Friday, March 27, 2009
The Child Care Transition...
A break from tax information today. I want to give you something to think about over the weekend... What happens – or doesn’t happen – to children in the earliest years of their lives is of critical importance, both to their immediate well-being and to their future?
If you received the best start in your earliest years of life, you are more likely to have grown healthily, developed language and learning capacities, gone to school and led a productive, rewarding life. Yet millions of children around the world are still being denied the right to reach their full potential.
Every child must be ensured the best start in life – their future, and indeed the future of their communities, nations and the whole world depends on it. But is child care the best answer? Some critics say no...
Steve Biddulph from Australia, whose books on parenting have sold more than 4 million copies:
"The best nurseries struggled to meet the needs of very young children in a group setting. The worst were negligent, frightening, and bleak: a nightmare of bew ildered loneliness that was heartbreaking to watch. Children at this age — under three — will want one thing only: the individual care of their own special person."
Susan Gerhardt from England, is co-founder of the Oxford Parent-Infant Project:
"It is not popular these days to spell out how great the responsibilities of parenthood are, since women have struggled desperately to establish themselves as men's equals in the workplace and do not want to feel guilty about keeping their careers or pay cheques going while someone else takes care of their babies."
Cathleen Sherry from Australia, is a human rights lawyer:
"No one has an absolute right to a career — men or women. If you choose to have children, your major responsibility is to care for them properly, and if that affects your career, it affects your career."
Obviously you don't need to ask my stance on this issue. I agree that there are poor programs that do not help children and worse, may even harm them. If you don't believe this, just scan the headlines for child care related news. You will find many stories that will frighten and disgust. However, there are also many great programs run by people who are knowledgeable and caring and nto only put the children's interests first, but actively work to help them develop and reach theri full potential.
A new UNICEF publication, The Child Care Transition, provides some insight and some interesting reading about our profession.
A great change is coming over childhood in the world's richest countries. Today's rising generation is the first in which a majority are spending a large part of early childhood in some form of out-of-home child care. At the same time, neuroscientific research is demonstrating that loving, stable, secure, and stimulating relationships with caregivers in the earliest months and years of life are critical for every aspect of a child’s development. Taken together, these two developments confront public and policymakers in OECD countries with urgent questions. Whether the child care transition will represent an advance or a setback for today's children and tomorrow's world. will depend on the response.
Download The child care transition: a league table of early childhood education and care in economically advanced countries.
There is no question that increasing numbers of the earliest generation in advanced countries are spending a significant amount of time in a child care setting. Take a look at this report and let me know what your thoughts are...
A break from tax information today. I want to give you something to think about over the weekend... What happens – or doesn’t happen – to children in the earliest years of their lives is of critical importance, both to their immediate well-being and to their future?
If you received the best start in your earliest years of life, you are more likely to have grown healthily, developed language and learning capacities, gone to school and led a productive, rewarding life. Yet millions of children around the world are still being denied the right to reach their full potential.
Every child must be ensured the best start in life – their future, and indeed the future of their communities, nations and the whole world depends on it. But is child care the best answer? Some critics say no...
Steve Biddulph from Australia, whose books on parenting have sold more than 4 million copies:
"The best nurseries struggled to meet the needs of very young children in a group setting. The worst were negligent, frightening, and bleak: a nightmare of bew ildered loneliness that was heartbreaking to watch. Children at this age — under three — will want one thing only: the individual care of their own special person."
Susan Gerhardt from England, is co-founder of the Oxford Parent-Infant Project:
"It is not popular these days to spell out how great the responsibilities of parenthood are, since women have struggled desperately to establish themselves as men's equals in the workplace and do not want to feel guilty about keeping their careers or pay cheques going while someone else takes care of their babies."
Cathleen Sherry from Australia, is a human rights lawyer:
"No one has an absolute right to a career — men or women. If you choose to have children, your major responsibility is to care for them properly, and if that affects your career, it affects your career."
Obviously you don't need to ask my stance on this issue. I agree that there are poor programs that do not help children and worse, may even harm them. If you don't believe this, just scan the headlines for child care related news. You will find many stories that will frighten and disgust. However, there are also many great programs run by people who are knowledgeable and caring and nto only put the children's interests first, but actively work to help them develop and reach theri full potential.
A new UNICEF publication, The Child Care Transition, provides some insight and some interesting reading about our profession.
A great change is coming over childhood in the world's richest countries. Today's rising generation is the first in which a majority are spending a large part of early childhood in some form of out-of-home child care. At the same time, neuroscientific research is demonstrating that loving, stable, secure, and stimulating relationships with caregivers in the earliest months and years of life are critical for every aspect of a child’s development. Taken together, these two developments confront public and policymakers in OECD countries with urgent questions. Whether the child care transition will represent an advance or a setback for today's children and tomorrow's world. will depend on the response.
Download The child care transition: a league table of early childhood education and care in economically advanced countries.
There is no question that increasing numbers of the earliest generation in advanced countries are spending a significant amount of time in a child care setting. Take a look at this report and let me know what your thoughts are...
// posted by Tammy Wachter @ 6:44 AM 
