It was May 2022, early afternoon, when I received a phone call from my daughter's daycare. The teacher was crying. My heart stopped beating.

I still remember exactly where I was standing, who I was with, and what I could see as the kaiako on the other end of the line said "I'm so sorry!"

...In hindsight, given my daughter was fine, it was perhaps not the best choice of opening line.

Every parent reading knows EXACTLY what nightmare I had gone straight to imagining.

Babies and Toddlers Are Vulnerable

I felt a little like I had been expecting this call - I'd spent so many months as a new parent worrying, scanning, and assessing risks wherever we went.

I used to be a high-school teacher. I'm very familiar with curriculum design, licensing criteria, and visits from ERO. When I was teaching, I considered regulations just part and parcel of the job.

Now, I'm a parent who has transferred the responsibility of my daughter's safety and development to an ECE four days a week, I have a new appreciation of regulations.

Teaching at high school, I had different concerns about the wellbeing ofstudents.

The risk to life throughout a normal school day was low. Teenagers - for the most part - can be left unsupervised to eat an apple. They know how NOT to fall off tables onto their heads during Science lessons. They aren't at risk of drowning in a bucket when the teacher is distracted during Maths class.

Not so in ECE.

Babies and toddlers are just so, so, bloody vulnerable.

Concerning Proposed Changes

Because of Clasp I've been closely following the proposed changes to the ECE regulations. They're doubly interesting to me and at times a little difficult to separate my feelings about; how can I best support our customers to stay acorss the changes, AND disagree with a lot of them?

As a parent, a few of the proposed changes concern me most:

Health and Safety 22: Supervision while eating. The changes allow a teacher to be in 'proximity' to children eating, rather than seated with them. Proximity is subjective. Distractions are imminent. Choking is silent.

Health & Safety 9: Sleep. The frequency change of checks from every 10 minutes to 15 minutes could put babies more at risk of SUID. Children could be left longer awake, crying, or scratching themselves.

Health & Safety 25: First aid qualifications. They've halved the ratio required; from 1 qualified adult to 25 children, to 1:50.

Curriculum 3: Interactions. The rule "Kaiako interact positively to enhance children's learning and attachment" has been scrapped; but why would I want anything LESS than positive interactions?! It's a basic requirement. It should remain.

Curriculum 5: Acknowledgement of tangata whenua. Also scrapped was "Services' teaching acknowledges Māori as tangata whenua. Children have the opportunity to learn about and understand Te Tiriti o Waitangi" - unlike David Seymour, I am proud of our bicultural nation. My daughter will learn the history of Aotearoa, how (and when) her ancestors arrived, and the importance of Te Tiriti o Waitangi to our country's past, present, and future.

In fact, scrapping all of the Curriculum criteria. While I do sometimes refer to my daughter's ECE as "daycare" (sorry to all!) I know it is an Early LEARNING Centre. With no on curriculum to guide kaiako's interactions and learning design, I would feel much less confident leaving her care to others. As it stands, I can go to work knowing she's getting a quality start to her education and plenty of opportunities for play.

A Working Parent's Perspective

Contrary to David Seymour's opinion, ECE, ELC, Daycare - whatever you want to call it - is NOT about getting me back to work.

When my daughter was 9 months old and I was looking for a local service, I was not looking for any old centre so I could go and work 32 hours a week and contribute to the economy. Parents DON'T think like that!

I wanted a quality centre that would:

• Keep my daughter SAFE
• Care for her and love her as much as possible
• Provide a rich, diverse, creative, engaging learning and social environment where she would thrive
• Have a fantastic foundation, particularly in those first 1,000 days

These changes are concerning because they seem to be shifting the focus of ECE away from children's wellbeing and learning, to being a place to drop my daughter and just... hope for the best.

Continuing to Care

From working with Centres I know many do struggle with the amount of admin and paperwork, but I also know that most - if not all - would continue to meet existing requirements to ensure a safe and nurturing environment for their tamariki.

It would be all of our absolute worst nightmare to make (or worse, receive) a phone call with horrible news, because of loosened regulations.