Nursery times

The benefits of more affordable early education childcare are being promoted across the country, but is the happiness of future generations being taken forgranted as family relationships are pushed aside? Jess Stevenson reports.

Children enjoying a birthday party

Becky wanders around a small but actively buzzing room. She looks preoccupied for a bit, observes what the older toddlers around her are doing and starts to join in. She gets bored, wanders around a bit more until I ask her if she wants to read a story. Getting tired of the hidden duck I excitedly point to on every page she gets up and wanders off again. It’s soon 10.30am and it’s time for the ritual sunscreen application and we’re off to the garden.

Toddlers are running off in all directions. If they were capable of singing Bob Dylan’s ‘I shall be released’ I’m pretty sure they’d be singing it right now. The older ones start to mess about in the sandpit and run around after each other laughing. But Becky, despite the vast amount of space and play equipment before her, looks none too pleased to be here. In fact, although she has been participating in the action all morning, the look on her face hasn’t changed. It’s only when my visit to the nursery comes to a close that it strikes me. I can do the one thing she is probably longing to do – walk out of the door.

I am left wondering how many of the 300,000 children under 3, who attend nursery every day would make the choice to be there. But the amount of children in daycare is rising as the government’s ten-year children’s plan - which aims to make ‘ England the best place in the world to grow up’ - is put into action. By 2010 there will be 3500 Children’s Centres, many of which include nursery provision, rolled out across the country. The entitlement to free early education and childcare for 3-4 year olds has already been raised to 15 hours a week, and there are plans to offer up to 15 hours of free childcare to 20,000 two year olds in the most disadvantaged areas. Parents who can’t afford not to work are encouraged to use quality but affordable childcare in a drive aimed to eradicate child poverty and boost the economy.

However, the increase in the amount of children with mental health problems, recently highlighted by The Children's Society’s Good Childhood Inquiry, could be pointing to something amiss. Similarly UNICEF’s report on child wellbeing ranks the UK bottom of 25 European countries, with the less wealthy Czech Republic scoring better than more wealthy countries.

A growing number of academics, experts, researchers, psychiatrists and childcare professionals have been highlighting children’s attachment to their parents as a factor essential to emotional wellbeing. With growing amounts of daycare for children under three, they are worried that children’s emotional needs are simply not being met. Separated from their parents for prolonged amounts of time children under 30 months experience rising stress levels which have been linked to higher levels of anti-social behaviour, anxiety, depression, illness and poor future emotional health.

In his report Stress in Daycare, Richard Bowlby, an eminent figure in the field of child attachment explains: “Babies and toddlers between the age of six and thirty months tend to live in the present, and if they do not receive sensory evidence [sight, sound, touch, smell or taste] that any of their familiar attachment figures are available they have an instinctive sense of danger which increases by the minute.”

If a child is securely attached to someone they have a safe, loving and affectionate bond with, a few hours with a secure second attachment figure will not be a problem. But day nurseries, according to Bowlby, despite many who have a ‘key person’ policy will not be able to provide the continuity of ‘personalised’ caregiving that a child under 30 months needs, with the consequences for insecurely attached children being far worse.

“In order for the 30 per cent of babies and toddlers who fall into the most disadvantaged category to learn that relationships can be enduring, trustworthy and secure, they need to experience a positive model of a secure and enduring relationship. This is much more likely to happen with a childminder than in group daycare,” he comments.

But spokesperson Hayley Wilson for the National Day Nursery Association [NDNA] says that the perception that nurseries cannot provide a continuity of care needs to be challenged.

“What most nurseries have is a key worker scheme. If you put your child in nursery you will be assigned a key worker and that will be the parent’s point of contact and also someone the child will see on a daily basis. They are the ones that would form that strong kind of attachment with the child.

“A lot of nurseries have the policy that most key workers change the child’s nappy. You’ve also got the security of knowing that there’s lots of people there, [whereas] with a childminder, if they get sick, you can be stuck looking for someone to care for your child.”

Listing the prospective benefits of nurseries, Wilson says parents can enjoy them because of the flexibility they offer - fitting around the needs of the parent and the needs of the child. She also mentions that some high-end nurseries offer extras to help parents out, such as children’s haircuts, shoe measuring and a dry cleaning service.

“Nursery is a real chance to socialize and mix with a wide range of people,” she says. “They are very socially responsible businesses with many undertaking quality assurance schemes which identify every aspect of care and ways to improve.”

Despite these assurances, experts remain unconvinced that nursery is a good environment for children under three, particularly for babies, when the staff to baby ratio is 1:3. Lydia Keyte is from the charity What About The Children? [WATCH]

“Over three there is a value in socializing, with evidence that it’s actually good for children. But a baby needs to have consistent loving care from an adult that they know and loves them.

“In the past there has been a lot of talk about the needs of women and what women need. But if you make a decision to have a child, you have to acknowledge what they need. A baby can’t speak for itself.

“Clearly some people have to work for financial reasons, but if parents received an allowance to care for their child, the majority of parents would choose that one or other of them would care for the child,” she says.

In a report WATCH presented to the Early Years Commission in February, they argued that although there has been considerable government spending on services affecting young children, it has been misdirected, and despite recent increases in parental leave and benefits, at the same time the cost of nursery places demanded greater subsidies while mothers who wish to look after their children get no extra help. “Nursery places provide a poor substitute for family care,” says the report.

Aside from providing more quality childcare places so mothers can return to work, daycare has also been promoted as the solution to child poverty. So is the government saying that daycare not family relationships, is the key to future generations of happy stable people? The children who took part in the Good Childhood Inquiry made it clear that they see love as the most important element of a good life, a happy family and good parenting.

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