British Parents Spend Least Time With Children, Compared To European Counterparts

Parents in the UK spend less time with their children than those in any other European country, teachers’ leaders warned yesterday. Economic pressureswere forcing both parents in more and more homes to go out to work and were leading to a “greater institutionalisation” of children, the Association of Teachers and Lecturers’ conference in Bournemouth was told.

“It does worry me that infants of only a few months are being cared for in a nursery environment for 10 hours a day, five days a week and 48 weeks a year,” said Richard Martin, a teacher from Leeds.

The debate emerged as research commissioned by the Government revealed that children in full-time nursery settings were more likely to be antisocial, worried and upset.

A team from Oxford University led by the early years education expert Kathy Sylva said that spending long hours in nurseries – more than 35 hours a week – had a “positive and negative effect on children’s behaviour”. The report concluded that in general nurseries caused toddlers to become more “antisocial, worried and upset” than those who spent more time at home. Youngsters under three and a half were more likely to be upset by the experience if they were in groups with older children.

The researchers noticed that these children were more prone to tease other children, be bossy or stamp their feet. The study, commissioned by the Department for Education and Skills, was carried out among 810 nought to five-year-olds in 100 nursery settings. It follows a £370m drive by the Government to improve childcare and nursery facilities for the under-fives. Ministers have pledged that there will be a nursery place for every three and four-year-old whose parents want them to have one.

Cecily Hanlon, a childcare and early development officer with Leeds City Council, cited research from the Conservative Party’s Commission for Social Justice, which showed that young people in the UK were more aggressive than in other European countries as a result of spending more time in under-fives institutions. Research also showed that parents in the UK spent less time with their children than other parents in Europe.

“I don’t think this Government is anything other than well-meaning in its attempts to fight the financial aspects of poverty,” she said. “But there are other types of poverty – poverty of good experience and spiritual poverty and these other types of poverty can be more damaging than financial poverty.”

However, other delegates argued that many families were driven by the size of their mortgages. “Rightly or wrongly, there is an economic imperative for these families to consider child care,” said Mr Martin.

Alan Johnson, the Education Secretary, made a strong defence of the Government’s commitment to services for the under-fives. “We know that two years of good early education can boost development by up to six months at age five,” he told the conference.