Opinion: To the point - Listen to bad behaviour

How can as many as 1,500 children under five be suspended from nursery and reception classes every year? Commentators expressed shock at the news that young children could possibly have such difficult behaviour. This is another example of the unhelpful romanticisation of early childhood. It doesn't surprise me at all.

Recently I carried out a short piece of research into the role of the key person, which reminded me how very difficult it can be for staff to manage the feelings evoked when a child bites or hurts them and the other children.

Times have changed. When pioneers like Margaret Macmillan, Anna Freud and others opened some of the first nursery schools in England, they found the young children to be highly withdrawn and introverted, used to spending time out on the streets without adequate food or clothing. Children thrived in those early nurseries, experiencing freedom, space, good food, care and love. But with the reduction in absolute poverty has come an increase in the miseries associated with relative poverty, feeling excluded and depressed.

Some children now are suffering from a lack of limits to their behaviour, living with a too-permissive love that affirms almost everything they do. Many spend excessive time in front of the television and with electronic toys.

Nurseries now are more likely to be working with over-active children and introducing them to the values of tolerating others. Some early years provision in schools now is very formal, requiring children to sit still during long, whole-class lessons.

I am sure the nursery school pioneers' principles are still relevant. I work in a nursery school where there was once extremely difficult behaviour, and I lived through the sometimes painful processes of addressing that. When children are angry or violent, they are telling us that they are unhappy, or confused, or overwhelmed; that they feel uncared for.

Adults must show that we do care, and we must show that we believe in each child's potential to develop and grow. We need to put our trust in parents, to help them and strengthen their desire to help their children. We must care for difficult children, not send them away.

Julian Grenier is head of Kate Greenaway nursery school and children's centre in London