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.

 

[paigerific87]

@grampster I talk to people all the time who say how superhero amazing their daycare teachers are. And while I don’t doubt that’s partially true, it’s also true that no single person should be tasked with watching 5 infants 10.5 hours a day. And no matter how superhuman you are, those babies are not getting the same level of care as they would in a lower ratio.

 

[katrina2017]

@christianmiguel Unfortunately, we do. I can’t count the number of times I’ve heard people say, “Eh, they won’t remember it anyway so who cares if the care isn’t that great in the first few years. It’s not like they’re going to have any memories of it in the long run.” Which shows just how little people understand about the critical importance of the first few years.

Add to that the fact that parents have been shown to be terrible judges of quality, and yeah, we need the data.

 

[christianmiguel]

@katrina2017 Do you think these people will be convinced by a study?

 

[katrina2017]

@christianmiguel Some will, some won’t. It’s also very useful to have the data to advocate for higher quality care. High-quality care is very expensive and having more data showing how critical it is is never a bad thing.

 

[continualseeker]

@grampster I just posted the full study in a comment here.

 

[leematthew1234]

@damacri ... this doesn't seem to say what you think it does? It actually largely backs up the article often posted here from science critical. The study you link notes that from the countries compared, Canada was the only one who had a significant number of children enrolled under 2 years old, they also had more long studies and reported negative effects. The opposite was recorded in Norway where general enrollment age is higher.

Like they appear to have taken the median across several countries and determined no behaviour problems increasing/decreasing on par with childcare hours BUT seem to not have accounted for the age at which the child started? Also aside from Canada who reported negative outcomes, this study only looked at short term

 

[damacri]

@leematthew1234 That’s incorrect. The only studies that show an effect were in the Netherlands and in Norway, but they only did so in the random effects model and the overall estimate is not significant. For the fixed effects model, which is a much better statistical control, none of the studies showed an effect! The funnel plot there shows the effect sizes and that none are significant.

Also, most kids in the Norwegian study started around 10 months. They did not provide further info on the two American studies in this paper specifically, but some of those infants likely started care earlier too.

 

[jaimegage]

@damacri Thanks for sharing the study! I haven't had the chance to read the research yet - just wanted to note that I'm pretty sure the article you referenced that's often shared on here as a summary of previous research was created in good faith. This is how science works - research on a particular topic gets superseded by further / more extensive research. I don't think we need to be dismissive towards the work that went into creating that article in order to accept that its conclusions may end up outdated by future research on the topic.

Edit: Have had the chance to look more closely, and unless I'm misreading the study, it doesn't seem to be measuring what you claim it is - the children aren't babies, but toddlers. The previous article summarising the research supported that childcare is beneficial past 2/3 years, which this research isn't countering.

 

[damacri]

@jaimegage I don’t know if you’ve interacted with the author of the blog post, but I have and she blocked me for sending her studies that counteract her message instead of editing the post. She has an agenda and ignored half the existing daycare research. I honestly do not believe the blog post was written in good faith, but as a way to sway already vulnerable mothers.

I have no problems with the actual scientists who conducted the research, even if it turns out to be wrong. (The studies themselves seem to be in good faith). Totally agree that’s how science works!

I’ve edited my post about the longitudinal nature of the study. Also, I will say that the fact that they’re not finding effects in toddlerhood now that they have a proper sample size calls into question the research in early infancy, which is limited. I’m not sure it will hold up long-term, but a more specific study would be needed to look at subgroups by age of first entry.