Not all toddlers belong in the nursery

Gordon Brown has extended his work ethic to those lazy small people who hang around at home all day wearing nappies and thinking about where the next snack's coming from. It's time two-year-olds did something productive with their mornings.

By offering to pay for 15 hours' nursery a week for the under-threes, the PM wants to expand their horizons and diminish their sense of entitlement. A billion pounds thrown at tots will, he tells us, transform their performance at school and in society.

Meanwhile, Iain Duncan Smith has been turning up the volume on the same issue. His think-tank, The Centre for Social Justice, advocates a parent-centred solution, where mothers are paid not to go back to work, and "families rather than children" are fostered. Their priority is to teach mothers as well as offspring.

Two is a notoriously difficult age for children because reason has not yet kicked in. At two, a child is not potty-trained, probably has no "why", or "because"; no future tense, and therefore no way of preparing for such a seismic change as spending 15 hours a week among strangers. The more resilient — usually the chattier, more organised little girls — might be fine. But the less confident will flounder. And then, what will teachers say to parents who now think that education for two-year-olds is the optimal solution for all?

All two-year-olds need intellectual stimulation, social contact, emotional security and lots of rest. Of course some mothers, or carers, provide this far more effectively than others. But it would be folly to believe that all nurseries could supply this either. And just where does Brown intend to find a new army of experienced and qualified nursery school teachers who are bright, motivated and kind, which many already aren't? There is a blind faith in the system over the individual.

My children were not ready to go to nursery school at the same age. They both had a gradual step up from one, two or three days, depending on how dog-tired or ebullient they were feeling. It was the only way to ease them into the educational system. But to suggest nursery is the best option for all two-year-olds strikes me as downright dangerous, because parents who know that their children aren't ready will feel like they're already failing them. Hands off Toddler Time!