Labour's nursery for two-year-olds 'will harm toddlers', warn experts (UK)

Daily Mail ^ | September 22, 2008 | Tim Ross

[reaganaut1]

Gordon Brown's plan to provide free nursery places for two-year-olds risks creating a generation of " institutionalised" children, a psychologist warned today.

The Prime Minister has said he wants to extend the 15 hours of free childcare from three-and four-year-olds to two-year-olds to increase parents' choice over how they balance work and family life.

But Dr Richard House, a child psychologist at Roehampton University, said the drive to get mothers back into the workforce could be harmful to very young children.

In an attempt to raise academic standards, all childminders, playgroups and nurseries now have to follow the Early Years Foundation Stage curriculum for children up to five.

...

Critics such as Dr House say it will lead to a tick-box culture in childcare and will be too rigid for children as young as two. He told London's Evening Standard newspaper: "Settings for very young children-should be as close to the family environment as possible.

"Two-year-old children were very recently babies. There are concerns about very young children like that being separated from their parents."

Dr House said the risk of the Prime Minister's plan was that children would become "institutionalised" from an early age.

"In this first couple of years the parent-child relationships are absolutely vital," he said. "That is when a parent and child really get to know each other.

"If that is disrupted, one of the great concerns is that when the children get to eight, 10 or 12 they are not going to have that foundation. There will be children not getting on with their parents or turning delinquent."

Clarissa Williams, president of the National Association of Head Teachers and head of Tolworth Girls' School in Kingston, has called for reforms to the benefit system to reward parents for staying at home to look after children.

[reaganaut1]

If Obama is elected and is able to enact his universal preschool plan, and it fails to close "gaps", look for his successor to push for programs for even younger children.

[freekitty]

He also wants to tax both parents.

[redstateconfidential]

Hey The Germans-Nazis won!Kindergarten has come full circle. Quentin Crisp is now the idealized British White man.

[Colonel Kangaroo]

Common sense has again taken a vacation.

Institutionalism may be a good way to raise poultry or sheep but not children. Do they want raise people or sheep? I'm afraid we know the answer. No wonder the 1,000 year civilization is on the ropes.

[RedMonqey]

Institutionalism may be a good way to raise poultry or sheep but not children

Anyone who has eaten a real farm raised hen vs. Institutionalized(farm factory)knows even Institutionalism is bad news.(for both the animal and human)