Tim Gully - The Critical Years: Early Years Development from Conception to 5

Edited by Angie Bartoli

978-1-909330-13-9 Published April 2012

By Daisy Bogg and Maggie Challis

978-1-909330-25-2 Published April 2013

Edited by Steven Walker

978-1-909330-53-5 Published April 2013

By Brian Atkins

978-1-909330-33-7 Published May 2013

By Julie Adams and Angie Sheard

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By Pam Field, Cathie Jasper and Lesley Littler

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Early Years Development from Conception to 5

First published in 2014 by Critical Publishing Ltd.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

Copyright Tim Gully

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: 978-1-909330-73-3

This book is also available in the following e-book formats:

MOBI ISBN: 978-1-909330-74-0

EPUB ISBN: 978-1-909330-75-7

Adobe e-book ISBN: 978-1-909330-76-4

The rights of Tim Gully to be identified as the Author of this work have been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1988.

Cover design by Greensplash Limited

Project Management by Out of House Publishing

Typeset by Newgen Knowledge Works Pvt Ltd

Printed and bound in Great Britain by TJ International

Critical Publishing

152 Chester Road

Northwich

CW8 4AL

www.criticalpublishing.com

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank my mother, father and auntie Lil for giving me a safe and happy early childhood. It is the key to everything else.

Meet the author

Having worked for the Probation Service, the NSPCC and in social work for 25 years, mostly with dangerous offenders and in child protection, Tim made the move into higher education early this century. He has taught both social work and early childhood studies and currently teaches at the University of Chichester. His research interests include the making of children from conception to birth, risk society, social pedagogy and child protection in early years. Working with both victims and abusers, he believes that it is essential to see situations holistically so that we can better understand, intervene and protect children. Internationalism is at the core of his teaching and research and he has been able to teach in Denmark, Romania and Germany, bringing ideas back to include in his teaching in the UK.

Introduction

Learning outcomes:

to place the child in context;

to initiate debates to follow, in particular about parenting and risk;

to consider the role of the practitioner;

to outline the theoretical child development framework;

to explain the structure of the book.

Critical question

What are the key issues currently facing children in their early years, their parents and carers and the practitioners that work with them?

I was born an only child to hard-working, middle-class, older parents. We lived in a small town on an island. I remember a tabby cat called Ugi and a blue budgie whose name I have forgotten. I do not remember ever being hungry, especially cold or not having my own room and bed to sleep in. I do remember wanting even more Lego. My mother went back to work when I was about six months old, but not before she had found a wonderful woman to look after me, someone who remained an important person in my life until I had my own children and she was in her nineties. My first school was directly across the road and I remember my time there with affection, even having to do ballet. Theoreticians, I am sure, might make much of the above.

I am here because my parents met, married and decided to try for a child and were successful in this endeavour. They lived in a society in which social expectations, structures and norms were comparatively simple and people could predict how life would go. The world was not unlike that inhabited by previous generations, but things were changing and the rate of change was speeding up. I inherited genes, attitudes and behaviours. I look like my father and have the ectomorphic build of my mother. I support the same football team as my father while my mother taught me to cook and play tennis, activities I continue to enjoy. Both my sons carry the family likeness and physique while my eldest son plays sport and supports the team in blue. My youngest son plays sport, cooks, but to my chagrin supports a different football team because he happened to be born in that city and they were doing better than the blues as he grew up. We are all a link in a chain that stretches back hundreds, if not thousands, of years and stretches forward, in my case, for at least one generation. We inherit a great deal, but also have the ability to grow and make our own choices.

Children in context

Children have always existed but have been seen in society in many different ways, from slaves to gods. Child development that occurs from birth to adulthood was largely ignored throughout much of history. Children were often viewed simply as small versions of adults and little attention was paid to the many advances in the cognitive abilities, language usage and physical growth that take place during childhood and adolescence. Interest in the field of child development finally began to emerge late in the nineteenth century and gathered momentum through the twentieth century, but in these early explorations it tended to focus on abnormal behaviour and how to control and contain the unruly child. Eventually, researchers became increasingly interested in other topics, including typical child development as well as the parental, social and environmental influences on development.