The Government’s Sure Start initiative was founded on the most well-meaning of principles.

Children from disadvantaged homes were lagging behind those from more affluent homes by the time they started schooling because their parent/s did not have the resources to give them the stimulation they might get in a better-off setting.

So the answer was to provide the parents with day-care or nursery places where their children could get development help and a start to learning the basic skills which they might otherwise have missed out on.

Now comes a report from the Centre for Social Justice – headed by the former Conservative Party leader Iain Duncan Smith – which indicates this simplistic thinking may be missing out part of the equation: that the child may get more from the one-to-one attention at home rather than separation from his or her parents at an early age. The think-tank argues that much antisocial behaviour and violence by children has its roots in that early separation from the home.

Of course, the answer would not be to just turn the clock back. The CSJ report recognises this. After all, that would just mean that those parents who were struggling to bring up their children in a disadvantaged home – sometimes on their own – would be sentenced again to doing just that. The gap in developmental skills between rich and poor children as they start compulsory schooling would therefore still be there.

One of the answers that it comes up with is to concentrate more aid on helping parents to cope in the home. This teaching of skills so that parents can better make use of play time and home time with their children is certainly an alternative, and productive, use of the nation’s resources in care provision for nought to three-year-olds, if not a better one.

Source: Independent, UK
http://tinyurl.com/63yclm

Better childcare will curb social ills

The first few years of a child’s life are the most important; it is in these early years that the quality of their lives is laid down. Yet too many parents who wish to nurture their children at home are being forced back to work by financial pressures when their children are still babies.

We need to level the financial playing field for parents. The current system pressurises mothers - and it is mostly mothers - into going back to work soon after their children are born. Yet the research shows that the seeds of later unhappiness and antisocial behaviour by young people are often sown by the failure of parents to form a close and loving relationship with their babies.

Society is paying a high price for the quick fix of getting mothers back to work so soon after birth.

We seem, as a society, to place economic and academic concerns well above relationships despite the latter’s crucial role in a child’s - and later an adult’s - wellbeing. Regardless of the very large body of scientific and sociological evidence, children’s policy and political thinking miss the influence of the early years on a host of social problems we face today.

I asked Dr Samantha Callan to form the Early Years Commission to study this question. Its report, which will be published tomorrow, should make compelling reading for policy makers and parents. Crucially it shows that violent and antisocial behaviour by young people can be traced back to parental neglect when they were very young. They in turn pass on this dysfunction to their own children, perpetuating the cycle.

Professor Margot Sunderland, a child mental health expert on the commission, unambiguously stated that the quality of childcare has lifelong consequences for mental health as the first three years of a child’s life are crucial for healthy brain development and psychological stability.

The yardstick of quality applies across the spectrum of childcare: parental, informal and formal. It’s not the case that home care is always good and nursery always bad. But whether it is politically correct to admit this or not, there is a “hierarchy” of quality in childcare that policy is currently ignoring.

If parents want more than anything else to be with their children most of the time in the early years, and want to give them the continuity and intensity of relationship that science says they need, then surely they are the ones best placed to provide it.

Facilitating this aspiration should be a cornerstone of childcare policy. If parents don’t want to do this or cannot (and 81% of parents said financial pressures made them return to work early), the emotional and cognitive needs of their children must still be met.

This can be done by well motivated family members, well trained nursery nurses or other childcare professionals who have the time to give them enough one-to-one care. The evidence shows that, after motivated parents, family members offer an excellent childcare source.

Yet at present they are discounted by policy makers. Worryingly the commission also heard that childcare professionals are unsure if they should even hug children and that many nurseries prioritise health and safety and administrative needs, not personal childcare. Empathy doesn’t feature in the measurement of care quality, yet it is critical.

It seems that most of the public sense that policy is wrong. When asked in our poll, 82% of adults said that more should be done to help parents who wish to stay at home in those early years and some 70% felt that parents were encouraged to put their children into daycare too soon.

We need a fairer system in which the financial sacrifice of giving up work to look after a baby is offset by extra help from the tax and benefit system. The commission’s report recommends “front-loading” child benefit so a larger proportion of the child’s total entitlement would be available during the first three years when parents most want to spend time caring for children and when attachment and intensive nurture are most important.

It also recommends transferable tax allowances to reflect the fact that, if one spouse is not working outside the home, that family requires more support from the tax system. Similarly the benefits system should not penalise low-income couples who want to live together – which requires tackling the “couple penalty”. And it proposes a change in the rules to allow working parents to use childcare tax credits to pay unregistered close relatives to look after children.

