Day Care Monsters Mellow As Kids Get Older
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution - April 10, 2005Day care turns mild-mannered tots into little monsters.
When that finding from a research study came out several years ago, it created an international storm of controversy.
But that same study of 1,350 children has continued. And its latest findings, released Saturday at the biennial meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development in Atlanta, should be reassuring to all moms who have children in day care.
While babies and toddlers who spend 45 hours or more in day care centers become more aggressive for a few years than peers who spend less time in child care, behavior problems disappear by the end of third grade, the researchers reported.
"The latest installment of findings from the study show no effects of child care hours on children's behavior problems in third grade," said Deborah Lowe Vandell of the Department of Educational Psychology at the University of Wisconsin.
That's only part of the good news, Vandell said. Youngsters in quality day care learn better language skills than children in poorer-quality care, she said. And children in quality day care also are more adept at reading and math and tend to have better memory skills through third grade.
Vandell and other investigators with the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development network began studying 1,350 children at birth.
After studying the same children through the end of third grade, Vandell said the youngsters who previously had been rated as aggressive were no more so than peers who didn't spend long hours in day care or spent it in low-quality settings.
It does not appear to be the case, she said, that more day care equals more bullies, at least at this point in the study, which is scheduled to track the same children to age 15.
"There is a language and cognitive advantage to quality child care, and it carries through at least through third grade," she said. "And behavior problems decline."
The researchers also found that children who spent the most time in day care seemed to develop poorer working habits than those who spent less time in centers.
But quality of care is critical, Vandell said. Children left with inattentive caregivers are not likely to gain any advantages, while those in organized, schoollike settings with attentive caregivers probably will benefit.
About 73 percent of children under age 5 whose mothers work attend some kind of care center, she said, and 9.8 million children under 5 are in child care for 40 or more hours per week.
"This message is to stay tuned," she said. "We are seeing positive effects of early child care quality in the primary grades, but I'm waiting to get to the next chapter to see if the effects continue."
Vandell advised parents to carefully scope out places or people to whom they're thinking of entrusting their children.
"Go watch. Does the caregiver talk to the child? Are the children busy and engaged with materials and having positive interactions with other children? Or does it appear chaotic, with children out of control, caregivers disengaged? The positive effects are occurring in the higher quality settings."
The findings were presented at the biennial meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development at the Atlanta Hilton and the Atlanta Marriott. About 5,000 child care experts are attending the sessions, which conclude today.
In another presentation, Adam Rutland of the University of Kent-Canterbury reported that children's concern about how the world views them affect their views toward other racial groups. Children in his study, age 10 and over, were more likely to display racial prejudice than those between 6 and 8.
Rutland found, however, that children over 10 but under 13 are more likely to show prejudice against other nationalities, specifically toward Germans.
"The findings provide important implications for efforts to reduce children's racial prejudice early in life," said Rutland, whose team studied attitudes of 300 British children.
In other research Saturday, studies showed that: > Wage increases, child care and health insurance increase marriage rates among never-married mothers. > Children in Head Start programs could do better if teachers were trained to provide classroom activities that promote vocabulary knowledge and other reading or writing skills. > Caucasian females and late-maturing adolescents are most likely to stigmatize their overweight classmates. > Girls steer away from careers in math, science and engineering because they view science as a solitary field.
Copyright 2005 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution