On the morning of 2 February, the Children's Society launched its 'landmark' report of the Good Childhood Inquiry to the media. Entitled A Good Childhood, it had been eagerly awaited by many who hoped for an antidote to the gloom over children's experiences in our whizzy, technological, fractured society.
Its rigorous survey of research and consultation with 35,000 children, adults and professionals would surely give cause to celebrate children and families, while identifying the many difficulties they face. In so doing, it would inspire children, families, communities and Government to set the experience of British childhood on a new and exciting path.
But, on that morning, it was quite another event that brought change for children. The adult world ground to a halt beneath the deepest snowfall for 20 years, shutting schools and workplaces, and leaving children across the country to play (untested) in the snow with friends and adults who couldn't go to work. The road outside my house was impassable to traffic. Families hid behind immovable parked cars and threw snowballs across it, while passers-by talked to strangers and helped each other when they fell. The contrast with normal daily life was stark.
Regrettably, A Good Childhood is unlikely to inspire a fraction of the social change brought about, for one day, by snow. It did not deliver what was hoped for. The report's primary message is that the well-being of Britain's children is measurably poorer than in the recent past and that this is the result of adult preoccupation with personal success, inequalities across society, testing that is not focused on children's learning, and inadequacy in key services. Some of this will strike familiar chords.
Statistics in the report show how children fare less well in single-parent families, when they live with family discord, and when they do not have access to friends. To address such difficulties, the report calls upon parents to remember that successful families rely on mothers' and fathers' commitment to each other as well as to their children.
But the sociologist of childhood Virginia Morrow is unconvinced by all the evidence. 'The authors have selected studies that fit their argument,' she says. 'Some conclusions about the effects of divorce have been reinvestigated and researchers found that, over time, the negative effects on children disappeared.'
Even so, there are important concerns here. Critics of the report must not overlook the fact that too many children live blighted lives and that the trends identified deserve careful consideration, however uncomfortable some of them may be.
Finger-wagging tone
The response to A Good Childhood has been overwhelmingly negative. Tim Gill, author of No fear: growing up in a risk-free environment, berated the report for getting into 'ever-greater muddles about the adult role in shaping children's lives' (The Guardian, 4 February). Gingerbread, the charity for one-parent families, challenged the implication that parents should stay together, calling for a focus on the services that support them.
Of course, the call for family cohesion was welcomed by some more conservative commentators. Michael Portillo praised the report for placing responsibility for children with parents rather than with schools or social workers ('The Moral Maze', 5 February). But Jill Kirby, director of the right-leaning Centre for Policy Studies, disagreed, remarking that the report's proposals 'appear to be based on the belief that parents should be pushed even further to the margins of children's lives' (Sunday Times, 8 February).
The inquiry could not, surely, have intended any of these messages. Its chair, developmental psychologist Judy Dunn, says that looking at research 'helps to shift blame from, for example, single parents, and on to what we can do to support them'. In conversation, she talks warmly about parents. 'Every family is different,' she says. 'Anything that can make stress easier is helpful.'
But these messages do not come through in the report. Instead, by making the point that everyone must take personal responsibility for children's well-being, the report appears to apportion blame. It tells parents off for being selfish, it hates advertising, it loathes television and it bemoans the loss of values. It is so determined to establish what is wrong for children that it forgets to give both parents and children the credit for how much they do for each other and how much love there is. And it fails to admire all those families, local institutions, community groups and national organisations who are significant in children's lives.
Bearing the prime responsibility for children is not something that most parents do alone. 'The idea that community is gone is nonsense,' says Virginia Morrow. Families, friends, neighbourhoods, children's centres, schools, community groups, churches, local shops and many others still provide cohesive networks for most. These are the contexts in which change can chip away at the depressing social statistics in this report and from which lessons can be drawn to improve the experiences of children and families who struggle with conflict and inequality.
I make no apology if that sounds starry-eyed. The finger-wagging tone of the report must not stand. A call for change will only be successful if, in recognising the difficulty of the job ahead, the people who have to make that change believe they are trusted and respected - and that they can succeed.
