Now it's the children's mental health which is at risk

The Toronto Star advises readers that Canada ranks ‘dead last’ in early childhood education spending (code name for nursery schools & day care centres):

Canada ranks "dead last" among developed nations in its spending on early childhood education – despite overwhelming evidence of how crucial the first six years of life are, says a new study by the country's foremost expert in the field.

One problem is the country-wide "chaotic mess" of programs and assistance that exists now, says renowned child development expert Dr. Fraser Mustard, one of the co-authors of the report, which is due to be released today.

To replace it, Mustard proposes a system of community hubs, ideally located in schools, that would offer play-based preschool activities, help for parents, social service referrals and child care.

In Ontario alone, Mustard estimates the cost of behavioural and mental health problems triggered by problems in early childhood to be $30 billion; with programs in place, "that could get down to less than $15 billion a year, and probably even lower than that," he said in an interview last week from Adelaide, in South Australia. Mustard is advising the government there how to implement such a network of child and parenting centres.

Sheesh. Talk about having an ideological axe to grind. I am not going to rehash the home care vs. daycare centre debate. I have said almost everything I wanted to say in this old blog piece – My Womb is not at Service to the State.

But before we rush out and start cutting cheques like a drunken sailor on a night out in port; we should, for the sake of the children’s mental health, take a much closer look at studies like this UK one. Today’s British Telegraph gives a peek at it:

Children who spend a lot of time in nursery are more likely to be aggressive and disobedient throughout primary school - no matter how excellent the nursery, according to study published today.

Primary school teachers are more likely to say that such children - even at the age of 11 - are still "getting into fights" or "arguing a lot". The findings, from a continuing study of nearly 1,400 children, reignite the debate about whether working women damage their children's health by putting them into nurseries too young.

But there is an alleged compensation – children, who in their formative early years, spend significant time in child care centres develop larger vocabularies to be both problematic and defiant with.