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Quotes
from books about daycare -
2005-2006,
p8
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Book |
Quote/Comment |
Raising Babies:
Should under 3s go to nursery?
by Steve Biddulph,
©2005, p. 24 |
...go and see for yourself what a nursery
(daycare) is really like. Forget the brochures, the glowing propaganda, and
the cheery reassurances of those who want to persuade themselves that all is
fine. For a decision this big you have to see for yourself. Not just a
flying visit, or the official guided tour -- 'look at the little toilets,
aren't they cute?' -- but an hour or more of melting into the background,
quietly observing what goes on.
...The aim is to get an accurate sense of what it might be like to be a
child spending 10 hours a day in such a place.
Category = Quality |
Raising Babies:
Should under 3s go to nursery?
by Steve Biddulph,
©2005, p. 24-31 |
Here are some of the impressions you
might form (on a visit to a daycare)
1. The lack of peace - It is
noisy...all day long
2. The sense of aggression
3. The lack of homeliness or a place of one's own...there
is no personal space.
4. There are never enough adults to go around - A study commissioned by
the Department of Education...found that the average amount of 1:1
attention given to a child in a nursery was only eight minutes per day.
The staff do their best to share themselves around, but it is non-stop all
day.
5. Some kids cope less well than others - (Quiet children) tend to be
forgotten while more demanding kids take up the carer's* time.
6. Some staff are more caring than others.
7 Caring staff care in a different way (than) a parent. - ...There is a
necessary coolness to everything. What a nursery staff offer is care, but
it isn't love, and the difference is vast.
8. There is a mechanical, institutional quality to the day's events. -
Toileting, meals, nap time, nappy (diaper) changing, face and hand
washing, moving from activity to activity, are all mass activities.
9. The presence of babies seems wrong - The younger the child, the less
appropriate the environment of nursery care seems to be for their needs.
10. A day is a really long time. - ...remember how time passes for a
child. A day is a really long time when you are only two...
...each of these (above 10)
concerns...are shown by research to be factors that make a nursery a
second-rate environment.
...The research picture supports what commons sense might tell us, that
distorting the natural social environment of children has disturbing
results.
*carer = daycare worker
Category =
Quality |
Raising Babies:
Should under 3s go to nursery?
by Steve Biddulph,
©2005, p. 31-33 |
In 2004, the BBC screened a documentary called
Nurseries Undercover. Parents around the country watched in dismay as
hidden cameras showed children being mistreated by staff and the dismal
conditions in some nurseries (day-cares).
Fiona Steel, a nursery director in London (wrote):"I have worked in too many nurseries, for too many years, to be
surprised by the neglect, incompetence and casual cruelty the (television)
programme revealed."
…I am aware that many nurseries never engage emotionally with their
children, maintaining a professional detachment. One nursery manager I know
instructs her staff not to hug crying children because "it will make them
soft".
Category = Caregiver, Quality |
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Quotes
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books about daycare - 2005-2006,
p8 |
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Last updated:
02/27/2008
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