Childhood's end; Day-care regulations overreach.

COLUMN: IN OUR OPINION

A Boston Herald story this week detailing stringent day-care rules to take effect next year has parents and day-care providers up in arms, and for good reason. The regulations dictate providers "must have evidence of a plan describing how program activities support and engage children through specific learning experiences," and must file progress reports that cover every aspect of a child's cognitive, social and emotional development. Throw in mandatory assistance with tooth brushing and you have a full-blown case of statism.

In response to the public outcry, Gov. Deval Patrick is vowing to review the rules. He is probably too late. Early Education Commissioner Sherri Killins told the Herald the guidelines were already subject to thorough public review.

We have no quarrel with common-sense regulations to ensure the physical health and safety of children - areas such as pool and deck safety, electrical outlets, cleanliness and staffing ratios.

But exactly how children spend their days is a matter that should be left to parents and care providers. The former are perfectly capable of choosing the kind of care they want from providers who should be free to adopt some, all or none of what educational and child development experts suggest. It's simply no business of the state's.

Unfortunately, the slide toward still more state control over private life is accelerated here by redefining child-care providers as educators. Subsuming them under the education umbrella opens Pandora's box - further rules and regulations in the name of "school readiness," "cognitive development," "equal opportunity," or whatever catchphrase arises from the fevered imaginations of state bureaucrats and child development "experts."

All of it, one can be sure, will be accompanied by an insistence that more public money is needed for administration of what's best for the children.

We suggest that what's best for children is broad freedom for their parents and caregivers to decide how they'll spend the precious days of childhood. The state should put the new regulations on hold and subject them to a review to strip them of measures that constitute rampant interference in private life.