With the growing demand on mental health facilities, the rising number of children in care and the peculiarly high levels of dysfunctional family behaviour, our failure to place cognitive and social development in the early years at the heart of our policy for children is already costing us dear. It is surely time to change all of that.

Source: Times Online, UK
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/article4692207.ece

The aim of my recent raw-nerve comment on child care was not to distress parents, it was merely to speak up for all the babies.

In most debates about child care, including this one, it’s all about the choices people have to make. It’s about the adults and their needs and their situations.

No one mentions the babies who are in full-time care under the age of 12 months, let alone at three weeks, for up to 60 hours a week, no one at all. How babies themselves are feeling, developing, reacting or suffering is never on the agenda.

Everyone’s too frightened to mention it.

It’s the big fat elephant in the room that no one has the bravery to acknowledge, let alone confront.

I’m aware that some parents and carers have felt attacked by my comments. I’m honestly sorry for that, but I won’t take back a single word, even though it wasn’t I who said the words child abuse in the first place.

I was simply quoting the owner of a brilliant child care facility in Queensland, who said to me last year: “Mem, when we look back at the quality of child-care for babies at this time in our history, with the terrible ratios of carers-to-children we currently have, people are going ask us how we allowed such child abuse to happen.”

I knew she was right. As an advocate for excellence in early childhood policies and as a literacy academic and consultant, I’ve found myself over the years at conferences and conventions around the world, listening to the real experts: the pediatricians, social workers, educators, speech pathologists and child psychologists speaking on the detrimental effects of full-time child care for the very young, especially in the first months of life.

So although I’m not the primary source of this information, I have heard it myself from the mouths of eminent people who have enlightened me and frightened me.

I’ve heard them speak about worldwide research over the last 50 years on parent-child bonding; and worldwide research in the last 10 years on brain development, both of which point to huge and worrisome issues for babies in full-time care.

The problem stems from an insufficient number of carers per baby, and to the fact that babies can’t even bond with their carers since the young over-worked carers themselves, who are doing their utmost, move on so often. They are undervalued by low pay.

And they feel helpless and sad about not being able to do the best for the children in their care.

So I decided, somewhat crazily as it turns out, to speak up for the babies since they cannot speak up for themselves.

Someone, somewhere, had to defend them since they are defenceless.

It was at this point that I was misunderstood.

At no time did I say a word against child care in general, let alone well-resourced, good child care; or part-time care for any child; or care by family members, or friends.

In the end, astoundingly, 98 per cent of the huge number of messages I’ve received from parents, professional organisations and child-care workers themselves have been overwhelmingly positive, full of heartfelt thanks and praise for my guts, my balls, my courage, and for saying it like it is.

I honestly thought I was going out on a limb.

Instead I’m relieved and thrilled to find myself in a forest of agreement.

One of the loveliest of these affirmations was from a Swedish pre-school teacher who told me that children in Sweden are not encouraged into long-day child care until they can toddle or walk, so that if they want to, they can literally walk away from any situation that distresses them.

Among the anti-brigade, there are a few groups who are so angry they’re planning a mass public destruction of my books in two states. I don’t mind at all, but is it fair to punish the children? Is that child care?

I understand their reaction.

It’s quite normal for us, when were threatened by an inconvenient truth, to react with rage, then denial, and then ridicule of the person who relayed the news. Eventually acceptance follows.

I have absolutely no choice but to take it all on the chin. I was the foolhardy messenger.

But please don’t shoot the messenger.

For the sake of this country’s babies — their future and ours — could we all now focus on the message instead?

I’ll be making no further comment on this issue.

Talk to the real experts next time and see what happens.

Mem Fox is an author of children’s picture books, including Possum Magic.

Source: Melbourne Herald Sun, Australia
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,24301238-5000117,00.html

Kevin Rudd’s handpicked adviser on childcare has attacked the current ratio of one carer to five babies as “not good enough” and warned the Government may link future funding to improved standards.

Parliamentary Secretary for Early Education and Childcare Maxine McKew yesterday said a ratio of one carer to every three children under the age of two would be more appropriate than the current standard. “The dominant standard ratio for care around the country is one (carer) to five (children),” Ms McKew told The Australian. “It’s not best practice. It’s stressful.”

She said the commonwealth had invested “billions” into the system and expected results.

