Thursday, April 12, 2007
Does Child Care Create Future Behavior Problems?
Yesterday we discussed some articles about a recent study that was, in my opinion, sensationalized and blown out of proportion by the media. Why? Mainly because those types of headlines sell newpapers. Here are some excellant commentaries from the following articles:
The Kids Are Alright
The Horrors of Cay Care
No Need To Panic About Child Care
There will always be people who do not believe that child care can be good for a child. But we know that is not necessarily true. It is true is that poor quality childcare can have an adverse effect on the development of a child... but so can bad parenting. This type of news should spur us onward to more professionalism, increased education and training, and overall improvement of the quality of care.
Yesterday we discussed some articles about a recent study that was, in my opinion, sensationalized and blown out of proportion by the media. Why? Mainly because those types of headlines sell newpapers. Here are some excellant commentaries from the following articles:
The Kids Are Alright
The good news for working parents: The study found that kids who went to high-quality day-care centers had an edge over all the other kids on vocabulary scores. This association didn't decrease as the kids got older. But then there is the finding that inspired the headlines: "Teachers reported more problem behaviors for children who spent more time in centers." This effect also held steady over time. And as the New York Times put it, "the finding held up regardless of the child's sex or family income, and regardless of the quality of the day care center." As in, Beware of Day Care. No matter how good you think your kid's is, it's making him unruly and disruptive, two favorite media adjectives for kids who cause trouble at school.
Here's a key question: What was the quality of the day care this 15 percent received? Were their centers as good? Burchinal ran the numbers for me, and the answer is no. The study rated all child-care arrangements on a scale from 1 for abysmal to 4 for excellent. The mean score for kids who were cared for entirely at home was 2.85. The mean for kids who spent less than a year in day care was 2.84. One to two years in day care: 2.82. Three to four years: 2.76. And four or more years: 2.71. In other words, the kids with more reported behavior problems in elementary school were the ones who spent three or four years in day care and whose care was, on average, of lower quality.
The Horrors of Cay Care
The headline in the March 26 Times was "Poor Behavior Is Linked to Time in Day Care." But in the second paragraph, the author was already saying that the results of the Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development demonstrate that "the effect is slight." So did it merit the headline? Or a story at all?
In addition, buried deeper in the article is the news that the disruptive effects described by the teachers of kindergartners were not long-lasting.
Additional significant factors would include not only the amount of time the children had been in day care, and also what kind of public schools they were sent to after day care - as well as what was going on in the families during this time.
No Need To Panic About Child Care
One danger of statistical studies such as this is that the sheer number of comparisons made increases the chance that one small finding can occur purely by chance. In fact, after making an appropriate adjustment for multiple comparisons, this effect on problem behavior is not reliably different from zero.
Finally, it seems to have gone unnoticed that quite a lot is known about how to produce better outcomes for children in centers. National randomized trials of Early Head Start and Head Start, as well as smaller studies of strong, educationally effective preschool centers, have found meaningful positive effects on children's social development and behavior. There is no hint of this in the national institute study - probably because the institute studied typical child care, much of which does not live up to basic quality standards.
There will always be people who do not believe that child care can be good for a child. But we know that is not necessarily true. It is true is that poor quality childcare can have an adverse effect on the development of a child... but so can bad parenting. This type of news should spur us onward to more professionalism, increased education and training, and overall improvement of the quality of care.
// posted by Tammy Wachter @ 3:22 PM 
