In my last blog post, I started exploring if it is better to
send a young child to daycare/preschool or if it is better to have a parent
provide care and why. Since that time, I have been thinking about this question
and thought about changing it to include the range of childcare options but
decided against it. I came to this conclusion based on the simple fact that my
children only have two choices, parental care or daycare and daycare may not
even be an option if I we cannot afford it.
I decided the best
place to start my investigation was to see if I could find any information on
the effects that different kinds of childcare have on young children. After
all, it is the wellbeing of my children that I am most interested in. I turned
to the Internet and found a very interesting article that was published March
26, 2007 in The New York Times titled “Poor Behavior Is Linked
to Time in Day Care” In it, the author, Benedict Carey
looked at a study done by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development
titled “Study of Early Child Care and
Youth Development” that concluded 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.”
When I read this, I became concerned. If I send my kids to daycare are they
going be out of control with behavioral problems? After reading the entire
article my worries began to subside a bit. It seems daycare only increases the
risk of becoming disruptive by 1%. The article also points out that children
that go to daycare have a better vocabulary, and are more likely to be prepared
for a structured setting. This makes me wonder if a 1% chance that my child may
become a little disruptive in class later is worth worrying about if he is
going to be better prepared academically. Do the pros of daycare offset the
cons of daycare? This article also does not begin to look at how home care
affects the child. As I continued to research, I found a similar article that
was published March 26, 2007 in Time Magazine by Lisa Cullen titled
"Daycare Is a) Good, b) Bad, c) Necessary." This article
echoed the article by Carey.
Picture from Google Images
So far my research has pointed out that
daycare might increase the chance of behavioral problems slightly but it really
has not been proven to me that this is a big cause for concern. Both articles
point directly to a slight increase in behavior problems related to daycare but
they do not convince me that it is a problem worth worrying about. I tend to
side with the author Rome Neal and his views that the results of the study show
only a small increase in problems related with daycare and it is hard to get
accurate data because other factors such as genetic makeup and family stability
that play a much larger role in behavior.
What
doing research did bring to my attention the number of daycares that are in the
news for negative reasons .Are daycare centers safe and secure? I think it is important to look into the safety of daycare providers, includling homecare. I also need to find research that looks at the effects of
home care on a youngster.
Other questions that I have begun to wonder about include: Do stay
at home children get enough social interaction? Does it matter who watches the
child at home, mom, dad, grandparent, nanny?
I will continue looking into these
questions and as always your opinion is appreciated.
Sincerely,
Jason
