@hulahooper I’m curious if you came across NAEYC in your research. Most of the factors you mentioned are covered in NAEYC except for the turnover piece, which is dependent on many external factors at times.
If a center is NAEYC aligned, then I would shoot for that 100%. Both my kids went to one and then we switched my youngest to another school because of logistics and let’s just say it was so awful in terms of teacher quality, training and the ratios they tried to keep. We are switching our son back to the NAEYC school (lots of begging on my part!)
@oldman1941 You may be reassured to learn, research indicates that daycare has little to no impact on your attachment relationship with your kiddo. This makes sense, since we know that children are able to form attachments to multiple caregivers, and that those attachments are unique (so, for instance, a child can be securely attached to one caregiver, and insecurely attached to another). Your child experiencing separation anxiety, as long as that is handled sensitively and knowledgeably by the daycare, should not do any particular harm.
@hulahooper There is a huge caregiver shortage right now. Parents need to manage their expectations. As long as your kid’s basic needs are met, they have a structured day of indoor/outdoor playtime, learning, lunch, and nap, and are happy at pick up, they are good.
@bbarb Hm, I guess I’d wonder what information is leading you to recommend this? The research indicating that high quality daycare is important, especially for infants, is pretty strong. If by “good” you mean it’s not the kind of issue that will dictate the rest of your child’s life and that lots of kids get by just fine with low quality care, I’d agree. But if by “good” you mean not a big deal or important, I would say that belief is not supported by science.
@hulahooper The information leading me to recommend this is my own experience as a working mother of two former babies/toddlers who were in childcare situations. My two received high quality childcare at a Montessori with Spanish immersion. The situation I described is high quality.
@hulahooper In New Zealand all daycare and schools are reviewed by a government department and a report is available online. This gives an objective view on the quality of the daycare centre.
Otherwise, it is hard to tell but maybe we just got lucky because my son enjoys his daycare and we love the teachers. My son has a difficult to manage health condition so we get more teacher attention than most, and talking to other parents in the same situation I can tell our daycare handles it really well.
@gonzenheim It's from the first article I linked! A lot of research on center based childcare for infants is from the 90s. There were some huge studies done at that time that they used to learn a lot about the effects and variables.
"Infants in centers with ratios of three or fewer children per caregiver have been found to receive significantly more sensitive and appropriate caregiving (Howes et al., 1992), and to score one standard deviation above those in centers with larger ratios on a measure of communication skills, even after adjusting for family factors that affect development (Burchinal et al., 1996). "
