A number of noted child psychologists, pediatricians and educators will be converging at the University of Pittsburgh tomorrow for a conference on children -- more specifically, "honoring children to create a more humane and ecologically sustainable world by addressing the universal needs of the very young."

	Annie O'Neill, Post-Gazette Penelope Leach Click photo for larger image. Related article Meet the newest experts

One of them -- Penelope Leach -- has been doing that for a very long time.

She is widely considered one of the most popular parenting experts out there, along with Dr. William Sears, Dr. T. Berry Brazelton, John Rosemond and James Dobson, and her book, "Your Baby and Child," has sold more than 3 million copies in 29 countries. She's widely admired for a warm, straightforward writing style and her ability to translate complex child development findings into plain language.

A decade ago, Ms. Leach, 69, wrote a controversial book, "Children First," that questioned day care's benefits for very young children. More recently she's been involved in a major longitudinal study in the United Kingdom examining the effects of various forms of day care and child care on children and their parents.

Many findings are available at the study's Web site, www.familieschildrenchildcare.org, and the most interesting revelations so far, she says, include research showing the quality of care observed in groups drops as the number of children increases. Other surveys have found that parents are least happy with group day care, most happy with father care, and slightly less satisfied with grandparent, family and nanny child care.

On Friday, Ms. Leach will be at the Pitt conference to discuss what she calls "a kernel of needs that are common to children everywhere," regardless of time or culture. She talked to Mackenzie Carpenter this week about her work.

Q: You wrote "Children First" 10 years ago, calling on industrialized nations to create policies allowing parents to take time off to care for young children, as well as for improvements in day care. Has the child-care landscape changed substantively since then?

		Helpful Web sites http://parenting.ivillage.com/ -- hugely popular parenting site with mom-to-mom forums, etc. www.whattoexpect.com/ -- from "What to Expect" author Heidi Murkoff. www.Family.com -- another big site, owned by Disney (not to be confused with James Dobson's www.Family.org). http://daddy-dialectic.blogspot.com/index.html -- site for stay-at-home dads. www.hipmama.com -- originally created as site for single moms, quite political, left-leaning. http://prideparenting.com/ -- for gay and lesbian parents. www.mothering.com -- for "natural family living" -- family bed, homebirthing, you get the picture. www.christian-parent.com/ -- For parents seeking religious guidance in child rearing. www.belief.net also has a parenting section that focuses on spirituality.

A: Yes, it really has, though I'm sorry to say that the changes are less in the U.S. than in Europe, Canada or Australia. In fact a major study of maternity and parental leave arrangements in 18 nations has just come out, and the U.S. is the only one with no federally mandated paid leave. A year's leave (give or take) is general now in Europe and although the payment isn't great (currently 106 pounds per week in the U.K. -- equivalent to $209) it's a great deal better than nothing. And the research shows that provided such leave is paid, almost all parents take their full entitlement; if it's unpaid, many don't.

Changes in day care are a mixed story: improved awareness of the importance of high quality and what makes for high quality, but the same old economic arguments against providing it -- the high ratios and good staff working conditions for instance. Plus some pressure toward overnight child care.

Q: How have families changed since you first wrote "Your Baby and Child"?

A: It's been 30 years since I first wrote "Your Baby and Child," and the world has changed too greatly to summarize here! But when I did the new edition in 1997, the major areas of family change were, of course, women as well as men working outside homes and therefore lots of types of child care; separation and divorce; single-child families and melded families, often with big age gaps; and the big increase in day-to-day fathering. Child care and fathering were the issues that took the most rewriting.

Q: Are you seeing fathers doing more child care?

A: Yes, very much so. Especially in the first year of infants' lives. A lot of families feel that the first year is too young to be in child care but quite a lot need to get the mother back to work because she's the main earner or at a critical point in her job/career. So couples choose to have the father be at home.

	If you go The two-day conference on "Child Honoring: How to Turn This World Around" will take place in the Assembly Room of the University of Pittsburgh's William Pitt Union, 3959 Fifth Ave., Oakland. The conference kicks off the Month of the Young Child. Children's singer and entertainer Raffi Cavoukian will give the keynote address tomorrow. On Friday, there will be presentations, a Q&A and closing remarks by Mr. Cavoukian. In addition to Penelope Leach, presenters will be Ronald Colman, a researcher on population health, community well-being and environmental quality; Dr. Philip Landrigan, a leader in public health and preventive medicine; Susan Linn, a ventriloquist who uses puppets in children's psychotherapy and founder of the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood; Herbert Needleman, a Pitt researcher who has played a key role in reducing prevalence of lead poisoning in American children; and others. For a conference schedule and registration, go to www.pghaeyc.org. Admission is $45 for Pittsburgh Association for the Education of Young Children members and students, $65 for non-members, and free for Pitt and Point Park students who preregister. For more information, call 412-383-2100 or e-mail mschenck@hr.pitt.edu.

Even more couples are managing child care between them, though, arranging shifts and working hours so when one's at work the other can be with the children.

Q: You've generally been described taking a "child-centered" approach to parenting. What does that mean today to the average parent?

A: I don't think it's parenting I take a child-centered approach to so much as children. What I've always tried to do is to use the best of research to help people understand the children they're dealing with so they have an informed basis to make their own decisions about how to interact with them.

Obviously telling parents what to do doesn't figure in that: The closest I get is to try and tell them some of the things they might choose to do (or not to do) in this, that or the other set of circumstances. OK, the advice gets quite emphatic sometimes (don't spank -- it doesn't help; don't expect your older child to love the new baby, she probably won't), but it never becomes programmatic like "attachment parenting" or what the disciplinarians do and that's because I really truly don't think I know what readers should do.

Q: The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that there be no "screen time" for children under age 2. When is the best time to introduce children to "Sesame Street" and others like it?

A: I'm inclined to agree with that recommendation -- and echo it in my own work -- though I wouldn't be too bothered about an 18-month-old catching the odd few minutes because an older sib was watching. Truth is, most of that age group don't really watch anyway; they just goggle at moving colored noisy images. The medium is wrong for younger toddlers: moves too fast, doesn't repeat, etc.

Age 3 would be quite young enough to start watching any program regularly and getting familiar with the characters, etc.

Q: You're widely described as one of the most respected experts in child development working today. Are there any new parenting experts out there who you admire?

A: No, there really aren't. There are lots of look-alikes (Gina Ford and her "Contented little baby books" and endless books on how to discipline -- with or without pain), but the only admirable new stuff is specialized, a lot of it is about early brain development -- like Sue Gerhardt's "Why Love Matters: How Affection Shapes a Baby's Brain."

Q: In the United States, advice on parenting seems to reflect our country's political divide -- from the fairly permissive "child-led" school (William Sears) to the authoritarian style of James Dobson and John Rosemond. Is parenting inherently a reflection of an individual's political beliefs?

A: Probably. And maybe what we write is a reflection of our political beliefs. Actually, I see the American scene rather differently: Yes, you have these two extremes that do seem to reflect the political scene, but they are both very extreme and in the middle there is nothing. For most people, Berry and I scarcely exist now because we're not nearly prescriptive enough for today's parents who don't want to be helped to think through their own problems but to be told what to do about them. "Your Baby and Child" was called "The Ph.D. of child care." Then it was a compliment; now, who has time?