Suffer the Little Children: An Insiders’ View of the Workings of Early Childcare Facilities in New Zealand That Will Get You Nearer to the Truth Than Ever Before.

By David Smith Diploma ECE

To make informed choices, you need information. This book will open up the world of early childhood education and give you that knowledge. Everything is under the microscope for you to ponder. Join me as I try to inform, challenge, question and make suggestions based on thirty years experience. Let me take you through the options, and learn about the importance of physical space in creating healthy, happy children. Learn as I have done about the logistics of providing Quality care. Ask as I have asked where to from here.
David Smith Dip.ECENZ

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris NZ
• Release date: Oct 8, 2014
• ISBN: 9781493192502

David Smith Diploma ECE

“David Smith is a Trained Early Childhood Teacher with over 30 years’ experience in a variety of Early Childhood settings. He has been employed full-time, and has relieved both for himself and for relief agencies both long-term and short-term. In his capacity as an Early Childhood Teacher David has worked with children under and over the age of two years old. While David’s experience has mainly been as a Trained Teacher he has been employed as an Assistant Supervisor and an acting Supervisor on a few occasions. He has also been the teacher in temporary charge on the day on numerous occasions. If you asked David what his particular strengths were he would probably say, his ability to relate to and settle children of all ages who were shy or had special needs. David attributes this ability to the influence of his mother and his experience working with older special needs children when he lived in Christchurch. David also had experience working with problem Teenagers as a reliever for a foster family also in the 1980’s in Christchurch. The foster family subsequently took up a position running a Social Welfare Family Home and David again was a relief person for them. He currently lives in Wainuiomata, a Suburb of Lower Hutt, which is a City in the Wellington region, forty minutes’ drive from Wellington City.

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

LOFTY IDEALS

When I became involved in childcare in the 1980s, it was a time of great social change, where women were moving into the workforce in increasing numbers and day-care centres were opening to fill the resulting need for care for pre-schoolers that could not be met by in-home care, nannies, or other family members.

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It was a time when regulations were minimal and wages were miniscule (I was paid $2.10 per hour in 1986). When I became involved in early childcare, it was very much a vocation or calling in those days and there were never any thought of making big money from it. In fact, when I did my three years of training, a high portion of it was voluntary. (There are some interesting statistics for this period still online both here and in America. Have a look, you might be surprised at what people were saying about childcare then.)

Specific training for people to care for the children was limited, and mothers and grandmothers who brought with them their experience from raising their own children were heavily relied on to coach the younger caregivers with not much experience but lots of passion and empathy with and great love for children. There was kindergarten training, but that was at college, and most of the trainees went into kindergartens, which were sessional and only catered for children from around three and a half to five. The only alternative was basically training in the evening through the New Zealand Childcare Association. In 1984 when I started my three-year training in Christchurch, they had just switched to day classes, and while most centres and other sessional providers did pay for the time off for caregivers, it was not always the case. (Also not every centre or sessional provider belonged to or recognised the New Zealand Childcare Association [NZCA]. Later in the ’80s, private centres set up their own association to look after their interests and lobby government with the profit motive to the forefront.) To be fair, there were privately owned centres run by fantastic people who did not set up to make a profit. These were stand-alone centres set up by mainly women who had a handyman husband that could do all the building and fixing.

I should clarify at this point that when referring to day care, I mean provision of care for children the whole day with provision of sleeping facilities for the day as well as catering for meal, either cooked on the premises or provided by parents in the form of packed lunches (fees were usually less in this case as there was no need to pay a cook). Childcare facilities refers to all childcare providers whether full-time or part-time.

The ’80s were also time of conflicting opinions about women in the workforce and the standard of care we should provide for the care of children in New Zealand and what the ultimate outcome would be for family life as we knew it.

(I remember one woman who asked us not to mention that she had children at the centre as she had lied about having children when applying for the job.)

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Caregivers were becoming unionised, resulting in conflicts with employers, which even led to blacklisting of some people in the union. Intimidation was definitely common when caregivers dared to speak out about unfair conditions. I was blacklisted and warned on several occasions.

In the ’80s, there were lots of not-for-profit types of care, and there were expectations of parents to attend working bees, be on committees and generally help out. It was quite common for parents who had time on their hands (there was a proportion of children in care just so the parent could have a break) to do volunteer hours in childcare facilities, particularly sessional where teachers were sometimes outnumbered by parents.

