14 Facts About Penelope Leach

Penelope Jane Leach is a British psychologist who researches and writes extensively on parenting issues from a child development perspective.

Penelope Leach graduated from Newnham College, Cambridge, with honours in 1959.

Penelope Leach is a fellow of the British Psychological Society, was vice-president of the Health Visitors' Association, and president of the National Childminding Association.

Penelope Leach was a founding member of AIMH and is an adviser.

Penelope Leach worked for the Pre-school Parents' Association and with organisations concerned with children's rights, including the NSPCC and its sister organisations in Ireland, the US, and Canada, and the Children's Rights Development Unit.

Between 1997 and 2005, Penelope Leach co-directed the largest ever English study of childcare.

Penelope Leach is a senior research fellow of the Institute for the Study of Children, Families and Social Issues, Birkbeck, University of London, and of the Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust.

Penelope Leach is a visiting professor at the Faculty of Education, University of Winchester.

Penelope Leach was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 2022 Birthday Honours for services to education.

The popularity of Your Baby and Child led to a television series of the same name on the American cable TV channel Lifetime, which Penelope Leach wrote and hosted.

Penelope Leach has produced several home videos sponsored by Barnardo's as well as collaborating on a play, Snap Happy, that toured schools between 1986 and 1991 to teach conflict resolution to preschool and school-aged children.

Penelope Leach has been criticised for her view that young children require one-on-one attention, ideally provided by mothers or family members and which cannot be provided in day-care.

Criticism has chiefly been directed towards Penelope Leach's purported idolising of mothers and difficulty giving fathers equal importance, and the lack of scientific evidence to support Penelope Leach's opposition to child care where the ratio of adults to infants is too low for individualised care.

Penelope Leach has a son, Matthew, and a daughter, Melissa Leach.