If you have young children, daycare age, you’ve probably heard by now about a study that was recently released. The headlines in the New York Times were enough to make any working parent cringe: Lots of day care can lead to bad behavior. The federal study, which tracked more than 1,300 children, found that the more time children spent in day care, the more likely they were to be disruptive in the classroom.
But before you go and quit your job or even worse, consider the damage done, some early learning and child development experts have some differing opinions. They believe there’s plenty you can do (suggestions in this article) to offset potential problems that won’t require such draconian efforts. Much of their advice has to do with how to assess “quality” daycare environments and to make sure that is where you land your child. And also, working toward a reasonable schedule that limits their time in daycare to 8 hours or less can help make drop off and pick up a whole lot easier for parents.
For most parents in today’s culture, two salaries, two jobs, two separate schedules is a reality—that started most likely before you had children and now that you do have children, the demands financially require it. There is no easy solution and unfortunately studies like this one strike fear into most of our hearts. We all have to do what’s best for our families and I think it’s possible to manage it—and hopefully we can do that and still have children who can sit and listen to a story being read for 10 minutes!
Posted on April 15th, 2007 by Sam
Filed under: Uncategorized
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