Good News about Day Care

I always felt that it wasn't the quantity but rather the quality of time spent with the kids that mattered. The British study shows my feelings were probably right.

Children in day care facilities do not suffer negative consequences as a result of separation from their mothers, a new Bristol University study has found.

For ten years the expansive British study tracked the development of 14,000 children in their first three years. It found that those children looked after in nurseries suffered “no measurable psychological or behavioral ill-effects because of their mothers’ absence.” Researchers looked at how active the children were and how likely they were to be moody, fussy or display other signs of emotional problems.

The research also showed that women who worked still spent much time playing, talking and singing with their children, so their kids were likely to receive the same amount of stimulation as children who stayed with mom.

Professor Dieter Wolke, who worked on the study, was not surprised by the findings saying, “they reflected what has been found in some other studies.”