The examples here show how early years settings are working with young children, families and communities to enrich lives and improve the well-being of all. They illustrate how early childhood provision can be part of the solution. Similar examples in other sectors and among neighbourhoods will contribute in other ways. The key is to share experience, build understanding and work together.
Early years recommendations
A particularly disappointing aspect of A Good Childhood is the relative invisibility of young children. 'You can't have a report that claims to reflect the experience of childhood when you haven't included the early years,' says early childhood specialist Jennie Lindon. Of its 30-odd recommendations for parents, teachers, Government, the media and wider society, only four relate directly to young children.
The simplest is for a civil birth ceremony to help families value their newborns, which can be dismissed as little more than lipservice. 'All parents are able to organise some kind of welcome for their child, even if it is just visits from family and friends,' says Jennie Lindon. 'If they can't do that, then they need help in other ways.'
A more worrying recommendation is for standard assessments of emotional and behavioural wellbeing for children at age five (and at 11 and 14). It is suggested as a way to take the focus off academic achievement, help identify mental health problems and promote assessment that can help children rather than build league tables. Jennie Lindon is not convinced. 'Is the panel seriously suggesting this would not, or could not, be used as another form of testing?' she asks.
The early years sector will welcome the recommendations for all childcare to be of high quality and for childcare workers to be afforded better pay. But it is worth remembering that 'childcare' refers to provision for children of all ages, with early childhood as a subsection. There is no mention of the sector's ongoing debate about quality.
In fact, early childhood provision does not feature in the report at all. The sentence that introduces a discussion about inequalities in education sails over the early years - 'The inequality begins in our primary schools' (page 91). Asked why inequalities in early childhood provision do not feature, early years expert Kathy Sylva, who led the inquiry's investigation into education, says, 'The Millennium Cohort Study found that, in early childhood, the poor get the highest quality because of Sure Start and children's centres. I believe the poor really are getting better quality than the rich in the early years, so primary school is where inequality begins in terms of what is on offer.'
This is a message to feel good about. But, according to Daycare Trust co-chief executive Emma Knights, it is also an oversimplification. She agrees that while the overall statistics do show that quality in disadvantaged areas is better, 'the reality is more patchy'. And, when discussing quality, is it not important to care about quality for all?
What the lack of discussion about early childhood provision ensures is that the sector's positive contribution to the well-being of children and their families is missing from the report. Again, the examples singled out here aim to redress that.
One recommendation that might have been expected from A Good Childhood is for universal free childcare. The document persistently refers to the 2007 Unicef report in which the UK came bottom of a list measuring the well-being of children in developed countries, with Scandinavia riding at the top. Several tables in A Good Childhood show how much better Scandinavian children fare than children in the UK. The report questions why that might be, but the existence of universal free childcare in Scandinavia is not discussed.
'No one on the panel thought it was affordable,' explains Kathy Sylva. 'We wanted to make proposals that we thought were possible.' This is, of course, a fair enough view. But it's a shame that such an ambitious inquiry, reflecting on very serious social questions, should have feet of clay and end up with recommendations that are pragmatic rather than aspirational.
Authentic voices?
The Good Childhood Inquiry undertook an immense task to gather input from children so that, as Kathy Sylva says, their 'authentic voice' could be presented to the panel of experts. It collated around 15,000 contributions (a summary report of these is available on the Children's Society website).
So it is surprising that after such enormous effort to consult children, the author of A Good Childhood, Richard Layard, reached much the same conclusions about the damaging impact of our 'selfishly individualistic' society as he did in his book Happiness, published four years ago. The authentic voice of children didn't seem to be needed very much.
Even more curious is the fact that the Children's Commissioner, Al Aynsley-Green, who sat on the inquiry panel, appears to have distanced himself from the report, albeit gracefully. He has given no interviews and there is no mention of A Good Childhood on the website for the Commissioner's organisation (www.11million.org.uk).
