PASSAGE 22 Early or Later Day Care The British psychoanalyst John Bowlby maintains that separation from the parents during the sensitive "attachment" period from birth to three may scar a child s personality and predispose to emotional problems in later life. Some people have drawn the conclusion from Bowlby s work that children should not be subjected to day care before the age of three because of the parental separation it entails, and many people do believe this. But there are also arguments against such a strong conclusion. Firstly, anthropologists point out that the insulated love affair between children and parents found in modern societies does not usually exist in traditional societies. For example, in some tribal societies, such as the Ngoni, the father and mother of a child did not rear their infant alone - far from it. Secondly, common sense tells us that day care would not be so widespread today if parents, care-takers found children had problems with it. Statistical studies of this kind have not yet been carried out, and they have uniformly reported that day care had a neutral or slightly positive effect on children s development. But tests that have had to be used to measure this development are not widely enough accepted to settle the issue. But Bowlby s analysis raises the possibility that early day care has delayed effects. The possibility that such care might lead to, say, more mental illness or crime 15 or 20 years later can only be explored by the use of statistics. Whatever the long-term effects, parents sometimes find the immediate effects difficult to deal with. Children under three are likely to protest at leaving their parents and show unhappiness. At the age of three or three and a half almost all children find the transition to nursery easy, and this is undoubtedly why more and more parents make use of child care at this time. The matter, then, is far from clear-cut, though experience and available evidence indicate that early care is reasonable for infants. 练习： 1. Which of the following statements would Bowlby support? A) Statistical studies should be carried out to assess the positive effect of day care for children at the age of three or older. B) Early day care can delay the occurrence of mental illness in children. C) The first three years of one s life is extremely important to the later development of personality. D) Children under three get used to the life at nursery schools more readily than children over three. 2. Which of the following is derivable from Bowlby s work? A) mothers should not send their children to day care centers until they are three years or older. B) Day care nurseries have positive effects on a child s development. C) A child sent to a day care center before the age of three may have emotional problems in later life. D) Day care would not be so popular if it has noticeable effects on a child s personality. 3. It is suggested that modern societies differ from traditional societies in that A) the parents-child relationship is more exclusive in modern societies. B) a child more often grows up with his/her brothers or sisters in traditional societies. C) mother brings up children with the help of her husband in traditional societies. D) children in modern societies are more likely to develop mental illness in later years. 4. Which of the following statements is NOT an argument against Bowlby s theory? A) many studies show that day care has a positive effect on children s development. B) Day care is safe, otherwise there wouldn t be so many nursery schools. C) Separation from parent for very young children is common in some traditional societies. D) Parents find the immediate effects of early day care difficult to deal with. 5. Which of the following best expresses the writer s attitude towards early day care? A) Children under three should stay with heir parents. B) Early day care has positive effects on children s development. C) The issue is controversial and its settlement calls for the use of statistics. D) The effects of early day care on children are exaggerated and parents should ignore the issue. Keys：CAADC PASSAGE 23 Questioned Educational Function of TV Children learn almost nothing from television, and the more they watch the less they remember. They regard television purely as entertainment, resent programs that demand on them and are surprised that anybody should take the medium seriously. Far from being over-excited by programs, they are mildly bored with the whole thing. These are the main conclusions from a new study of children and television. The author- Cardiac Cullingford confirms that the modern child is a dedicated viewer. The study suggests that there is little point in the later hours. More than a third of the children regularly watch their favorite programs after 9 p.m. all 11-year-olds have watched programs after midnight. Apart from the obvious waste of time involved, it seems that all this viewing has little effect. Children don t pay close attention, says Cullingford, and they can recall few details. They can remember exactly which programs they have seen but they can rarely explain the elements of a particular plot. Recall was in "reverse proportion to the amount they had watched". It is precisely because television, unlike a teacher, demands so little attention and response that children like it, argues Cullingford. Programs seeking to put over serious messages are strongly disliked. So are people who frequently talk on screen. What children like most, and remember best, are the advertisements. They see them as short programs in their own right and particularly enjoy humorous presentation. But again, they react strongly against high-pressure advertisements that attempt openly to influence them. On the other hand, they are not emotionally involved in the programs. If they admire the stars, it is because the actors lead glamorous lives and earn a lot of money, not because of their fictional skills with fast cars and shooting villains. They are perfectly clear about the functions of advertisements. by the age of 12, only one in 10 children believes what even favorite ads say about the product. And says Cullingford, educational television is probably least successful of all in imparting attitudes or information.