Kia ora friends,
Yesterday, the news was full of this story, concerned about the oral language skills of children arriving in New Zealand’s schools, aged five. Later in the day, speech language therapists joined in, confirming how worrying kids’ language is, and adding their own workforce shortages to the list of challenges.
The person interviewed on RNZ laid the blame at the feet of the pandemic and children’s screen time. Salient points, but no mention made of parents’ own screen use, yet again, despite it being associated with language learning, a reliable predictor of children’s habits and a factor measurably influencing maternal sensitivity & responsiveness. Oh, and maternal sensitivity has been shown to predict a secure attachment, which influences almost everything. Forever.
Parents need support, especially at the transition to parenthood. So many of them are feeling unsupported – my doctoral research has confirmed this to a heartbreaking extent. And as for the screen stuff, we all need more green time, less screen time, and new parents in particular are being set adrift in risky online spaces. Once I get that thesis online, you can have a look at how my research also highlights a real silence from the perinatal workforce about how to manage (in particular) smartphone use during caregiving. Without attention to this issue, there will continue to be children lacking the expected skills to thrive in the formal learning of primary school – no pandemic to blame.
This government’s response, which seems to universally involve throwing more testing at children, fails to address the foundational needs of families, and the neurobiological reality of infants requiring attuned, unhurried care in order to grow into the sort of five year olds who can rock up to school, full of chat and ready to learn.
(*PS I love this quote from a teacher at my local school in response to increased testing … oh, the school is rural, hence the farming metaphor: “Just because you weigh a pig more often, it doesn’t make the pig grow any faster”.)