A British study reportedly showing that babies and young children under five are better off psychologically if their mothers are employed received widespread attention last week in the British press. Meanwhile an American report reviewing 30 years of research on the effects of day care came up with very different conclusions and was virtually ignored when it was released by the Heritage Foundation last month.

In her report, “The Effects of Day Care on the Social-Emotional Development of Children,” Jenet Jacob Erickson focused on the findings of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development’s Study of Early Child Care Research Network from the early 1990s. This study of more than 1,300 children from 10 American communities evaluated both the home and child-care contexts from infancy through age 15 years and included videotaped interactions between children and mothers, as well as interviews with mothers, teachers and adolescents. Children were also observed in child-care settings.

Here are the key findings of Erikson’s review of the National Institute study and other research conducted during the past 30 years:

•Children who spend more hours per week in non-maternal child care are more likely to exhibit problematic social–behavioral adjustment, including less social competence and cooperation and more problem behaviors, negative moods, aggression, and conflict. In teachers’ reports of kindergartners’ social adjustment, the effect of hours spent in non-maternal care prior to kindergarten is comparable to the effect of poverty in predicting behavioral problems.

•Negative effects associated with quantity of child care persist throughout development. Children who experienced more hours of child care had significantly fewer social skills and poorer work habits in the third grade. In the sixth grade, children who had experienced more center care continued to show more problem behaviors. At age 15, children who had experienced more non-relative (non-family) child care reported more risk-taking behaviors and impulsivity, including using alcohol, tobacco, or other drugs; behaving in ways that threatened safety; and not being able to control impulses appropriately.

•Better child care quality is associated with some positive social behavioral effects, including fewer problem behaviors in measures at age 15 years. But child care quality is significantly less important in either positive or negative social and emotional outcomes than quantity of child care.

•Mothers whose children spend more time in non-maternal care are likely to exhibit lower levels of sensitivity and less positive mother–child interactions, regardless of the quality and stability of the child care.

•Children whose mothers exhibit low levels of sensitivity and who are in child care more than 10 hours a week or in lower-quality child care are more likely to experience attachment insecurity.

•Attachment insecurity is associated with negative social–behavioral outcomes across development. Children who do not establish secure attachments in their relationship with their mothers are more likely to experience social withdrawal, depression, and anxiety. Boys with an insecure maternal attachment are more likely to exhibit conflict, aggression, and acting out.

Interestingly, the study found that non-white children were less negatively affected by day care. “More hours in child care was associated with an increase in positive mother–child interactions for non-White families through the 1st grade.” The study drew no conclusions as to why this would be so.

About 25 percent of young children of working mothers in America are enrolled in day care. And, roughly 60 percent of mothers of children under three are employed.

                                                      — Comments —

Robert writes:

I think the trick for why “nonwhites” (predominantly blacks and Hispanics with some Asians and Native Americans/”Indians”) don’t suffer as much with daycare as whites do has something to do with the fact that you’ll find more broken homes and single parenting among nonwhites-really an artifact of our nation’s welfare programs. These groups were poor in 1964, and LBJ and Congress decided to pay them to have babies out of wedlock. Not surprisingly, a lot took LBJ up on his offer, to Moynihan’s dismay. 

If you broke out the data to see how white children from broken homes did, you’d also see “less damage” from daycare because the primary damage has been done at home. It’s simply harder to further maim a child from a broken home than it is to maim a child from an intact home.

Laura writes:

Yes, that is probably part of it. But I think there are innate differences too. The report specifically speaks of the effects of day care on maternal sensitivity.

Erikson writes:

•White mothers of children in more weekly hours of non-maternal child care were more likely to have lower maternal sensitivity and less positive mother–child interactions in assessments from infancy through the 1st grade.

• Non-White mothers of children in more hours of non-maternal child care were more likely to have higher maternal sensitivity and more positive mother–child interactions in assessments from infancy through the 1st grade.

It seems that the white mother is more likely to become preoccupied by something else when she is away from her children and find her maternal awareness lowered.

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