Change and conflicting emotions, even open hostility, were part of the scene in the ’80s. Yet despite all of the above, there was an underlying feeling of excitement particularly by women. They now had real and empowering choices and they were making them. Some were scared, some were unsure. Those who wanted to stay home did without feeling too guilty as there were casual options, including kindergarten, they were getting the chance to learn ‘social skills’, and the caregivers—we were still called caregivers in those days—were going to be trained to be experts in child development and able to understand what all the big words that were being thrown about in regard to children meant, like ‘cognitive’ and ‘schema’. Childcare was now on the road to being recognised as having status in society. Parents who had any doubts on whether they were doing the right thing by putting their children in care were given re-assurance that research of the day and expert opinion were in favour of it and that their child would be better off because of it and so would parents who would be kept up to date with the progress of their children. Children would be given learning opportunities that they would not necessarily be given at home by dedicated caregivers.

Children who did not have access to these learning opportunities would be disadvantaged in the school system. (This is reasonably true—it is not in the benefit of any child to be completely isolated from society.)

As well as being able to go to work and earn extra money, which would benefit themselves and their children, there would be opportunities for parents to learn more about child development as they were kept informed through regular meetings with teachers along with reports on their child’s progress. Parents would be able to have input through regular newsletters, information evenings, etc. (in the ’80s and early ’90s, home visits were not uncommon even within day-care settings).

Parents who chose to work could even put their babies in care with no ill effects on mother or baby. My first full-time position was in a centre that had a baby 7 days old in care. There is still varying opinions on babies in care today in March 2014, but thank goodness, there is general agreement that 7 days old is considered too young and I do not know of any cases of babies that young being placed in full day care now. Not many centres will take babies under 6 months now, at least not in New Zealand. Maternity leave for parents is now more freely available.

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It is only now when I look back on those days that I realise the huge responsibility I was given in looking after a 7-day-old baby (even if it was only for a short time—as the mother got sick and had to go back to the hospital, which meant the baby was going with her). Some days I would be opening up the centre by myself. The baby would be dropped off early. (I must have had skills/empathy with babies even then as the mother did not hesitate to entrust her precious little bundle of joy over to me, even though I was a male, still single, and had no children of my own.)

I had however looked after my niece and nephew when they were young, and I had to have some references/referees to get into training. The owner who also supervised the running of the centre lived next door and she sometimes came over later. So there I would be with a 7-day-old baby—maybe in my arms—if she was not asleep. Other children would start to arrive and parents sometimes wanted to chat or give me information or ask questions. This was also a time where legislations/ rules covering regular checking of sleeping babies or children was not mandatory. It took the death of a child to change this.

I also remember the great debates that took place in the classes I attended—as part of my training in early childcare—about which childcare theorist was the most credible and most relevant to that time (the eighties). My training took place in ’84 to ’86. It was a big deal when we all got our certificates, not just for us, but also for all those who were pushing for childcare to be recognised as a profession, not just a vocation. I still have mixed feelings about that, even though I joined the union and was in favour of better working conditions, even rights for women and the whole concept of equal pay for equal work.

Those of us involved in the care of children were generally enthusiastic and highly motivated to use our newfound knowledge for the benefit of children in our care. We did not mind that in general we could not leave to go home before we had finished certain tasks even if all the children had gone home. It was common for us to ask permission to go home if the owner or supervisor was around.

Most of us who cared for children in those days were of a generation that still embraced old-school ideas around hard work, punctuality, respect, and conscientiousness, and the young people of the next generation coming through were keeping us on our toes and bringing fresh ideas to the table and were happy to follow in our footsteps even while pushing for better working conditions. Older women were still seen as having wisdom and valuable experience.

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Men were a rarity in childcare, and women were fit from hard work or were too darned stubborn to admit defeat when it came to setting things up or moving all but the heaviest objects. I have no wish to go back to the conditions of the eighties, but I wonder if we have thrown the baby out with the bathwater, so to speak. I will talk about this near the end of the book when I compare what happened then and now. Within the last five years, I have still seen things that would have you in tears. There is no doubt in my mind that instances of violence between children—let’s be honest and call it bullying because that is what it is—is more prevalent today (more on this later).

I don’t believe this current generation realise what the people who stood up and fought for were subjected to or what personal cost there was to so many of us. I have lost wages and opportunities for advancement because I stood up for what I felt was right.

