NYTimes.com | Relax, It's Just Preschool

By HILLARY CHURA
Published: October 21, 2006

'Don't tell anyone, but my husband and I plan to send our toddler to a public prekindergarten program.
It’s not just the outrageous cost — about $17,000 a year for a 4-year-old to learn his letters, or more on a per-pound basis than Harvard. Our neighborhood public schools on Manhattan’s Upper East Side are some of the finest in the city (a factor when we relocated) and we just don’t think exclusive for the sake of exclusive is necessary. Still, the fear is that you really do get what you pay for, and no parent wants to gamble with their child’s future.
With the emphasis on early childhood development, many parents who hear of our decision, nod, say “ohhh,” and position themselves between their children and our son. It’s as if we are dooming our first-born and his 7-month-old brother to a lifetime of wanton mediocrity instead of paving their way into the joint M.D.-Ph.D.-law programs of their choice. [...]'

Telegraph | News | Mother figure is vital for a child

More on Bowlby views and attachment theory. Telegraph | News | Mother figure is vital for a child

Telegraph | Comment | Letters to the Daily Telegraph

Bowlby's letter on child care focusses on its quality rather than on whether it should be provided as an alternative at all but raises doubts about the inspection regime. OFSTED, which inspects, child care settings, has found the majority of provision to be satisfactory.Telegraph | Comment | Letters to the Daily Telegraph

Telegraph | News | Day nursery may harm under-3s, say child experts

Another article in the Telegraph raising anxieties about childhood. That in itself is becoming a sory worthy of investigation but this one is prompted by a letter from the son of the father of'attachment theory', John Bowlby. Nowadays, neuroscience is used to add legitimation to the view first popularised by the Consultative Committee in 1908 that the best place for the young child is at home with its mother. Telegraph | News | Day nursery may harm under-3s, say child experts

NYTimes.com | Those Preschoolers are Looking Older

By Elissa Gootman
Published: October 19, 2006

'[...]Children who turn 5 even in June or earlier are sometimes considered not ready for kindergarten these days, as parents harbor an almost Darwinian desire to ensure that their own child is not the runt of the class. Although a spate of literature in the last few years about boys’ academic difficulties helped prompt some parents to hold their sons back a year, girls, too, are being held back. Yet research on whether the extra year helps is inconclusive.

Fueled by the increasingly rigorous nature of kindergarten and a generation of parents intent on giving their children every edge, the practice is flourishing in New York City private schools and suburban public schools. A crop of 5-year-olds in nursery school and kindergartners pushing 7 are among the most striking results. [...]'

washpost.com | As Europe Grows Grayer, France Devises a Baby Boom

By Molly Moore
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, October 18, 2006; Page A01

'In many European countries, park benches are filled with elderly residents. In France, parks overflow with boisterous children, making it an international model for countries struggling with the threat of zero population growth. In recent months, officials from Japan, Thailand and neighboring Germany have traveled to France to study its reproductive secrets.
[...]
France heavily subsidizes children and families from pregnancy to young adulthood with liberal maternity leaves and part-time work laws for women. The government also covers some child-care costs of toddlers up to 3 years old and offers free child-care centers from age 3 to kindergarten, in addition to tax breaks and discounts on transportation, cultural events and shopping.
This summer, the government -- concerned that French women still were not producing enough children to guarantee a full replacement generation -- very publicly urged French women to have even more babies. A new law provides greater maternity leave benefits, tax credits and other incentives for families who have a third child. During a year-long leave after the birth of the third child, mothers will receive $960 a month from the government, twice the allowance for the second child.[...]'

Guardian Unlimited | UK Latest | '?4bn needed' to cut child poverty

Not enough done to end child poverty Guardian Unlimited | UK Latest | '?4bn needed' to cut child poverty

NYTimes.com | Married and Single Parents Spending More Time With Children, Study Finds

By Robert Pear
Published: October 17, 2006
'WASHINGTON, Oct. 16 — Despite the surge of women into the work force, mothers are spending at least as much time with their children today as they did 40 years ago, and the amount of child care and housework performed by fathers has sharply increased, researchers say in a new study, based on analysis of thousands of personal diaries.
“We might have expected mothers to curtail the time spent caring for their children, but they do not seem to have done so,” said one of the researchers, Suzanne M. Bianchi, chairwoman of the department of sociology at the University of Maryland. “They certainly did curtail the time they spent on housework.” [...]
The findings are set forth in a new book, “Changing Rhythms of American Family Life,” published by the Russell Sage Foundation and the American Sociological Association. The research builds on work that Ms. Bianchi did in 16 years as a demographer at the Census Bureau.[...]'

Telegraph.co.uk | One mother in three is unhappy with child care

By Sarah Womack, Social Affairs Correspondent
(Filed: 16/10/2006)

'[...] Today's survey of 2,000 mothers, whose average age was 32, was commissioned by the Discovery Home & Health channel for a programme about nannies. It found that a third of mothers were unhappy with the care their child received.
Unsurprisingly, seven out of 10 working mothers said their child was happier with them than at nursery, but 69 per cent also thought too many children were now in full-time child care.
Mothers had a host of complaints about their child's nursery - 56 per cent thought the nursery had let their child sleep too long, 34 per cent thought the treatment their child received was generally poor, and a third said the nursery staff lacked common sense or showed them little respect. [...]'

Discovery Channel enters the early childhood policy fray?