“We are wanting centres in receipt of that money to come to the party on (carer) qualifications and on better ratios,” she said.

Ms McKew said recent comments from children’s author Mem Fox, which equated childcare for very young babies with child abuse, were not helpful.

“Who needs another guilt trip?” she asked.

“The fact that more women than ever are in the workforce, having babies, and more children than ever are in formal childcare, is an extraordinary vote of confidence in the system.”

The chief executive of Lady Gowrie Child Centre in Sydney’s Erskineville, Ruth Callaghan, said the centre had operated with a ratio of one carer to every three children for nought to two-year-olds since the 1980s but was one of the few in NSW to do so.

“The research very clearly says that in a childcare environment a very low ratio is recommended,” she said.

“It very clearly stresses the importance of having attentive adults who can care for babies and toddlers in a warm, predictable environment.

“It’s not just about babysitting, it’s about assisting the development of that child.”

She said while the cost of operating on a ratio of one carer to every three infants prevented the practice from being more widespread, it also gave the not-for-profit centre a competitive advantage which allowed it to survive.

There are 250 people on the waiting list for places for children under two, with 400 people on waiting lists in total.

Ms Callaghan said public policy was only now catching up with the research into the benefits of lower carer-to-child ratios.

“The research isn’t a new thing,” she said. “Public policy focused on the question of quality is a new thing. This will require a significant investment from government.”

Victoria and South Australia are expected to announce more generous staff ratios for children under two in the coming months.

Ms McKew told The Australian: “My view is up to this point the commonwealth has been a very passive player.

“We have poured billions into the system and demanded very little in return. Well, that’s over. We are raising the bar.”

Source: The Australian, Australia
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24279377-2702,00.html

Just one in 50 teachers of the youngest schoolchildren in England is male, figures revealed.

Only 2% of staff in nursery and reception classes - teaching under-fives - are men, Department for Children, Schools and Families figures show.

Critics say men are deterred from working with young children because of the idea that it is women’s work, the low wages and fears they may be branded paedophiles, the Daily Telegraph reports.

Anastasia de Waal, head of family and education at the think-tank Civitas, told the newspaper: “It is very important for children, particularly young ones, to see men as teachers.

“Seeing men as role models is very important.

“The idea that men are afraid of being seen as paedophiles is very serious. Obviously we want to protect children but we don’t want to get to the stage where we are harming them because they dont see any men in schools.”

A Department for Children, Schools and Families spokesman said: “Male childcare workers act as positive role models for children, which is why we launched a campaign to attract more men to the sector last year.

“The campaign challenges the stereotypical view that childcare is a woman’s role.

“Also, several of our recent early learning partnerships projects focused specifically on engaging fathers in their children’s early learning and our Children’s Plan called on all public services to take account of the needs of both parents.”

Source: The Press Association
http://ukpress.google.com/article/ALeqM5jtHGZzALO6_KynChwlehtUDnc3fg

Participation in a childcare program appears to increase the likelihood that a child will be obese when he or she shows up for the first day of kindergarten, researchers report in the journal Pediatrics.

Moreover, the report indicates that the type of childcare makes a difference. For instance, children who receive care from a relative, friend, or neighbor, held at least occasionally in the child’s own home, were more prone to obesity than those who received care at a daycare center or nursery school.

Latino children, however, seemed to be the exception. While they were found to be at greater risk for obesity than kids of other races, they were less likely to become obese when enrolled in a childcare program rather than spending the week with a parent.

The study, conducted by Dr. Erin J. Maher, from Casey Family Programs in Seattle, and colleagues, involved nearly 16,000 first-time kindergartners who had or had not been enrolled in childcare, defined as spending at least 10 hours per week in care not provided by a parent.

Childcare was subdivided into four types: 1) paid or unpaid care by a relative, friend, or neighbor, held at least occasionally at the child’s home; 2) paid care by a non-relative family outside the child’s home; 3) Head Start; and 4) care at daycare center, nursery school, preschool, or pre-kindergarten. Children were considered to be obese if their weight was in the 95th or higher percentile for height.

Overall, kids in childcare were more likely to obese than children not in childcare. Of the various childcare types, care by a relative, friend, or neighbor was most strongly linked to obesity. Compared with other racial groups, white children were less likely and Latino children more likely to be obese.

“Our research points to the need to better understand how the specific features of childcare environments may promote or protect against the development of obesity,” Dr. Maher’s team concludes. “This understanding can then lead to the development of targeted interventions to reach children and families in childcare settings.”

