5/4/2008 11:33:00 AM
The Observer 4 May
Parents should be given cash incentives to stay at home and spend 'quality time' with their children instead of feeling pressured by government to take jobs, a leading headteacher said yesterday. Clarissa Williams, president of the National Association of Headteachers, argued that, although Whitehall policy had made it the 'norm' to place toddlers in school-like settings while their parents worked, ministers should be encouraging parents to spend time talking, playing and reading with their children. 'Why do we feel the need to send children into an educational environment at the age of two?' Williams asked delegates at the union's annual conference in Liverpool. 'Are parents so distrusted that we want to separate them from their children at the earliest opportunity?' Williams also argued that those on benefits should not be punished for poor parenting, as they are now, but rewarded financially for helping at their children's schools, attending parent evenings and providing healthy meals. In letters to the Prime Minister, Williams called for a 'more creative approach to the benefits system... one based on rewarding parents who spend quality time with their children.'Observer
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