The average girl child reaches half her adult height at 18 months. For a boy it is 24 months.

5. According to research at Sheffield University in 2008: “Clowns are universally disliked by children”.

6. “Childhood: the period of life intermediate between the idiocy of infancy and the folly of youth.” (Ambrose Bierce, A Devil’s Dictionary)

7. Twelfth Night is the only Shakespeare play that does not contain the words ‘child’ or ‘children’.

8. According to research for National Teething Week (which is this week), 68 per cent of parents have left a public place because of a crying child.

9. According to a recent survey, ten per cent of UK children learn to use a touch screen by age two.

10. “Mankind owes to the child the best it has to give.” (UN Declaration of the Rights of the Child)