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Tuesday, March 27, 2007
Day care takes a beating
Are kids in child care at risk for bad behavior?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Dropping off the kids at day care or preschool is routine for many working and stay-at-home moms alike. The news yesterday that young children in day care may be more argumentative or disobedient when they reach elementary school could create anxiety and worry in parents who use child care. But before we wade into controversial waters, it’s important to look at the details of the report in question.
Yesterday’s report describes a National Institutes of Health study that tracked more than 1,300 children from birth through sixth grade. NIH followed each one, noted their child care situation and then gathered teachers’ comments on the kids’ behavior once they entered school.
A “day care child” is loosely-defined as a child under 4 ½ years old who regularly spent more than 10 hours per week in the care of someone other than their mother. That would presumably include a lot of stay-at-home children who attended morning preschools a few hours a week. Or who spent those hours with their fathers, grandparents or nannies.
The good news is that the disruptive behavior is thought to be within the normal range, and children from high-quality day cares tend to have strong vocabulary skills. Overall, good parenting also proved to be more important than day care in the study. The bad news is that a behavior disparity exists across the socio-economic spectrum — and not all of the 2 million American children in day care receive high-quality care.
For working parents, what do you look for in a child care environment? How do you know if a day care is “high-quality”? For stay-at-home parents, do the study’s findings make you anxious about sending your children to mother’s morning out programs or morning preschools?
More importantly, what can day cares and parents do to help prevent behavior problems in the future?
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