There were others who were forced out of a profession they loved through having been bullied by their bosses to such an extent that their health suffered. I remember doing a course on ‘working with toddlers’ here in Wellington, NZ—a great place to live, even today. There was someone from another centre on that course there who imparted to us the fact that her boss had been paranoid about her mixing with other people who might have radical views and had gone through the list of names to see if they could see anyone they had prior knowledge of or had been warned about.

That same course there was also a perfect example of what I have been on about regarding dedication and enthusiasm. Part of our course was to be on using resources in working with toddlers (still young 16 months to 2½ but able to move about under their own steam).

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Another man had the responsibility of seeing we were supplied with suitable resources in quantity to experiment with. He had a job description in his centre. He was the resource person. (In those days, caregivers/teachers were able to work to their strengths and use them for the benefit of the children.) This sort of specialisation was not uncommon in Christchurch where both he and I came from.

Anyway this man and his team arrived from Christchurch on the Friday, and that same evening, they went around all the shops in the main streets of Upper Hutt and begged, borrowed, or purloined the necessary items/resources for our course.

The first centre I was ever involved with employed a young lady solely to run an art room for the centre. That level of commitment and use of initiative is hard to find from people today. It is a now case of go out and buy, buy, buy, and you and I pay, pay, pay.

In the early nineties, there used to be a resource centre here in Wellington where teachers could swap what resources they needed for their centres. That is long gone now through lack of support and helpers.

I hope this and other examples are giving you an overview of what I think was good about the eighties and nineties and what was just downright scary.

Returning back to what I was saying about this current generation not understanding what it cost us to get any improvement for children or ourselves, I say this and sincerely believe this because there are so many examples of all our hard work being undone and will give you just a few examples of this.

In the late eighties and early nineties, there were reports, studies, and even recommendations from highly respected people that centres should be restricted in their ability to up the number of children in their care and that centres catering for no more than thirty should be the norm. We now in March 2014 have centres running that cater for up to a hundred children at a time. In the eighties and nineties, even into the beginning of the twenty-first century, centres that catered for babies (under 2 years old) would not have dreamed of having more than twenty babies under one licence or more than ten in a mixed age setting. Now the lower numbers are the exception and I now understand there are centres being set up for up fifty babies under one licence.

We fought for regular breaks for staff in full day-care centres, away from the children. I have visited a centre (part of a chain of centres) in the course of my relieving work where teachers do not have them away from children and are constantly putting half drinks down to attend to children. This was within the last three years and I doubt if the situation will have changed.

I applied for a job in the mid to late nineties, which I did not get, but I was informed during the interview that the staff had been given a choice between an extra teacher and more money. The money was taken. Thank goodness that even today though they fight for better conditions for themselves, the majority of teachers of any age group are not usually that mercenary. This is borne out by the fact that teachers will still dip into their own pockets for sometimes essential supplies in regard to children’s learning.

In the 1990s or just before legislation was passed that increased the number of under-2s in a mixed centre that could be under the supervision of one teacher from four to five, this was supposedly to bring ratios in mixed centres in line with those for centres that catered for babies only where one teacher was permitted for up to five babies. There were very good reasons why the difference in ratios between the two types of centre were in place—the major one being to keep the babies safe.

If you are in a room where you are with five babies and something happens either to a baby or yourself, by the time you can get help from other teachers who are responsible for their own groups of children, things can change quite dramatically in the blink of an eye, particularly with the babies. I have been in that exact position I am describing. I have floated the idea of emergency buzzers over the years. Most places I have relieved at have not had one, but there is a trend with using baby monitors in a way that is similar to a buzzer.

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I remember the first centre I ever got paid to work in—it was a two-storied house. A staff member was upstairs and was opening an upstairs window (one of those old-fashioned wooden ones). Anyway it came down on her hand and she was yelling for help for quite a while before someone came to her aid.

I was at another centre (1988, I think). We were all outside when a child sneaked inside and double-latched the door. I remember running round to get through a side entrance through the garage, hoping and praying that it was not latched too. It wasn’t.

It is amazing how much impact just one more child, particularly a baby, can make. Most of you reading this book will be parents, so you will have experienced this first-hand in your own family situations.

