If You Can't Find Child Care - CareforKids.com.au®

If You Can't Find Child Care
Just stick 'em in front of the goggle box – apparently it is good for them!
By Sophie Cross

If you can't find suitable child care or are just finding it way too expensive to contemplate, there is happy news…Apparently, according to an article in the Sydney Morning Herald on April 19, a recently released research paper says that kids who spend time in front of the television or computer may benefit cognitively more than if they were hanging out with friends, alone at home or in after-school care!

Hurrah. So if you have just been through what was pretty much the wettest Easter school holidays since Noah's day, and with things like Bushrangers, archeological digs, tennis, soccer and all other outdoor sporting camps rained out, you will be breathing big sighs of relief right as your guilt at the amount of TV and DVDs your children watched over the holidays gives way to smug mummy "I told you so" look.

I knew there was a positive reason that kids' shows were invented. Except for Spongebob Squarepants and the various "screaming teenager shows" my daughter seems to favour.

Yes, according to a new paper to be presented at a National Centre for Social and Economic Modelling seminar in April, how children spend their time makes a huge impact on their cognitive abilities and future life prospects. How the Allocation of Children's Time Affects Cognitive and Non-Cognitive Development, co-written by Dr Fiorini and Professor Michael Keane of the University of NSW, any re-allocation of children's time which "favours this kind of activity by substituting away from time in general care, bed or before/after-school care would have a positive effect on skills".

The effect is estimated to be comparable to the effect of increasing parental education - one of the biggest factors impacting on childhood cognitive ability and future education potential.

So, let's not go too far and pretend that programs like Spongebob do anything but reduce all children into a sort of deaf/catatonic state, BUT if you switch to say, Dora, Bear Grylls or Animal Planet or anything on the Discovery Channel when you don't feel like or don't have the time for playing games and reading with your children, it is actually doing them good…

Happy news then for mums in the holidays, or for those trying to work from home, child care may be elusive and expensive, but that highly recommended childminder called Mrs Foxtel offers all the educational programs you can imagine for less than $100 a month (including free multi-room installation). Now that's a bargain.

Read more here.

Sophie Cross is a public relations consultant and writer who has publicised and written about everything from makeup to The Muppets, child care to celebrity chefs and perfume to Partners in Population and Development! Originally from the UK and as a languages graduate she has worked around the world, living in Australia for the last 11 years where she runs, PR Chicks.

She is sometimes devoted wife of Stu and always devoted mother to Francesca and two cats, with whom she's about to go on her latest adventure, living and working remotely from their little piece of Spanish heaven in Chite, the Lecrin Valley, just south of Granada. And FYI it's pronounced "ch-ee-tay" not shite.