Well, yeah, it does -- but not as much as other factors.

A much-anticipated report from the largest and longest-running study of American child care has found that keeping a preschooler in a day care center for a year or more increased the likelihood that the child would become disruptive in class — and that the effect persisted through the sixth grade.

The effect was slight, and well within the normal range for healthy children, the researchers found. And as expected, parentsÂ’ guidance and their genes had by far the strongest influence on how children behaved.

But the finding held up regardless of the childÂ’s sex or family income, and regardless of the quality of the day care center. With more than two million American preschoolers attending day care, the increased disruptiveness very likely contributes to the load on teachers who must manage large classrooms, the authors argue.

On the positive side, they also found that time spent in high-quality day care centers was correlated with higher vocabulary scores through elementary school.

Now there are already lots of folks out there trying to shoot down this study, to lay the effect off on high turn-over at day care centers or some other factor, but the reality is that the effect does exist. Indeed, it has a lot to do with the lack of clear, consistent supervision and discipline experienced by these young kids, in my opinion.

Posted by: Greg at 10:02 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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