Pushy parents need to grow up over child care, survey says
PUSHY parents expect childcare centres to teach their toddlers for future school success but most kids just want to play with their friends.
NSW
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PUSHY parents expect childcare centres to teach their toddlers for future school success but most kids just want to play with their friends.
A national survey of kindy kids’ attitudes to childcare reveals they prefer playing with friends outdoors, or doing “art and craft”, to using technology or “learning something new’’. The youngsters’ biggest daycare bugbears were “children being unkind’’ and “sleep time’’.
The Early Childhood Australia survey of nearly 3000 families found that just over half the children felt happy on most days they went to childcare, while 17 per cent were excited. Eleven per cent said they felt “OK’’ and 10 per cent felt sad, nervous or scared.
Early Childhood Australia chief executive Samantha Page said some parents felt play at daycare was a “waste of time’’.
“There is a real anxiety among parents about children being school-ready,’’ she said. “We discourage parents from pushing children to do rote learning, flash cards, stencilling letters and reciting numbers.
“Some parents think play is about children wasting time, but how children learn in the early years is through play. We don’t want to take away the pure joy of being a child and playing with your friends.’’
Ms Page said early childhood education was not about “sitting children down and having to repeat the alphabet’’.
“Building a fort together teaches collaboration, communication, spatial awareness and construction skills,’’ Ms Page said.
Daycare provider Gowrie NSW’s leader of pedagogy, Gabrielle Howard, said play “enhances every area of development’’.
The survey also shows that a third of working parents have struggled to find childcare — with half waiting more than a year for a daycare place.
Alarmingly, 39 per cent of families were concerned about the poor quality of daycare, despite fees skyrocketing to pay for improvements.