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From:	Marie (204.211.2.254)
Subject:	Re: daycare
Date:	October 22, 2007 at 12:39 pm PST

In Reply to: daycare posted by s.young on October 20, 2007 at 5:14 pm:

The best-conducted and largest prospective child care study was done by NIH/NICHHD. They actually did not find negative effects IF a) the child care was of high quality - quality of care makes all the difference and b) the child was not in care an excessive amount of time. For at least some children, some (20-35 hrs/wk) of care actually had some benefits. Kids in care more than 40 hours a week, or kids in poor quality care, had questionable outcomes. Kids from upper-middle class, enriched environments did fine whether they were in child care or not (big surprise!)Kids from disadvantaged environments where mothers were highly stressed had better outcomes in high-quality care than at home full time. the advantage washed out completely if the care was not high quality.

so, basically, the negative effects, at least in that study, were likely to be from poorer quality child care than from being in child care per se. Markers for quality included staff-child ratio, staff training/education and experience, range of activities available, and use of toy materials that pull for creative, flexible activity. Use of TV in child care was a negative marker, as was crowding. No big surprises there either. Licensing was not a guarantee but was related to higher quality.

WIth regard to your grandaughter,it's hard to know how to help not knowing the situation, but I'd guess the issue is whether good quality care is what the child would be going to, rather than an unlicensed, overcrowded family day care.

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