The 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. This was recently reported by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), which has been studying child care since 1991.
"A study like this creates concern, but the reality is that for many families where both parents - or the single parent - need to work, childcare is simply a necessity," according to Artie Wu, founder of MamaSource.com, an online community resource for mothers.
In a study like this, it is important to note that every family is different. Also found in this update is that children with high-quality day care in preschool have better vocabulary scores in the fifth grade than those who had a subpar child care experience.
And the HICHD carefully couched its release on this portion of the study
(nichd.nih.gov/news/releases/child_care_linked_to_vocabulary_032607.cfm):
"The researchers cautioned that the increase in vocabulary and problem behaviors was small, and that parenting quality was a much more important predictor of child development than was type, quantity, or quality, of child care."
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