Penelope Leach

Born in Hampstead, London, she is the daughter of the novelists Nigel Balchin and Elizabeth Ayrton. She graduated from Newnham College, Cambridge,[1] 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), was Vice-President of the Health Visitors' Association (1988–1999), and President of the National Childminding Association (1999–2006). She was a founding 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 favor 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 Too Much Too Soon?: Early Learning and the erosion of childhood, Hawthorne Press 2011. Between 1997 and 2005, Leach co-directed the largest ever English study of childcare.[2]

Her current research, writing and teaching focuses on contemporary infant neuroscience which in some areas is producing evidence where formerly there were only ideas and opinions. In 2013 she published a chapter entitled "Infant Rearing in the Context of Contemporary Neuroscience" in the Handbook of Child Wellbeing, eds. Korbin and Asher, published by Springer. She 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 (1997–). She is a visiting professor at the Faculty of Education, University of Winchester (2013–).

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.[3] Criticism has chiefly been directed towards Leach's purported idolising of mothers and difficulty giving fathers equal importance,[4] and the lack of scientific evidence to support Leach's opposition to child care where the ratio of adults to infants is too low for individualised care.[5]

However, The Essential First Year, published in 2010, has a chapter called "Thinking about working outside your home" which says "Your baby will flourish without you while you are at work as long as he passes seamlessly from your loving care to someone elses and back again on your return...."

After the release of her book Family Breakdown, Leach asserted that there was "undisputed evidence" that sleepovers with a divorced father, who is not the child's primary caregiver, can cause 'emotional damage' to a baby or toddler. Leach's claim has been broadly disputed by other psychologists.[6]

In 1963 she married the science journalist Gerald A. Leach (1933–2004). She has a son, Matthew, and a daughter, Melissa Leach.

• Interview with Penelope Leach
• James, Oliver (26 February 2003). "Mummy was the light of my life". The Guardian. Retrieved 5 September 2019.