Mental health risk for day-care kids
Group day-care can harm children's wellbeing, the experts claim
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Saturday, 21, Oct 2006 08:11
Parents who send their children to group day-care nurseries could be risking their future mental health and wellbeing.
A group of childcare and child psychology experts expressed their concerns in a letter to the Daily Telegraph.
They raise doubts over whether children under three-years-old should ever be looked after by anyone other than close family members, urging for an "urgent national debate" to be held.
"Consistent, continuous care by a trusted figure is the key to providing a secure and nurturing environment for very young children. Research suggests that its absence can lead to behavioural difficulties," write the authors, which include psychologist Steve Biddulph and Sir Richard Bowlby, president of Centre for Child Mental Health in London.
The experts claim that parents are putting their children in circumstances that "may not be appropriate to their emotional needs", citing the 500,000 under-threes in day nurseries as indicative of the scale of the issue.
"In a society which encourages both parents to work outside the home while their children are under three, it is attachment-focused childcare arrangements that have a crucial role to play in facilitating healthy emotional development," Sir Richard writes in a report attached to the letter.
The government insists that its Sure Start childcare scheme aims to "achieve better outcomes for children, parents and communities", pledging to improve the availability of childcare and improve children's emotional and physical health at the same time.
Michael Lamb, professor or psychology at Cambridge University, told the newspaper that he thought the letter was "alarmist".