The "Women's Minister" has just said

the earlier children enter into childcare the better it is for their development. She claims she is quoting "research".

Yes, there is strong evidence to suggest children do develop essential cognitive, social and language skills more rapidly in childcare. This is generally seen as a "good" thing. It is a good thing to develop the skills which will allow the child to do well in school.

I have no issue with young children going to "day care", "nursery", "kindergarten" or whatever you care to call it. I do have an issue with the way the Minister apparently said "the earlier the better". 

I do have an issue with the sort of "care" some children are getting. Good childcare requires a very high child-adult ratio. It is not often the "good" staffing levels are met. It is simply too expensive to do it.

I also have an issue with sending children of "normal" intelligence into an environment like that when they are not even crawling. They are, like it or not, simply too young.

And I have an issue with the amount of time some children spend in "daycare". All children need to be able spend time at home. They need to be left to their own devices. They need to be "bored" sometimes so they develop initiative, imagination and creativity.

It was a minority of my generation which went to what is known as "kindergarten" in this state. If we did go (and I did) it was only for a couple of hours twice a week. There were activities like painting, other craft, story telling, singing and learning some physical skills. Computers, as we know them, did not exist. We learned about the importance of taking turns, saying please and thank you and how to count to ten if our mothers had not already taught us. We did not know about Eid or Divali or play computer "games" designed to teach us by endless reinforcement. 

The amount it is thought necessary for a child to know before starting school has increased so much there is little time left for the sort of independent imaginative play we did in the back garden. Does this really mean the child is better off in day care, nursery, kindergarten, pre-school or call it what you will? Does it mean weekends need to be filled with adult supervised activities?

Like most things I suspect we need a balance. Is it just possible that we need to allow children to be "bored" sometimes? Do we need to allow them time to be independent? Going into child care at six months, or even twelve months, of age may allow a parent to return to work. The parent can then maintain their mortgage repayments and develop their career but at what cost to the child?