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Child Care News for Parents & Carers
March 12, 2014
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It's that time of year when we launch our Annual Child Care and Workforce Participation Survey. This is our ninth year and we're hoping for our best response to date. With the Productivity Commission on child care and working parents issues in play, we would like to know what issues you'd like covered and what issues you face. We also look at Hunger Games and how to teach your children to know if they're hungry or when they're just greedy, bored or sad.
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| Have your say
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| 9th Annual child care & workforce participation survey
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Share your child care concerns and an iPad mini could be yours¹
Yes, hard to believe, but it's that time of year again for us to run our annual Child Care and Workforce Participation Survey. This is our ninth year and every year we collect valuable information from you, the parents on the frontline, about issues facing you when it comes to child care.
This year viability of working is a key concern as is the rising cost of child care, lack of places for the under twos, child care centre time constraints and lack of support and flexibility in the workplace.
Are you finding it hard to juggle work and child care due to time constraints, lack of child care options, travel or lack of workplace flexibility? How much do you spend a week or month? How long did it take you to find child care? Is the cost of child care making it virtually unfeasible to work at all? How much have you paid on a waiting list? Do you still feel valued as an employee? These are all key factors the influence the happiness and productivity of working parents, and by proxy the happiness of our children.
We'd love to know the main issues facing you. Particularly when it comes to financial viability of working, difficulties of returning to work, the availability and cost of child care and employer flexibility.
If these are not the key issues as far are you're concerned, what do you think needs addressing right now?
The results of this survey are widely read by the media and policymakers alike.
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Survey results from previous years
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Need to know your child care options fast?
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Get a report of child care services that have vacancies now… and receive alerts whenever services change their vacancies |
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How to teach your child to know if they are hungry
by Sophie Cross
If you have a small child or even a large one who just hasn't learnt to tell when he or she is actually hungry, then this could be a great little test for you. As a parent and as someone who also finds it rather hard to turn down tasty food at any time, I too found it quite useful.
The thing is about hunger is that in these days of snacks on tap, kids and adults are very rarely actually hungry. They just pop in food at regular intervals so actually their stomachs are probably never even approaching empty.
After physical activity, after school, in the evenings – all key times when kids are prone to overload. I have never seen a child eat so much in quick succession as my daughter. When she gets in from school she shovels things down like she hasn't eaten for days, when I know she had a good lunch and snacks in the morning. Yes she's probably hungry to begin with but after the first snack, she's probably just on a roll.
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