In a centre that caters for and is solely responsible for babies, at least there is more chance of help as the structure is different and availability of staff in emergencies for babies is slightly more likely but ideally a ratio of 1 teacher to 3 babies, which is my ideal—1 to 5 is slightly dodgy in my book. Say, for example, you have 3 staff and 15 babies. It is no exaggeration to expect a situation where 1 staff member is giving a baby a bottle and another is in the sleep room trying to put 3 babies to sleep. That leaves 1 staff member to keep the rest amused and happy. I have not mentioned all the other things required like the unexpected little parcels the babies will provide us with or that a staff member still may have to leave the room for a host of different reasons. Is reality beginning to sink in for you?

Even if you took 4 babies out of the equation due to things like sickness, visiting grandparents, hospital appointments, and babies arriving later, it is still not a pretty picture or one we should be proud of.

This is why I applaud those centre managers in both types of full day care who put their jobs/careers on the line on a daily basis for the sake of the children and staff that they care for and refuse to bow to pressure to run centres on maximum numbers on a daily basis and arrange rosters and staffing so that there is generally more staffing on the floor than is required by law. These managers will be prepared to authorise relievers even when the minimum staffing levels are being met without a reliever. These same managers will not hesitate to come on the floor (again even when they are not obliged to as ratios are being satisfied). Managers like these (rare diamonds, indeed) will be aware of what is going on in the personal life of their staff and will be prepared to leave important paperwork so that staff can take a moment to refocus before going on the floor with the children if something upsetting has happened. For example, a favourite pet may have passed away or a staff member’s child may be sick or did not turn up at school.

(I would like to say here and now to any of my previous managers/supervisors who are reading this that I am sorry if I gave you too hard a time and expected more from you than was humanly possible.)

It used to be an unwritten rule when I first started in childcare in the ’80s and even into the ’90s that the manager had free reign on deciding in consultation with staff on decisions about managing the role, and it was rare for centres to aim for operating with the maximum number of children every day that was possible. For example, if a centre was licensed for 30 children, the manager would operate on 25 or 26, maybe 27 at a pinch, and keep the extra spaces open for emergencies or extra siblings. No manager/supervisor with any guts would look at having more than one new child starting on the same day or even the same week.

Nowadays parents want their children to start yesterday. With so many centres in financial crises or just wanting to ensure their bottom line for return on their investment, it is a brave manager indeed who goes against the tide. There a few of these rare diamonds still out there, but the stress they are putting on themselves is beyond description. No wonder suitable managers are hard to find. Some are going back to just being teachers or snapping up those coveted jobs where the overall workload is less and they have committees or owners who understand what is meant by putting children and the people who care for them first. These enlightened individuals (rare jewels also) will go to great lengths and leave no stone unturned to ensure that there are funds available for the manager to employ staff who will fit in with what he/she is aiming for in best meeting the needs of the children under his/her care.

I will finish this chapter by referring back to my title for this chapter, which was ‘Lofty Ideals’. I think that we started to embrace the concept that women should have more freedom to choose and have more independence (which I supported and still do now) because it was right and proper for women to be more financially independent and not be penalised for having children.

However, as a society, we took for gospel all the glowing reports being given on the benefits for children of learning social skills and becoming brighter and happier individuals as a result of being in care for the day.

We were also told that the whole family would benefit. It was a win/win situation for everyone and our economy would grow as a result of increased consumer demand.

Again because the concept for more choice for women was a right and proper one, we chose to ignore the few experts who were painting a different scenario for us, especially those people from America where day care had been around for a while and the effects of this radical change in society was not (going down the road we were heading, in an effort to create a more just society with equal opportunities) going to reap the benefits that we were led to expect.

Even in the eighties, I believe women were finding themselves being pushed into working rather than being free to make the choice because it felt right for them. Husbands who had been staunch opponents of their wives working and were using phrases like ‘Over my dead body’, ‘Hell will have to freeze over first’ started to enjoy the benefits of that little extra money women could bring in—they could afford more beer or have the odd flutter on the horses.

Women who had been truly happy at home (their right to choose) were starting to feel they were disadvantaging their children if they did not have money to buy things for their children.

I may be wrong about this and I am sure people will correct me if I am wrong and hopefully not hold it against me. I believe that even the eighties and nineties in America, people were saying that it was taking two incomes for a family to have a similar lifestyle that had in the past taken only one income to achieve.

Because society as a whole chose to believe what the experts were saying and because women in particularly so dearly wanted it to be so, anybody like myself or others who were more vocal than me were ignored or, in some cases, forced from their job or made the painful choice to give up a profession they so dearly loved.

