ICAN Chatterbox Challenge

I received this email from the ICAN press office earlier this week, which is fairly self explanatory;

ICAN have polled 2,000 parents with children 0-5, and 1,000 grandparents separately for I CAN’s 10th Anniversary of Chatterbox Challenge which as you know is our nationwide singalong event.

We have over 240,000 children registered to take part up and down the UK in over 7,000 early years settings. I CAN are coordinating a Guinness World Record TM attempt for the most people singing ‘Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes’ across multiple venues on March 1st at 11am and we have almost 100,000 children registered for the attempt.

We know that communication skills are so important for children’s life chances and it is interesting to see the really juicy trends that came out of our poll.

Some findings from the parent’s survey:
The poll found 75% of parents cited talking as the number one way of improving their child's communication and development skills
More than half the parents surveyed thought that the biggest influence on children’s speaking and listening was how much the family talk at home
62% of parent’s still value and sing nursery rhymes regularly with their children. However, popular songs such as the X Factor and Glee didn't fare well.
Parents are feeling the financial strain of the current economic climate quite intensely and over 56% of parents feel their child’s development would be hindered if community centres, children’s centres etc were all cut/closed down. They would also have to find extra money to pay for other services and activities for their children.
Parents are still putting their children first despite the pressures. 77% would reduce their own spending and cut back on themselves rather than their children’s activities.
Some findings from the grandparent’s survey:
53% of grandparents still sing nursery rhymes with their grandchildren
61% of grandparents strongly agree nursery rhymes are important and should be passed on the generations
Over 45% of grandparents think the main difficulty parent’s face if financial pressure
Over 31% thought the main strain came from parent’s having to work much longer hours
The findings really show how dedicated parents are to their children’s development - and show that talking and singing are popular activities to do with your children. Fun, free activities for families to do together are even more important in this current economic climate and it is great to see families doing this.

Please click on the title of the post to access the link, which includes details of how you can register for your free Chatter Box challenge fundraisers pack.