Child Development
Independent studies suggest that good day care for non-infants is not harmful. Some advocate that day care is inherently inferior to parental care. In some cases, good daycare can provide different experiences than parental care does, especially when children reach two and are ready to interact with other children. Bad day care puts the child at physical, emotional and attachment risk. Higher quality care was associated with better outcomes. Children in higher quality child care had somewhat better language and cognitive development during the first 4½ years of life than those in lower quality care. They were also somewhat more cooperative than those who experienced lower quality care during the first 3 years of life.
The National Institute of Health released a study in March, 2007 after following a group of children through early childhood to the 6th grade. The study found that the children who received a higher quality of child care scored higher on 5th grade vocabulary tests than the children who had attended child care of a lower quality. The study also reported that teachers found children from child care to be "disobedient", fight more frequently, and more argumentative. The study reported the increases in both aggression and vocabulary were small. "The researchers emphasized that the children’s behavior was within the normal range and were not considered clinically disordered."
As a matter of social policy, consistent, good daycare, may ensure adequate early childhood education for children of less skilled parents. From a parental perspective, good daycare can complement good parenting.
A 2001 report showed that children in high-quality care scored higher on tests of language, memory and other skills than did children of stay-at-home mothers or children in lower-quality day care.
A study appearing in Child Development in July/August 2003 found that the amount of time spent in day care before four-and-a-half tended to correspond with the child's tendency to be less likely to get along with others, to be disobedient, and to be aggressive, although still within the normal range.
Read more about this topic: Day Care
Famous quotes containing the words child and/or development:
“The child ... stands upon a place apart, a little spectator of the world, before whom men and women come and go, events fall out, years open their slow story and are noted or let go as his mood chances to serve them. The play touches him not. He but looks on, thinks his own thought, and turns away, not even expecting his cue to enter the plot and speak. He waits,—he knows not for what.”
—Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924)
“I do seriously believe that if we can measure among the States the benefits resulting from the preservation of the Union, the rebellious States have the larger share. It destroyed an institution that was their destruction. It opened the way for a commercial life that, if they will only embrace it and face the light, means to them a development that shall rival the best attainments of the greatest of our States.”
—Benjamin Harrison (1833–1901)