Posted on 03/26/2007 2:41:17 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
A much-anticipated report from the largest and longest-running study of American child care has found that keeping a preschooler in a day care center for a year or more increased the likelihood that the child would become disruptive in class and that the effect persisted through the sixth grade.
The finding held up regardless of the child's sex or family income, and regardless of the quality of the day care center. With more than 2 million U.S. preschoolers attending day care, the increased disruptiveness very likely contributes to the load on teachers who must manage large classrooms, the authors argue.
On the positive side, they also found that time spent in high-quality day care centers was correlated with higher vocabulary scores through elementary school.
The research, being reported today as part of the federally financed Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development, tracked more than 1,300 children in various arrangements, including staying home with a parent; being cared for by a nanny or a relative; or attending a large day care center. Once the subjects reached school, the study used teacher ratings of each child to assess behaviors like interrupting class, teasing and bullying.
The findings are certain to feed a long-running debate about day care, experts say.
"I have accused the study authors of doing everything they could to make this negative finding go away, but they couldn't do it," said Sharon Landesman Ramey, director of the Georgetown University Center on Health and Education. "They knew this would be disturbing news for parents ... if that's what you're finding, then you have to report it."
Past arguments
The debate reached a high pitch in the late 1980s, during the so-called day care wars, when social scientists questioned whether it was better for mothers to work or stay home. Day care workers and their clients, mostly working parents, argued it was the quality of the care that mattered and not the setting. But the new report affirms similar results from smaller studies in the past decade suggesting setting matters.
"This study makes it clear that it is not just quality that matters," said Jay Belsky, one of the study's principal authors, who helped set off the debate in 1986 with a paper suggesting that nonparental child care could cause developmental problems. Belsky was then at Pennsylvania State University and has since moved to the University of London.
That the troublesome behaviors lasted through at least sixth grade, he said, should raise a broader question: "So what happens in classrooms, schools, playgrounds and communities when more and more children, at younger and younger ages, spend more and more time in centers, many that are indisputably of limited quality?"
Report has its critics
Others experts were quick to question the results. The researchers could not randomly assign children to one kind of care or another; parents chose the care that suited them. That meant there was no control group, so determining cause and effect was not possible.
The study did not take into account employee turnover, a reality in many day care centers, said Marci Young, deputy director of the Center for the Child Care Workforce, which represents day care workers.
The study, a $200 million project financed by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, recruited families in 10 cities from hospitals, after mothers gave birth. The researchers regularly contacted the mothers to find out where their children were being cared for, and visited those caregivers to see how attentive and how skilled they were.
Every year spent in day care centers for at least 10 hours per week was associated with a 1 percent higher score on a standardized assessment of problem behaviors completed by teachers, said Dr. Margaret Burchinal, a co-author of the study and a psychologist at the University of North Carolina.
"she could have been depressed. I've seen women act like that when they suffered from postpartum depression."
She spoke with the same disdain about mothering before she had the child. She was simply a self-centered child.
"There aren't conservative men who divorce their wives and have disdain for parenting?"
yes - there absolutely are. Where did I say there wasn't?
In fact - there is a disappointing high number of misgynistic threads on freepers.
"So working women have disdain for parenting and are looking to get involved with other men and run off with them?"
Where are you getting this?
I never said this.
when I was writing about "some" working women (including my former bosses) or "many" working women - I was not referring to "all" working women.
One boss did not have children at the time (she does now)
The other boss had already raised hers but seemed terribly inconvenience by the fact her female employees were mothers of young children.
And - as you can tell - there was a time when I was working full time and had my oldest in daycare.
"Just to clue you in working women carry the typical burdens of parenting and then some."
No need to "clue me in". Been there.
" But more often than not the husband has to be more involved with the children."
True. And maybe more couples could cut down on the hours spent in daycare if this happened.
You were there starting 1960 or so. Dr. Spock kids. We KNOW they are bratty too, they're just "grown up" now. Things majorly changed since the '60s and of course prior to that, were the seeds.
The "Greatest Generation" cannot be so, exactly because they started letting kids do what they damn well wanted, a'la their saint, Dr. Spock. They are responsible for raising the hippies that started it all - and who obviously were spoiled rotten in themselves to ever get to commie hippiedom.
"My point is she wants someone to do something that she finds unpleasant to her.
Nothing wrong with this, I hire plumbers to work on my sewer line.
I just don't understand these women, who don't like kids having them."
Interesting you brought it up.
I was out this afternoon running errands and had to stop by the school.
I ran into a teacher who is pregnant with her third child, but who will tell anyone who will listen that she cannot stand being home all day with her kids (which makes me wonder why she chose the profession she is in).
Even during vacations and summers off she will drop her kids off at daycare and then go home for quiet time.
She must be going through a babysitting crisis. When she saw me today at the school she asked if I would take her preschooler with me and watch him.
I already had 2 kids with me and had alot of errands to run to get ready for my oldest's bday part tonight.
But it is a typical attitude coming from this person - I am a stay-at-home mom and I must have alot of time on my hands to tend to her son?
I need a third child in Walmart while I shop?
I will make it clear for others who assume I am referring to ALL career women. I am not.
But this happens enough to get to be a real pet peeve.
I've been called a "breeder" too.
I've been asked "are you sad you gave up your dreams?"
I've been asked "do you lose yourself? do you feel like a slave?"
But apparantly those were just the voices in our head talking to us - deluded ladies that we are.
"I always loved the question, "Do you work?""
Oh yeah! get that too!!
I've never worked so hard!
"By the way my Mom is 79 years old and raised 5 children and worked full time"
When my great grandfather died my grandmother quite highschool to work and help support a family with six kids.
In her early twenties she married and had my mom - but my grandpa turned out to be a war-weary drunk (WWII).
Grandma went back to the family home and kept working full time while great-grandma raised my mom.
I think one thing you are seeing today is less support from extended family or friends.
You cannot even hire a good friend these days if the state has not "approved" their home and given them permission to watch a certain number of kids.
There are alot of women like my sister who live away from family - live in constant fear of the sitter quitting and then they have to scramble around and find ANYONE - because they have to work.
My poor sister keeps losing weight - she probably weighs 96 lbs. and lives on coffee and cigarettes.
I hope my daughter settles near us when she has her babies. I'd love to be able to give her the chance to take a nap, go to the store or do whatever she has to do. I know that it would've been much easier if I'd had family around when the kids were little!
this study - and previous studies did make the difference between the number of hours per week spent in daycare.
I don't think the situation you describe applies here.
I don't think there is much problem you having a break 10 hrs a month with anyone!
I'm thinking more the people who give them up every day or so.
Somehow I doubt that.
Apparently you've told yourself that often enough that you believe it yourself, though.
"cath26 seems a bit new to FR perhaps she doesn't know when posters haven't attacked. But maybe not. I tired to answer her in greeting but didn't get a response. Go figure"
well clearly she must think we're picking on people like her mother?
There's alot of defensiveness going on over the results of this study.
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I've been a stay at home mom for 18 years, I have 5 kids, a large home on acreage that I personally (my husband works a lot of hours) take care of, many animals, etc. That said, I have never been offended by the question "do you work?" I know when someone asks that question, they mean work at a paid job. It's not meant to be insulting.
A $200 million project! OMG!
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