As Commissioner, Al Aynsley-Green is a principal supporter of children's rights in England, tasked with seeing that children's views are listened to and acted upon, and that children contribute to shaping that action. The problem with A Good Childhood is that children's voices have not been converted into potential for children's action.
Instead, the recommendations are for measures to protect and provide for children, and all the action is in the hands of adults. Children are not invited to participate. Asked why, panel member and Children's Society project manager Jim Davis said that children are limited in what they can do because adults exercise so much power. 'We recognise that the measures to which children are contained by parents must be addressed before children can move ahead collectively.'
It's a conclusion that overlooks the many ways in which children already take helpful action in their families and communities. A patronising series of messages to young people at the end of the report compounds the impression that the voices of all those children who contributed were not understood by the inquiry at all.
It is clear that A Good Childhood is the result of enormous hard work by many people who are deeply committed to children. The Children's Society is an important force for good and offers vital support for children whose lives are especially bleak.
It is also clear that writing critically of such a publication might be seen as an easy route to take. But it isn't the one I intended. This article was commissioned to be a rave, to reflect on how the report had taken a bold stance on the right approach to children and how that compared so favourably with other ideas about childhood. But I could not write that piece because the report is not bold. Instead, it is the unfortunate result of a too-large committee with a too-broad remit that appears to have written what it could agree upon rather than what could inspire change.
- Pat Gordon-Smith is a writer and editor for the early years
BLOOMING OUTDOORS: DIMSON DAY NURSERY
Friendships, warm relationships, outdoor play and a belief in children's abilities are the key elements that provide children at Dimson Day Nursery in Gunnislake, Cornwall, with a 'good childhood'.
Outdoor play - viewed as essential in the inquiry's report - is central to provision at the 42-place nursery, located on a ten-acre smallholding with gardens, animals, a wildlife pond and an acre of woodland.
The nursery acknowledges that its children may be growing up in a family culture that is risk-averse, but rejects strictly supervised activities in favour of a positive attitude to risk and encourages the children to take responsibility for the plants, the animals, their decisions and each other.
So, the children use tools for chopping and sawing to make dens, and fire pits for cooking home-grown food. They are taught strategies for assessing risk and getting out of trouble before being allowed to go into the woodland out of adult view. They are consulted about activities and encouraged to make their own decisions - about, most recently, a mud slide (see page 22).
'One child instigated it, others joined in, they all helped build it, did the turn-taking and worked it all out for themselves,' says co-owner and manager Patricia French.
Such an approach, which includes a willingness to involve the children's families, builds the children's confidence and self-esteem, creates mutual trust and allows friendships, and warm relationships with adults to grow - also seen by the report as essential to well-being.
The key factor, Mrs French believes, is the outdoors. 'You don't get decision-making and responsibility on that sort of scale indoors,' she says. 'It's noticeable how the children work as a team outside. They've got confidence in each other, and that builds incredible friendships.'
WORKING WITH PARENTS: CHESTNUT CHILDREN'S CENTRE
At Chestnut Children's Centre in Exeter, parents recently produced some artwork as part of a wider local project for which the nursery children were building large-scale structures using gigantic cylinders.
Parents were invited to express their ideas and feelings about their children, their family and the community, using any of the art materials on offer. Intended as a relaxed session, it became animated when parents began to share stories as they talked about the experiences they were hoping to represent.
'The session was planned to help parents understand how much their children gain from creating artwork, but it turned into so much more,' says senior teacher Maggie Reeves. 'Parents often have poor memories of being at school. This activity gave them the opportunity to just be themselves.' She says that, by being valued, the parents involved gained an insight into their children's creativity and the great benefits of appreciating it.
WORKING WITH FATHERS: BEST PRACTICE
A Good Childhood points to the positive impact of fathers on children's well-being and resilience, even in difficult circumstances. It says, 'Children develop better friendships, more empathy, higher self-esteem, better life satisfaction and higher educational achievement' if fathers are closely involved with them. Conversely, children in conflict with their father are 'much more likely to become destructive and aggressive' (page 18).
Its conclusion is based on relatively recent evidence, but will be unsurprising to those working closely with children and families.
