Daycare is NOT associated with behavior problems in 10,000+ children across 5 countries

[kingdomkings]

@yahwhshua Thank you for explaining, I was struggling to get my head around this element too.

 

[yahwhshua]

@damacri First, true experiments are the best available evidence. If not, analyses that control for or stratify by age, given what we know about how daycare has different effects at different ages. As I said above, lumping infants in with toddlers and 3 year olds data will of course produce less significant or in this case, null results. That’s just statistics. There could be 20 babies with extremely poor outcomes, and the 70 toddlers with amazing outcomes, and mean of those outcomes will still be average or good.

 

[damacri]

@yahwhshua We also have studies demonstrating null evidence by age of entry, so I’m not sure why the positive effects should be given priority. Those studies are not better just because they see an effect. They’re not proven to be the ground truth, so they cannot be assumed to be confounding this study without evidence.

However, there is evidence that at least one of the studies included in the analysis did not show significant effects of age of entry, which would suggest there is not huge statistical masking of combining ages, at least in this sample.

 

[grampster]

@damacri Has anyone read the full study? The abstract doesn't provide important context- i.e the quality of the 'day cares'. I've worked in early childhood settings for 20+ years. They are definitely not all the same.

A child spending 60 hours a week in a setting with a constant turnover of adults, with no routine or consistency. Limited resources or lack of enriching play on offer. With adults who may or may not have any training, experience or even like their jobs is going to have very different outcomes, and it will 100% have an impact on their behaviour. These places exist in abundance. Even average places will have aspects of this low quality provision.

 

[meganm112611]

@grampster This.
Everything you are saying is spot on.

I also worked in a preschool/daycare, and despite people being well trained, they were not well paid and had a high turnover rate. By the time a child who'd been there since infancy was 4, they'd had about a dozen primary caretakers-- without the turnover which made it more like two dozen.
These were not a village of people caring for the child. These were employees with varying degrees of intention and educational background, with no biological imperative to give the best care to each and every child.

I want to see the longitudinal studies on mental and physical health on the children who are raised in daycares.

I was one of them. Sure, I was well behaved. Until I hit puberty, but even then I was like a trained monkey during school hours.

At 42, I still have trouble figuring out where all my anxieties and attachment issues stem from.

These studies are asking the wrong questions, unless it's well behaved automatons we're after in the parenting game.

 

[dcantrell]

@grampster I dug into everything in this comment chain.

https://www.reddit.com/r/ScienceBasedParenting/comments/11dxmcg/daycare_is_not_associated_with_behavior_problems

Most of the studies are incredibly vague on the things you're asking about.

 

[christianmiguel]

@grampster I mean, I know this is a science sub, but yeah… crap care is bad for children? Do you really need a study to prove that?

 

[grampster]

@christianmiguel Unfortunately yes we do- if it helps inform parents about what quality care looks like and why it matters. Some child care settings may have slick marketing or give the appearance of being great- but in actual fact are very toxic environments for children (and teachers!).

 

[scooper8]

@christianmiguel Every once in awhile as a childcare worker I’ll run up against the sentiment of “well but do you have 15 experimental design studies showing that 5:1 infant care leads to lower high school graduation rate.” No, I don’t, and honestly I’d be a bit surprised if infant care ratios had a strong effect on graduate rates, but I’ve still cared for infants and think the lower the ratio the better. They’re highly needy little beings who don’t understand the world around them yet!

 

[christianmiguel]

@scooper8 I’ll offer back my view as a researcher that we’re as humans capable of common sense. That poor quality isn’t good is basically a tautology. Infants have needs. The more those are met, the better. If 5:1 isn’t cutting it, 4:1 is better.

 

[grampster]

@christianmiguel If you asked an average person to imagine having 20 infants in a room, most would work out that at any given time at least 1 baby will need a bottle/nappy change/sleep routine/feeding/intervention to keep them safe during group play. Those are mostly 1:1 care routines. It doesn't require a genius to work out a 1:5 ratio is practically unworkable, when you think it through and aim beyond keeping the babies alive - i.e you want interaction, play, enriching education experiences... 4 adults in that room of 20 babies wouldn't be nearly enough hands.

Yet many state/country regulations have a ratio requirement of 1:5 or worse, and where profit is involved- a centre won't add teachers, if they can save $$ by meeting minimum requirements. Many parents do not see why ratios, group size, consistent caregivers matter, but they do- and are so often left out of the conversation.