Source: Canada.com, Canada
http://www.canada.com/topics/bodyandhealth/story.html?id=3e896b07-81ae-4289-a60a-c40f9dee0896

With 85 percent of brain development occurring between the time of conception and age five, early influences - both good and bad- affect a child’s ability to learn and function in society, a panel of state leaders learned at a Harvard University seminar.

What happens to a woman during pregnancy and to a child in its earliest formative stages “actually reprints your DNA and changes the DNA,” said state Rep. Hollis Downs, R-Ruston, who assembled a team to attend the National Scientific Council on the Developing Child at Harvard University June 26-28.

Rep. Don Trahan, R-Lafayette, chairman of the House Education Committee, said the symposium confirmed his belief that “pre-natal to age five is the most important time in the development of child. Our duty now is to determine how to satisfy that need in Louisiana.”

“We actually have a road map,” Trahan said. “Zero to three in Head Start, LA4 for four-year-olds, five in kindergarten and by the first grade, everybody is on the same page, able to read.”

It will take a serious education effort to get parents to realize the importance of prenatal and early childhood factors that can make or break a child’s chances for success, said Linda Johnson, president of the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, another member of the Louisiana team attending the conference.

Johnson said she will take the information to BESE and see what policies it can develop to improve the education climate.

Downs said scientists at the symposium showed evidence that numerous “stressors,” the most damaging of which is alcohol, can have long-lasting effects on brain development. Other factors include physical abuse, drugs, loud music, lack of nurturing, poverty and malnutrition.

Downs said alerting parents to these problems would improve their children’s school performance and “yield a 15-to-1 return on money spent.” He said the state for years has alerted mothers-to-be of the dangers of drinking and smoking while pregnant and “that was before we knew (other factors) had an impact on predisposition to heart disease and diabetes.”

Danny Bell, superintendent of schools in Lincoln Parish, said the stress factor “many times evolves into learning problems,” even autism. Also, “doing more from birth to the time a child enters school can have a significant impact on the success of a child.

“We learned from the science that stressors can have a lifelong impact that is almost impossible to reverse,” Bell said.

Janie Humphries, McGehee Professor of Early Childhood Development at Louisiana Tech University, said the group learned “Louisiana is doing things right.”

She said smaller class sizes, particularly in day care and pre-school, are important to development because children prosper from more personal attention.

“These are critical periods in a child’s growth” that “lay the foundation of higher thinking skills,” Humphries said.

Downs said having smaller classes is crucial because two-thirds of Louisiana’s pre-schoolers are in daycare. “Small is better and having a high ratio of adults to children is important.”

Trahan said the Legislature opened the door to universal access to the Cecil J. Picard LA4 Program but the state budget only covers at-risk children. Also, not every parish offers it. Parents of children who don’t qualify for state aid can still enroll their children in LA4 and pay on a sliding scale based on income.

Downs said the Louisiana team, which also consisted of Erin Bendily, education policy advisor to the governor, Senate Education Committee Chairman Ben Nevers, Joe Salter of the Department of Education, and Department of Social Services Secretary Ann Williamson, is planning a “mini-symposium” this fall to present the information to state policy makers. He said he expects legislation to be offered in the next session to address some of the issues that state government can influence.

Source: Opelousas Daily World, LA
http://www.dailyworld.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080723/NEWS01/807230304/1002

A well-paid maternity leave scheme of at least one year would be best for children’s development, much better than a system that forced mothers back to work and children into child care, a leading child welfare expert says.

The NSW Commissioner for Children and Young People, Gillian Calvert, has told the Federal Government’s inquiry into parental leave that international research into children’s development shows babies benefit most from being looked after by one consistent carer, usually a parent, than from being put in formal child care in the first year of life.

“There’s no question in my mind that paid parental leave is a much better investment then child-care funding,” she said.

The commission’s submission, which will be made public today, argues it is a better long-term investment to, in effect, pay parents to look after their children rather than plough money into formal care so they can go back to work.

Ms Calvert said although there was evidence suggesting children benefited from high-quality child care and early education by the time they turned four, there was no research that claimed children under two were better off in formal care.

“You can re-enter the workforce at a later stage but you can’t necessarily overcome the developmental deficit that occurs in the first two years of life,” Ms Calvert said.

Source: Sydney Morning Herald, Australia
http://www.smh.com.au/news/parenting/parents-better-than-child-care/2008/07/14/1215887540976.html

Parents should be paid to spend time with their children to stop toddlers as young as two being sent to schools and nurseries, a leading head teacher has said.

