Clare Rowe:
Last week, Victorians were told that every child entering prep could soon receive a 15-minute screening for developmental concerns. Think about that for a minute. 15 minutes, every child. I’m a psychologist and I absolutely believe in early identification where there are genuine concerns, but I also know something else and that is when you make it your mission to search every child for potential problems, you shouldn’t be surprised when you start finding a lot more of them.
The question is not simply whether we identify more children. The question is whether we are getting better at recognising genuine disability or are we becoming less comfortable with the normal variation that has always existed in childhood? Some children are shy, others are fidgety, some are dreamers, and some are socially awkward and some mature later than others. For generations, these differences were recognised as part of the enormous range of normal childhood development, but I think today, they are increasingly becoming reasons to investigate, screen, and refer. And all of this reflects a much broader shift in our schools and dare I say it at a time when academic outcomes continue to decline.
Walk into many classrooms today and you will find emotion charts hanging on the wall where children are asked to point to the face that matches how they feel. They’re encouraged to complete wellbeing check-ins, rate their mood, reflect on their emotions and examine what’s happening inside their minds and all of this sometimes multiple times a day. Again, the intention is compassionate, but psychology teaches us something important and that is the things we constantly focus on begin to feel much bigger than they really are. And when we encourage children to continually scan themselves for signs of distress, disappointment or anxiety, we risk teaching them that ordinary emotions require constant monitoring and interpretation.
Of course, we should identify children with genuine developmental disorders. Those kids deserve timely expert support, but what we should equally carefully not do is medicalize ordinary childhood simply because we’ve become exceptionally good at looking for pathology. So perhaps it’s time to stop asking what might be wrong with every child and start asking what children are capable of and schools should absolutely support children, but above all else they should focus on their primary task of educating them.
This transcript of Clare Rowe speaking on Opinionated Sky News Australia from 26 June 2026 has been edited for clarity.
