Penelope Leach
| Penelope Leach | |
|---|---|
| Born |
Penelope Jane Balchin 19 November 1937 Hampstead, London |
| Nationality | British |
| Alma mater |
Newnham College, Cambridge London School of Economics |
| Occupation | Psychologist |
| Spouse(s) | Gerald Leach (m. 1963; d. 2004) |
| Children | 2 |
| Parent(s) |
Nigel Balchin Elisabeth Balchin (née Walshe) |
Penelope Jane Leach (née Balchin; born 19 November 1937), is a British psychologist who researches and writes extensively on parenting issues from a child development perspective.
Leach is best known for her book Your Baby and Child: From Birth to Age Five, published in 1977, which has sold over two million copies to date and won the BMA award for “best medical book for general audiences” 1998. Leach notes in the introduction to that book: "Whatever you are doing, however you are coping, if you listen to your child and to your own feelings, there will be something you can actually do to put things right or make the best of those that are wrong."
Born in Hampstead, London, she is the daughter of the novelists Nigel Balchin and Elizabeth Ayrton. She graduated, like her mother, from Newnham College, Cambridge with honours in 1959. After Cambridge, she attended the London School of Economics, where she received her PhD in psychology (1964) and lectured on child development. Her first research positions included a year in the Home Office Research Unit studying juvenile crime and six years at the Medical Research council Developmental Research Unit. Leach is a fellow of the British Psychological Society (1988) and was President of the National Childminding Association (1999-2006) and Vice -President of the HealthVisitors' Association. (1988-1999) She was a founder member of AIMH (The Association of Infant Mental Health) (1998-2002) and is now an Adviser..She also worked for the Pre-school Parents' Association and with organisations concerned with children's rights, including the NSPCC (Trustee 1996-1999)and its sister organisations in Ireland, the US and Canada and the Children's Rights development Unit (1996-2001). As a founder and parent educator of EPOCH (End Physical Punishment of Children) (1988-2004) now CAU (Children are Unbeatable) she has written pamphlets and booklets campaigning against physical punishment and in favour of positive discipline. Since 2009 she has been a Director of the Mindful Policy group which seeks to link psychological research and political policy. Recently she has contributed to work on the Early Years Foundation Stage curriculum writing the lead chapter to the book emerging from this called "too Much Too Soon?" Early Learning and the erosion of childhood, Hawthorn Press 2011. Between 1997-2005 Leach co-directed the largest ever English study of childcare: (www.familieschildrenchildcare.org)
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