Am I Hurting My Child With Day Care? Posted by Jamie Heller Day-care parents, brace yourself. A new study is out about our children, and it's not reassuring. According to the study, published in the March-April issue of the journal Child Development, children who spend large amounts of time in child-care centers exhibit more minor behavior problems, such as aggression and disobedience, than other children, at least through sixth grade. My colleague Sue Shellenbarger writes about the study here:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB117486330461648401.html When studies like this came out in the past, I tended to ignore them, especially when they grouped different forms of "non-maternal" care together (see this article: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB111223054814593805-search.html?KEYWORDS=day+care&COLLECTION=wsjie/6month ). It seemed the only way to avoid the apparent negative results for non-maternal care was to provide maternal care. Since I was set on working, for financial and professional reasons, it didn't matter much to me what experts thought, because I knew child care was the right solution for my family. But this study seems different it suggests that between child-care centers and nannies, child-care centers are worse. The question, then, for me and other day-care parents, is whether to switch. For my big boy, six, the dice are rolled. He's been in child-care/preschools from the get-go, and now he's in kindergarten. But for the little guy, just turning three, I could give up the full-time preschool and opt for a nanny for the next couple of years. My gut reaction is to say, study, shmudy it's a great school and besides, I truly believe we are good parents. The study researchers themselves say "the quality of parenting children receive is a far stronger and more consistent predictor of achievement and social functioning." But part of me has to acknowledge that the study plays to my worst fears. More than my big guy, my little guy gives us a run for our money. He upsets easily. Today, when I asked him for a kiss, he bonked me on the head. Still, he's not exactly at a mature age; and the teachers insist he's a delight. I am reluctant to switch to a nanny for the reasons I outlined in this prior post. And I hate the idea of letting so-called experts influence decisions on which I think I should know best. I wonder, though, whether I'm being wise by staying the course, or stubborn ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Create Web Applications With ColdFusion MX7 & Flex 2. Build powerful, scalable RIAs. Free Trial http://www.adobe.com/products/coldfusion/flex2/?sdid=RVJS Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Community/message.cfm/messageid:231408 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=11502.10531.5