Clarissa Williams, the new president of the National Association of Head Teachers, said that parents were being separated from their children too early.

“Why do we feel the need to send children into an education environment at the age of two? Are parents so distrusted that we want to separate them from their children at the earliest opportunity?” asked Ms Williams, the head of Tolworth Girls School in Surrey.

Speaking at the NHT annual conference in Liverpool, the head said parents should be rewarded financially for staying at home, playing with their children, reading to them and bringing them up well.

“There needs to be a contract between the receiver of the benefits that if they stay at home to do quality things with their children, they will be rewarded.

“Lots of mothers stay at home and deal with a single income and we should respect that.”

Ms Williams said some young children reacted badly to intuitional settings, echoing research that suggests that putting toddlers in nurseries for a long amount of time can lead to aggression.

“Lots of children react well to nurseries, others are more anxious and that manifests itself in their behaviour, said Ms Williams.

The head suggested that child allowance as well as benefits should reflect the effort parents put in with their children.

The proportion of working mothers has risen steadily over the last decade.

Thousands of babies are now looked after by nurseries. Government vouchers giving free child care places to 3 and four year olds have also led to a rise in the number of children in pre-school settings.

Children in the UK also start formal education at age 5, much earlier than the rest of Europe where 6 or 7 is the norm.

In her speech Ms Williams also criticised school admissions.

She said choice was limited “mostly to those able to exercise it.” She suggested that allocating secondary school places by lottery could be fairer.

The controversial distribution of school places by ballot has been adopted by Brighton and Hove, several schools in Hertfordshire and a few in London.

Source: Telegraph.co.uk, United Kingdom
http://tinyurl.com/4oce7j

Ilene Serpa gets a discount on child care for her daughter, and that’s pretty wonderful, she says.

At a time when child-care centers can charge up to about $15,000 a year to look after an infant, and more than $10,000 for other youngsters, many parents are strapped.

Ms. Serpa, who gets her discount as an employee of a child-care provider, suggests that parents look early and hard when choosing the right facility — especially given the tough competition for slots.

“A lot of people don’t start looking until after they’ve had their child,” Ms. Serpa says. “The fact of the matter is that it’s really important, especially if you are living in an area like [Washington] D.C., or New York, that you start looking when you are first expecting.”

Competition for Slots

Parents should get on a waiting list at centers that seem like good options as soon as possible, experts say. At Ms. Serpa’s company, Bright Horizons Family Solutions, the wait can range between one and two years in urban areas.

Also, expect to pay a fee. At Huckleberry Cheesecake, a Washington child-development center, a nonrefundable $100 charge will get your child on a waiting list, which has a typical duration of 12 to 18 months. Admission is first come, first served, with the exception of siblings, who get priority if one is already enrolled.

“People are on the list when they are two or three months pregnant,” says Traci Sonennberg, co-owner of the facility. She adds that the center won’t list couples who are just thinking about pregnancy.

In searching for a center, both price and quality come into play.

“Parents need to check on the qualifications of the staff,” says Richard Brandon, director of the Human Services Policy Center at the University of Washington in Seattle. “It’s an underpaid profession, and the requirements in many states are less than they are for a cosmetologist.”

Average wages for child-care providers are about $8 an hour, Mr. Brandon says, and many workers do not have high skill levels. Parents should ask whether staff members receive training and professional development.

Teachers at Huckleberry Cheesecake take additional training and some hold a bachelor’s degree. State regulations to work in a child-care center vary, with requirements ranging from a high-school diploma, to a special credential in child development, to a college degree, according to the Labor Department.

“There are no free lunches, you get what you pay for,” Mr. Brandon says. “The quality of early learning experiences makes a difference in school success, makes a difference in social success and in later life.”

A Way to Pay

You may be able to get a tax break for child-care spending. The tax code provides a child-care credit and allows for employer-sponsored dependent-care accounts, which let parents pay for care with pretax income.

But many parents will have to depend on their own resources for day-care expenses, says Linda Smith, executive director with National Association of Child Care Resource & Referral Agencies.

“The problem is that child care done reasonably well costs more than the average family can afford,” Ms. Smith says. “The families of the most concern are not the low income who qualify for assistance, but those families that we would call the working poor.”

Source: Wall Street Journal
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120805501701010715.html?mod=googlenews_wsj