Originally republished from The Conversation more than three years ago, this article covers the controversial topic of controlled crying from the perspective of parental sleep and post natal depression. As researcher DR ANNA PRICE from Murdoch Children’s Research Institute (MCRI) writes, women ‘who said their baby’s sleep was a problem were twice as likely to experience […]
While extended hours may provide flexibility for some families, other families may be looking for shorter sessions or greater choice about what hours they use and pay for. Flexible sessions are one way that early childhood services can align service operating hours with the needs of the family. A session of care is ‘is the […]
Even young children need to learn how technology works and how to create it, not simply how to use it. At the start of Computer Science Education Week (8-14 December), Associate Professor Katrina Falkner and her computing science colleagues at the University of Adelaide, drew attention to the benefits of coding skills for children. Computing […]
The opposition to the Paid Parental Leave scheme has been unhelpfully vitriolic at times but the Government’s decision to redirect funds from Paid Parental Leave (PPL) into early childhood education and care is the right one. As an advocate for children, I support full wage replacement Paid Parental Leave –it would make it much easier […]
This blog was originally posted in 2014 and updated in August 2020. Expressing joy, sharing and giving, these are evergreen qualities yet Christmas can look and feel different in different settings. This blog post is a timeless reflection on the end of the year: all that it brings us and all that we bring to it. […]
Deakin University — On Tuesday Greens Spokesperson for women, Larissa Waters, lent her support to No Gender December – a campaign spearheaded by the group Play Unlimited that aims to highlight the gendered marketing of toys. Over recent days, public discussions have typecast the campaign as “anti-Barbie”, with the Prime Minister attacking it as politically correct. I’m […]
I was fortunate enough to attend the 2014 Early Childhood Australia Conference in Melbourne this year, and I was amazed by the quality of the presentations from truly inspirational speakers. But the session that is still rattling around in my brain is not the one I was expecting. It was a working session with a […]
A bill to appoint a children’s E-Safety Commissioner is before Federal Parliament today. In a move to crack down on online bullying of children, a commissioner would have powers to order individuals and large social media services to remove offensive material posted online. While research indicates about one in five older children in Australia have been […]
Early Childhood Quotes of the month from Parliament and the press. “Thousands of families use both formal and informal in-home care options everyday and that number continues to grow because the current formal regulated childcare system just isn’t meeting their needs. If certain states and territories have concerns about the impacts of regulating in-home care, […]
A frequent answer to the question ‘What do you like about your job’ is ‘It’s different every day – no two days are the same’. That makes sense up to a point. It’s hard to imagine loving a job where you do exactly the same thing every day. But would it be great to have […]
