Daycare and Preschool

By Dr. George Wootan, M.D.

Author of Take Charge of Your Child’s Health

The "award winning" Windsor Stackable Cribs for Daycare

Many people feel that daycare centers are beneficial to a child’s development and a few early studies did show that children in daycare were more independent and made friends as easily as young children than those who spent their days at home with a parent. (1, 2) More recent studies, however, have reached disturbing conclusions. Pennsylvania State University psychologist, Jay Belsky, has expressed concern over the mounting evidence that babies in daycare are more likely to develop insecure attachments to their mothers and are at an increased risk of emotional and behavioral problems later on. (3, 4, 5)

Other studies of children who have been cared for by someone other than a parent have shown "more serious aggression, less cooperation, less tolerance of frustration, more misbehavior, and, at times, social withdrawal," as well as lower cognitive functioning later in childhood. (6, 7, 8, 9)

This doesn’t surprise me. Even the best nonparental child care arrangement asks that a child deal with considerable anxiety and stress. I believe that childhood should be a carefree time that builds a child’s sense of security and trust, not a time for learning to cope with difficult situations.

Aside from the possible detrimental effects of daycare on a child’s emotional wellbeing, there are serious disadvantages from a standpoint of physical health. Children who are in daycare tend to contract infectious disease more often, and at younger ages, than children who spend most of their time at home. According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), children in daycare centers are more likely to get both minor and major illnesses, including influenza, giardiasis, dysentery, hepatitis A, ear and cytomegalovirus infections. (10, 11, 12, 13, 14)

The problem of infection is so great that the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) considered passing a resolution recommending all children in daycare centers be kept on an antibiotic at all times -- a prospect I find alarming. The antibiotic under consideration, Rifampin, is highly toxic, but the association feels that the high incidence of hemophilus influenza in daycare centers may warrant its use.

Nursery schools are not much better, but for different reasons. Many preschool programs are intended to advance early learning. While there is no question that you can teach young children, and even infants, phenomenal amounts of information, there is no benefit from pushing a child in this way. No system of early education shows detectable results beyond the third grade. Whether your child learns to write his letters and add simple figures at the age of three, or at the age of six, will not matter in the long run, and his ability to learn these things at an early age is not any indication of the level of his intelligence. (9)

During the preschool years children need to learn values, a positive outlook on life, and how to be loving, understanding, empathetic people. These are things that children learn from their interaction with other adults, particularly their mothers, not from schools.

Nevertheless, some people feel that nursery school is necessary to teach children how to "play well" with other children. I feel that a child who learns to care for, respect, and communicate with the people in his home will have no problem transferring these skills when he has the opportunity to play with other children. These values and skills will be effectively learned in the home, not in nursery school.


George Wootan, M.D. is a board-certified family practitioner and medical associate of La Leche League International. He and his wife, Pat, are the parents of eleven children and the grandparents of twenty-one. Dr. Wootan has practiced medicine for over 33 years with a focus on pediatric, family, and geriatric care and chronic illness. He speaks nationally on the subject of children’s health, healthy aging, nutrition, wellness and Functional Medicine. Find his phenomenal book, Take Charge of Your Child's Health on Amazon.

References:

1. Pat Wingert and Barbara Kantrowitz, "The Day Care Generation." Newsweek Special Issue (Winter 1989-Spring 1990): 86.

2. Karl Zinsmeister, "Hard Truths About Day Care." Reader's Digest (Oct. 1988): 88.

3. Jay Belsky and Michael J. Rovine, "Nonmaternal Care in the First Year of Life and the Security of Infant-Parent Attachment." Child Development, Vol. 59, No. 1 (Feb., 1988), pp. 157-167.

4. Jay Belsky, "Parental and Nonparental Child Care and Children's Socioemotional Development: A Decade in Review." Journal of Marriage and Family, Vol. 52, No. 4; Family Research in the 1980s: The Decade in Review (Nov., 1990), pp. 885-903. 

5. Jay Belsky and R.M. Pasco Fearon, "Infant–mother attachment security, contextual risk, and early development: A moderational analysis." Development and Psychopathology (2002), 14:293-310, Cambridge University Press.

6. Jay Belsky and David Eggebeen, "Early and Extensive Maternal Employment and Young Children's Socioemotional Development: Children of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth." Journal of Marriage and Family, Vol. 53, No. 4 (Nov., 1991), pp. 1083-1098.

7. Tiffany Field, Wendy Masi, Sheri Goldstein and Susan Perry, "Infant Day Care." Early Childhood Research Quarterly, Vol. 3, No. 4, (1988): 341-359.

8. K. Alison Clarke-Stewart, "The ‘Effects’ of infant day care reconsidered' reconsidered: Risks for parents, children, and researchers." Early Childhood Research Quarterly, Vol 3, No. 3, (1988): 293-318.

9. AG Broberg, H Wessels, ME Lamb, and CP Hwang, "Effects of day care on the development of cognitive abilities in 8-year-olds: A longitudinal study." Developmental Psychology, Vol 3, No. 1, 62-69.

10. Richard A. Goodman et al., "Proceedings of the International Conference on Child Day Care Health: Science, Prevention, and Practice." Supplement to Pediatrics 84(1994): 986-1020.

11. Harriet B. Presser, "Place of Child Care and Medicated Respiratory Illness among Young American Children." Journal of Marriage and the Family 50: 995-1005.

12. Stephen R. Redmond and Michael E. Pichichero, "Hemophilus Influenza Type B Disease: An Epidemiologic Study with Special Reference to Day Care Centers." Journal of the American Medical Association 252: 2581-2584.

13. Robert E. Black, "Giardiasis in Day Care Centers: Evidence of Person-to-Person Transmission," Pediatrics 60: 486-489.

14. NICHD Early Child Care Research Network, "Child Care and Children’s Peer Interaction at 24 and 36 Months: The NICHD Study of Early Child Care." Child Development 72(2001): 1478-1520. 

Editor's Note: This is a very small fraction of the research that supports Wootan's above statements on babies' health and childcare. Further investigation will lead the reader to decades worth of study demonstrating similar findings. We were astonished at the astronomical volume on this subject - one I've personally glossed over in the past myself, as a baby-friendly feminist who did not plan to leave a professional career for children, but chose to temporarily step aside (making monumental sacrifices along the way) in order to mother my babies in their early, fast, and fleeting years of life.

"Only in a broken, dis-attached culture that does not value mothering or babies, would it be considered a radical and offensive notion to suggest that babies need their mothers for their first 36+ months of life." -Danelle Day