I know I have been guilty as have a lot of teachers in early childcare of telling porkies or holding things back about things in relation to their children and how they are really coping. I have yet to meet a teacher who has not painted a picture for parents that gives a healthier glow to some aspect of centre life than it deserves. Today the taking of photos as a way of recording the events in a child’s day is standard practice. Unfortunately this too can be misleading to parents (mostly unintentionally or with good intent). If you have children in care and get photographic records of your child’s day, how often will there be a photo of your child in an upset state or crying—I would say never, unless it was taken by a teacher who was presenting a series of photographs to show you how your child was at first upset and gradually became happy.

(Would you really want to see a photo of your child upset?)

Yet we know that children do get upset, have tantrums, and cry or display anger or fear or anxiety or laugh out loud for no particular reason for a whole variety of reasons. It is a natural part of being a child, and it is only when the negative things are prolonged that it becomes an issue.

If you look at most photos taken of your child, you will find that a fair portion will be of the child looking at the camera. This is usually not natural and is often posed with the teacher asking the child to look up or even smile—as when a child is actively engaged in an activity of some kind, they will be often looking down, not up. Would you want a photo of a child with their head obscured, making it difficult to recognise your own child? Sometimes with children so used to having their photos taken, they will actively pose for the camera.

I favour taking a series of photos to paint a truer account of what is happening in a child’s day. I also like other people to take pictures when I am actively involved in an activity with children as my attention should stay with them. There is also the issue of having too many photos taken and the teacher not being able or not having the time to accurately record what was happening in the photo. That has happened to me, and if another teacher had not jogged my memory, I would not have been able to use that photo.

It is crazy how many teachers I see rushing around looking for a camera to get that cute little shot. I am not immune either even though I know better.

Teachers are under so much pressure (some of it are self-imposed) to sanitise real life in a care facility and present everything in the best possible light. For example, at one centre, we had monarch butterflies as a project to demonstrate to children their life cycle. Children are naturally curious, and when the butterflies were at the caterpillar stage, some children got a little too curious. Unfortunately a few caterpillars got squashed. There was a great debate after about how to include this fact as part of the project or even if we should just not mention it. We got advice, which was that we could not put that in the children’s profile book as that was only for positive stuff. We could however present it in general discussions with parents and talk about how we worked through the issue with children.

(So much of what we do now as teachers can lead to conflicting opinions and lengthy discussions, with parents working more irregular or longer hours nowadays and centres opening longer to meet these needs. For example, malls and shops staying open longer.)

When I first started in childcare in the eighties here in New Zealand, not many centres were open till six in the evening. Now that is much more common.

With this being so, I ask you, when do staff get a chance to discuss issues away from children especially as nowadays teachers tend to have only half an hour for lunch? Staff meetings in New Zealand are mostly held fortnightly.

It is my understanding that in Australia they are thinking about having webcams in centres so that parents can keep tabs on how their child is coping and what activities they are engaged in. They may even be trialling them. I would be very interested in how that unfolds. I just hope that when parents see negative stuff regarding their children, like hitting and biting, as I am sure they will, they don’t lay all the blame on the teachers. The only good thing about it is that the really bad stuff will not be hidden and there will be proof positive available regarding things I am writing in this book—and what others have been saying for years about positives and negatives about long-term full day care. And at last parents will be able to agree or disagree based on reliable information.

(Most of you will have been guilty of overstating the positives for a product or service you provide.)

Take the typical scenario that teachers might be confronted by before judging us too harshly.

A parent comes into the centre to look round. They ask me if I do enjoy working there. I might well do, but I could also be thinking, ‘This is a crap centre—I wish I hadn’t left my last job’. Would I tell them that? Of course not. The consequences for me would be too damaging and the parent may choose not to believe me anyway. There is also the danger of being sued by management.

No, I would tend to say something like, ‘I find it challenging at times but I enjoy the contact with the children and feel I am making a difference’, which is true for me and most other teachers. That is why we stay in the profession. It is certainly not the conditions or the pay.

