Family Facts: Social Science Research on Family, Society & Religion
Top Ten Findings
Daycare and Children’s Well-Being
June 2009
1. Center-based daycare and children’s behavior. Compared with peers who are cared for by their parents, children attending daycare centers tend to have poorer social skills and less self–control, and they tend to exhibit higher levels of problem behavior such as arguing, fighting, and disturbing classroom activities. Compared with peers who were cared for by their parents, children who attended a day care center had poorer social skills, including less self-control, lower levels of interpersonal skills, and the tendency to externalize problem behavior through fighting, arguing, expressing anger, acting impulsively, and disturbing classroom activity.
|
2. Age at entry in daycare. Across all income levels, the problem behavior exhibited by children who are in daycare centers rather than parental care tends to be more pronounced the earlier they enter day care and the more hours they spend in center care each week. Compared with peers in parental care, children cared for in day care centers tended to exhibit more behavioral problems, and these problems were more pronounced the earlier the children entered center care and the more hours they spent in the center each week. This was true for children in families of all income levels studied.
|
3. Hours spent in non-parental care. Children who spend more time in daycare are more likely to exhibit negative behavior, regardless of socioeconomic status and levels of family stress. Even after controlling for socioeconomic status, family stress, and child gender, the amount of time spent in day care was a significant predictor of higher scores on negative roles and behaviors and lower scores on positive roles and behaviors for children entering kindergarten.
|
4. Non-parental care of infants. Compared with peers cared for by their mothers as infants, pre-schoolers who were in daycare during their first year of life tend to exhibit lower cognitive skills and higher levels of behavioral problems. Children of mothers who were employed in the first year showed lower cognitive scores assessed through Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-R and higher behavioral problems as assessed through the Behavioral Problems Index at 3 and 4 years of age.
|
5. Maternal attachment. Compared with infants who are cared for by their mothers, babies who experience extensive daycare before they are one year old are more likely to have an insecure attachment to their mothers. Extensive daycare experience in the first year of life was strongly associated with infants having an insecure attachment with their mothers. Of infants who experienced more than 20 hours a week of non-maternal care, 43 percent were classified as "insecure," whereas 26 percent of infants who experienced less than 20 hours per week of non-parental care (including none), were classified as insecure. Similarly, sons who experienced more than 35 hours per week of non-maternal care were more likely to have insecure attachments to their fathers.
|
6. Maternal employment. Four-to-six-year-olds whose mothers work a significant number of hours each week tend to exhibit more socio-emotional difficulties and problem behaviors than other peers. Early and extensive maternal employment was the strongest predictor of socioemotional functioning in 4-6 year old children exceeding poverty and maternal education. Early and extensive maternal employment was associated with increased behavioral problems, less compliance and insecurity.
|
7. Daycare and parenting in at-risk families. Compared with other parents in at-risk families, those who rely extensively on daycare for their infants tend to provide less parental guidance and control. An extensive reliance on daycare by at-risk families during their child's first year (more than 20 hours per week) was correlated with subsequent family problems, a parenting style that least frequently entailed guidance and control, and children's defiant behavior when parental controls were enforced.
|
8. Long-term effects of daycare in centers. On average, sixth-graders who had spent more time in daycare centers in early childhood tend to exhibit more behavioral problems than their peers. Children who spent more time in daycare centers in early childhood were more likely to exhibit behavioral problems, even through the sixth grade.
|
9. Cumulative effect of daycare. Compared with their peers, children with more extensive daycare experience since infancy tend to exhibit poorer schoolwork habits and peer relationships and to score lower on standardized tests. Children who had more extensive child care experience since infancy were rated by teachers and parents as having poorer work habits, peer relationships, and emotional health, and as being more difficult to discipline. When controlling for family social class, parents’ marital status, family size, number of family moves, child gender, childhood birth order, and current after school care, children’s extensive experience in infant care was the single best predictor of negative ratings by parents, teachers and peers, and of lower grades and standardized test scores.
|
10. Daycare and children’s health. Compared with children who are cared for at home, children in daycare centers are more likely to contract communicable diseases, to experience significant medical problems, and to visit an emergency room. Compared with peers who were cared for at home, preschoolers who attended day-care centers used health-care services more often. Day-care children were at greater risk of contracting both minor communicable illnesses and more significant medical problems such as hepatitis, injuries, and chronic otitis media (ear infections). They were three times more likely to have made at least one visit to a doctor's office, twice as likely to have visited an emergency room, and almost three times as likely to have received a prescription medication. This increased use of health services resulted in health-care expenditures for day-care children that were, on average, $343 higher per child each year.
|
View Findings by Category
Click a Category from the list:
Create Your Own Search
Enter topic, keyword or author:
Resources
Events:Religious Practice and Civic Life: What the Research Says October 4, 2007 |