As in the rest of the report, a negative impact on children is rightly identified, but the text does not acknowledge the pressure that individuals find themselves under and fails to credit all the fathers who play a significant role in their children's lives, even in difficult circumstances.
Dads on board
Sudbourne Primary School, in south London, noticed that the children who struggled most in the school community often had families who were largely unknown to staff. It introduced measures to address this problem. Now, nurture groups support the children in greatest need, while confidential classroom 'worry boxes' and a positive behaviour policy founded on relationships seek to create a community that is comfortable for all.
To draw more families into the school, staff chat to children and families at the gate, and there are several opportunities for parents to spend time in school with their children. Chief among these are regular 'Dads into school' sessions, where they cook, paint, draw or read in the school hall with their children for a morning.
Headteacher Milan Stevanovic says, 'The first event drew around 50 fathers, many of whom we had never seen before.' There are no learning intentions for the sessions, just time spent by fathers in the company of their children alongside other fathers - and a great deal of mothers too; the sessions are open to all.
'These events are now so popular that the hall fairly bursts at the seams,' says Milan Stevanovic. 'The sessions have brought so many more fathers into contact with their children's experience and they strengthen everybody's sense of being a community.'
A Sure Start programme in the north of England had even more ambitious aims for fathers. Researcher Lynne McKenna (2008) describes how New Town Sure Start worked to help fathers develop a sense of themselves as parents and to foster their 'fathering' skills in a regular Sunday morning group. The group brought together fathers with their young children and older siblings in a social gathering not unlike a playgroup.
The group had been going for three years at the time of the research, so fathers were able to reflect clearly on its impact. One reported that the sessions had 'allowed him time to enjoy being with the children and this, in turn, had stopped his family complaining that he didn't spend enough time with them'.
The fathers had developed the confidence to see themselves as more than breadwinner and disciplinarian. 'I'm just as important as their mam!' said one. And they took pride in their children's achievements. Others talked about the importance of day-to-day experiences. 'Sometimes when I pick (the children) up and they moan all the way home about their day or the cold,' one father said, 'I have to remind myself that it is great being able to pick them up.'
Fathers offered ideas for developing the groups with enthusiasm, illustrating how valuable they found these Sunday mornings.
- Mckenna, L (2008) 'The involvement of men: changing notions of fatherhood', Early Education, 56, 5-7
CONSULTING WITH CHILDREN: STOKE HILL NURSERY SCHOOL
The Inquiry's consultation of young children was conducted in four small focus groups, with a total of around 60 children. It is a small number among 15,000, but would be realistic in terms of establishing adult-child relationships and using a variety of consulting techniques.
Sadly, the consultation did not use methods that can draw out meaningful responses from young children. The sessions certainly produced a lot of lively response to the 'story book' that was used for consultation. But the researcher, though known to the settings, was not known to all the children. The 'story book' was really a series of illustrated consultation questions, and the single approach will not have drawn contributions from shy children, or from those with little language or English as an additional language. As such, it was a partial consultation only.
Chatty observation
Consulting young children takes time. For Stoke Hill Nursery School in Exeter it is taking a whole year. The nursery opened its doors to children last September and is lucky to have access to a wild wooded area that will, eventually, be semi-tamed for the children's play.
Before plans are drawn up for the area, the children are getting to know it. Staff observe as they play and pay attention when the children talk about what they have done outdoors. 'We know where the muddy patches are and we know where the wind blows the leaves,' says headteacher Sarah Mackay. The design will be influenced not only by what the children say but by the evidence of choices, enjoyment, learning, friendships and sadnesses that have occurred over the year. By the time the area is completed, children will have played an active role in creating their own environment and in directing an important aspect of their own early childhood experience.
All of this fits into a normal day at Stoke Hill. Staff don't talk about carrying out a consultation, but that is precisely what they are doing. Their methods acknowledge young children as experts and listen to their views through long-term observation and informal talk in relationships that the children trust.
More Information
A Good Childhood: Searching for Values in a Competitive Age is available from bookshops and website dealers
