However the Scottish Government’s announcement, that it is to spend £580,000 on an advertising campaign that reminds parents to spend time with young children, shows the SNP strongly disagree.

The campaign announcement comes only two weeks after the Scottish Government announced in its budget that it would cut spending on advertising by more than half.

Education Secretary Fiona Hyslop defended the campaign: “A lot of parents don’t know how to parent properly, and this needs to be dispelled.”

She added that Scotland particularly needed to focus on early-year development because other countries were “more child-friendly”.

Labour’s education spokesperson Rhona Brankin said: “Reading to children, talking to children and playing with them is vital to their development. However, there will always be competition for funding.

“Labour would like to see free nursery education for vulnerable two-year olds and a proper play strategy put in place.

“Only this week, we’ve seen another fall in the number of nursery teachers in Scotland and it will take more than an advertising campaign and website to address the holes in the SNP’s Early Years strategy.”

The Play, Talk, Read campaign will place adverts across TV, radio, billboards and buses throughout October, as well as launching a website which aims to help parents stimulate their children through “fun and easy” activities.

Ms Hyslop said the campaign was crucial because research had shown that, during the first three years of a child’s life, 75% of brain growth was completed, meaning that children whose parents talked to them frequently developed superior language skills.

The results showed that babies of 20 months who had talkative parents knew 131 more words than those with less interactive parents, while at 24 months the difference was 295.

Children’s Minister Adam Ingram said: “Parenting is the most important job you do as an adult. Parents need to get off the work treadmill. If you don’t think you have time to play with your children, you need to find the time.”

Sue Palmer, chair of the Scottish Play Commission, said: “It’s easy to assume that playing with your child comes instinctively.

‘‘But nowadays many mums and dads have little experience of babies before they bring their own home from the hospital.

“Busy lifestyles leave adults feeling overstretched and exhausted, so playtime is often left to CBeebies.”

The Play, Talk, Read website has a huge amount of suggestions for diverting playtime away from the television.

From turning a cereal box into a house or a bottle into a spaceship to games such as lion chase, baby basketball and junk skittles, the “one-stop” site is comprehensive in its coverage of potential baby entertainment.

“It doesn’t need expensive toys or costly visits -- it’s simple time and attention that make all the difference,” said Ms Hyslop.

Parent and teacher Shirley Bayley, 33, from Uddingston, said that a lot of parents did not realise how important reading and talking to their children was.

She said, as a teacher, interaction with her toddler Rosalyn, 3, had come naturally and already she could see Rosalyn’s reading ability was far ahead of other children in her class.

Scotland’s murder rate is currently rising the fastest in Europe and politicians described the Play, Talk, Read campaign as targeting the root causes of social delinquency.

Ms Hyslop said: “The Government are focused on promoting simple early start support for children rather to prevent being forced to employ more complex measures to tackle criminality later on.”

Mr Ingram stated that the campaign would back up the work currently being carried out by Sure Start, which provides support for very young children from deprived communities and vulnerable families.

This year the Sure Start initiative was given £59.9m by the SNP’s Early Years Strategy Unit to be allocated to local authorities across Scotland.

The aim of Sure Start is to work in partnership with health and relevant voluntary sector organisations to help young children fulfil their potential.

Ian McLaughlin, chief executive of the Pre-School Play Association, said: “In the most deprived areas of Scotland the key is co-ordination
between front-line services, so that parents and their
children receive the unified support they need.

“However, parents must also be very wary of playtime being squeezed out because of reliance on the television to entertain their children. Some parents feel inadequate but, when they stimulate their children through reading or playing, it can provide them with great confidence.”