Posted on 02/12/2006 9:10:43 AM PST by tbird5
The Sunday Times - Britain
The Sunday Times February 12, 2006
Child guru says nurseries harm small children Sian Griffiths ONE of the world’s most popular parenting gurus is to warn that placing children younger than three in nurseries risks damaging their development.
Steve Biddulph, whose books have sold more than 4m copies worldwide, says that instead of subsidising nurseries, which do a “second-rate” job, the government should put in place policies to enable mothers to stay at home with their babies.
The advice signals a reversal of views for Biddulph, an Australian with more than 20 years’ experience as a therapist, whose previous bestsellers include Raising Boys and Raising Girls.
In his new book Biddulph will admit he has changed his mind because of growing evidence of increased aggression, antisocial behaviour and other problems among children who have spent a large part of their infancy being cared for away from home.
He argues that such children may have problems developing close relationships later.
(Excerpt) Read more at timesonline.co.uk ...
The only nursuries that really harm children are the ones with man eating plants in them, next to the phylladundrum.
Flame away.
"the government should put in place policies to enable mothers to stay at home with their babies." This was the thinking behind ADC, or welfare. It didn't work out at all well. Government should stick to raising armies and building roads and leave the family alone.
Calling Dr. Laura!
More poor headline writing....one pictures a five-year-old chosen as the next Dalai Lama.
I think the coarsening of our culture was begun when large scale nurseries became common. Children end up teaching each other how to interact with other humans, rather than learning from an adult how to interact. That can't help but being a bad thing.
"placing children younger than three in nurseries risks damaging their development."
Well...DUH!!
There may be tons of wonderful, caring babysitters out there but NO ONE WILL LOVE YOUR CHILD LIKE YOU DO!
I don't fault parents who HAVE to work because our system has failed them by increasine wages no where near as fast as inflation but come one! Its common sense! Babies need their parents to love them and teach them and keep them safe and no dare care can do that as effectivly.
Running around a nursery teaches kids to attack and how to deal with being attacked. The only thing I don't like about it is the way they are run.
There's an amazing video done in the 70's or 80s, something like "preschool in 3 cultures", which shows the Chinese way, the American way, and the Japanese way. The Chinese raised their kids to do everything the same, no deviation. The Americans had too much babying by the baby-sitters. The Japanese way seemed the best to me: let the kids fight it out themselves, govern themselves, control the classroom and insure that the rules were being followed themselves. Miscreants were taken care of by the bigger kids, and the good kids got the respect and admiration they deserved because they earned it, and not because some pencil-heads decided that everyone deserves respect and was entitled to dignity.
Ok, there you go. Nursery school is great, but only if its run by the Japanese.
It may already be too late. Too many parents are simply too selfish or too incompetent to raise their own children. These children may actually be better off being raised by high school dropouts with a ratio of one uncaring babysitter to ten lonely children.
It's about time someone recognized it.
The kids don't need a nursery it is bad for them. But we don't need a government program to keep them at home. Just two things are needed.
Stay married and Be happy with less material things.
Sometimes it is just unavoidable to have to place your infant in a day care center. I do agree with the article, however. Children are much better off at home for the first several years.
In order to solve a problem the problem must first be properly identified. What you've identified is not the problem. There are many underlying causes, that's not an important one.
I had a pastor who would constantly harp on the need to stay home with kids, and would use his own family as an example, saying that because they took care of four kids while he was in seminary without his wife working, anyone can do it. Then I learned that he was the son of an incredibly wealthy oil exec.
My point is, that while the mother staying home is great, you cannot criticize someone for having both spouses working unless you understand financial hardship.
Ouch. Maybe this will be easier for outside-home-working women to hear, coming from a man.
I've found that SAHM's who advise other women who are on the fence about going back to work..to stay home with the kids while they're young...are often viciously attacked by the pro-daycare set.
I've been called "unsupportive" as the nicest thing, to an arrogant overprotective Stepford wife who wants to hide from the world what I'm doing to my poor understimulated kids at home!
Some of these women who do not need to work an outside job for economic reasosn, are even advised by other 30-somethings to put their kids in daycare because it's better for the kids.
You and your wife are exactly right.
Mini Socialism Indoctrination Centers. No wonder the left loves them so.
Oh yeah, the Japanese.
Now there's an example of a culture with happy "well-adjusted" non emotionally repressed people/not
Highest child suicide rate in the developed world?
There was no way in Hell that I was going to leave my babies to go to work. I was afraid for them and KNEW they needed me. So my husband had to make more money and work harder. He did and we have paid for college for all 5 of our kids. Parents who put their babies in day care are awful people and it looks like the tide is turning against these parents. Stay at home mothers have taken heat for years, now it's tome for day care parents to get the heat.
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