Teachers are the meat in the sandwich. I have resigned from centres and told the committee why, which must have got back to parents. There was one situation I remember that was so extreme that we the staff had to be brutally honest with a parent. A child was physically sick every time she attended the sessional crèche I was working at. We had hoped this situation would ease, and when it did not, for the sake of everybody concerned, but mainly the child’s, we suggested that the mother take the child out of the crèche because the situation was not improving. There was a parent group that operated nearby where the mother could stay with her child for the session. We suggested that she try there for a while, and when her child seemed more relaxed and less fearful, to come back to us. She was a totally different child when she did come back.

This example is one of the reasons I have fought hard in the past and still am today for there being a lots of alternative care available for parents to choose from. It is so heart-breaking and gut-wrenching to see the smaller sessional care facilities slipping away one by one. It is even more too difficult to understand why councils and the government here in New Zealand are not giving a dam.

Kindergartens here in New Zealand are losing their uniqueness, and some kindergarten associations are running full day-care facilities. They are starting to take children younger than ever before, which will curtail the freedom of choice for the average 4-year-old and the parents who chose that type of care specifically, as there are things that are deemed not safe for children 3 or under. Things that are small and easily swallowed would be an example or things for big muscle development would also be curtailed.

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It is all about funnelling more and more money into long-term full day care, most of which is now run by large chains of centres that are set up in the first instance to make a profit at the expense of children. I am sure that the majority of these people are not bad people, but as far as I am concerned, a purely business model for the care of children is a non-starter. Some chains now control so many centres that they have real clout when it comes to lobbying government. When job creation or redundancies are mentioned, governments rightly or wrongly tend to listen a lot harder and make decisions based on those issues alone.

So where am I at now? My last chapter will cover where to from here and will give some possible solutions that would help children in care have more pleasant experiences more often.

I truly believe that we should take a deep breath, have a glass of water, then take stock of our own individual situations and write down what we really want for our children, ourselves, and our family units. Forget about outside pressures for a moment. Then and only then will we be in the right frame of mind to make those ‘lofty ideals’ of freedom for women (they were hard fought for) possible, without sacrificing all our beautiful and precious children in the process.

To all those men out there, I want you to read this book. I come across so many pre-schoolers who are desperate for a man in their lives (more later).

Are you brave enough to work on this with me to get a result?

(It will involve making compromises and telling those in authority to get their act together. It will involve facing up to feelings of guilt, shame, anger, and great sadness that we did not do more or ignored what has been happening in our pre-schoolers lives.)

(I hope writing this book will in some way atone for the times I have not been as honest as I could have been or should have been with parents in regard to the daily events in their children’s lives so they could make choices for the care of their children based on facts and reliable information.)

CHAPTER TWO

WHOSE VALUES

I remember decades ago watching the news and hearing some expert from overseas telling us that by putting our children in full-time care without having a lot of input, we would end up with our children learning other values that were contrary to our own family values. I think that prediction has well and truly come to pass. Even though I knew I was working in a centre catering for children full-time and felt good about my interactions with children, parents, and staff, I was starting to have doubts about the value of full-time care over a prolonged period and the effect it had on children, parents, and staff. Practically from first getting into childcare, I knew like so many other like-minded people that the system we were working under could be so much better. This includes looking at the values our children are exposed to on a daily basis.

I have two issues I wish to draw your attention to in regard to values and full day care in general—I will look at sessional care separately, although what is true in relation to full day care will apply to some degree to sessional care particularly where regulations are concerned.

The first is that the less time children spend with their immediate family, the more they will likely to adopt outside values, and in some cases, they will start to question their home values (ways of doing things) and want to practice these outside values at home. This is just an established fact and in no way reflects blame on the centres that try very hard in most cases and follow regulations. You must bear in mind however that if you have fifty different families on the centre register all with different values, no matter how hard the teachers and committees try to work through it, your child will be exposed to different values, which is in itself probably a good thing, and it is only when the child spends the majority of their waking day away from their family and family values that it becomes a thorny issue, which is further exasperated by the fact that most of us lead busy lives, and even in weekends and evenings, we cannot guarantee that we will have time for our children. Then add in the fact that travelling to and from work eats up our family time and then there is TV and other electronic distractions.

(You can see it is a huge issue, which we as a society and as individuals should be looking at very hard indeed.)

The second is that ‘consistent values are important to children’.

In the ’80s and ’90s—like today here and now in 2014—there were people pushing their own values rather than listening to parents, some teachers (we teachers do not all live by the same values or necessarily agree on values we should be teaching children or how much time we should be spending if any on the subject of values), and the community as a whole.