Long term effects of early, extensive childcare

A bit of an obscure article, from a fairly biased source, to find for a first post OP.

Why do I feel I should be converted? ds is 15 now, so too late to save him, but thankfully no signs of turning to violent crime just yet 🙄

I am absolutely convinced it is part of the reason for increased mental health problems and a lack of resilience in children.

I am absolutely convinced that increased mental health problems are due to broader societal changes and increased recognition and diagnosis. Until either of us produce any evidence we'll have to keep being privately convinced, won't we?

I use a nursery (two days a week, and two days a week with a childminder) so I'll declare that vested interest from the start (unlike that blog piece).

That isn't research, it's a blog piece about research. I have literally just glanced at the original paper - I'll read it properly later, and I don't want to comment much until I do. However, I will note that the effects they're talking about are very small - the blog gives the effects as proportions of the standard deviations, which probably means nothing to most people reading it, but which is a clever way of hiding how tiny the effects are. Also, most of the analysis is done by comparing all Quebec children whether or not they used the childcare programme to the rest of Canada, which involves a pretty dubious set of assumptions.

I started paying less attention to most research on parental choices when I realised that there's no such thing as a random allocation because no one lets a researcher decide whether or not their kid should be in nursery, or sleep trained, or whatever. Maybe DS would be better off with a hypothetical version of me who is the same in every way except she chose to give up work. We don't know, in part because she doesn't exist - that hypothetical woman and I probably make a lot of different choices, so even if she did there's no good way of isolating our working hours from the rest of our lives to decide how it impacts on DS.

There are also studies showing significant increases infant mortality the earlier the child leaves the care of the primary carer.

That’s pretty shocking - is this uk?

But there's shit parenting as well. A child could be utterly neglected at home with their mother. It's an unpalatable truth but some parents who've had chaotic home-lives or come from generational worklessness cannot model a better way as they don't know it. Neglect can happen in the home too.

In 1938 ,there were less than 4.5k children in day nurseries.These tended to be government funded settings for the where daycare was considered essential- so the very poorest children from broken homes and single mothers.
That whole bit about attention is a red herring too. A mother could interact almost continuously. Work and play were the same thing. A mother could stop washing up and attend to a crying baby. There was less housework to do in some ways.

I agree with @insancerre

Criticism of the affects of childcare never goes down well on MN.

Some people don't have a choice but to use childcare and it's for this reason only high quality childcare should be available. For children under 2 quality isn't necessary an all singing all dancing Ofted outstanding nursery setting.

There will always be the poster who says the worse option is for a child not to be fed and have a roof over their head, but that doesn't mean long term studies should be ignored by everyone. There will be people trying to conceive who should be aware of what's best for children.

There are also studies showing significant increases infant mortality the earlier the child leaves the care of the primary carer.

There is a huge difference between not having a parent at home full time and having a baby wrapped up at 6am to drop to poorly educated staff in an institutional setting until 6:30pm, having breakfast and supper outside the home too.

And even if mum was physically at home she would have little time to interact with children. Housework took up much more time before labour saving devices.

ITs blindingly obvious to anyone that knows anything about child development and psychology that institutional care cannot replace good parenting.
It can enable families to survive financially. It can benefit children where parenting isn’t good at all but clearly isn’t healthy for most under twos. It probably isn’t healthy for two plus children to spend all day everyday in childcare.
I am absolutely convinced it is part of the reason for increased mental health problems and a lack of resilience in children.
It’s a hard message for some to hear but one that should be heard and were forever saying the needs of children come first. It might be an inconvenient truth but that shouldn’t mean it has to be dismissed.

snuggybuggy discussing a topic is fine ...but when that discussion is based on seriously flawed, biased research there can be issues.

Agree @SnuggyBuggy what we're suggesting though is some proper research that looks at different sources and weighs that up. Not one unbiased source.

As for the suggestion it's "triggering" I've neither guilt not shame about the fact I used childcare! And when I read posts on here about women complete dependent in their partner for money I'm jolly glad I kept my career going!!

OP, thanks for posting.

Agree or disagree, have options or not, I think it’s better to be informed. And we won’t be informed if we object to “being made to feel guilty” by any study that suggests we’ve made mistakes.

It’s actually not remotely a ‘new’ thing not to have a parent at home FT with a child. The idea that this is the ideal is a very new one.

Use this to affect your own choices OP; remember that anyone who, like me, had to do to 5 days of 7-7 stints at nursery (bills need paying and cuddles with Mummy wouldn't pay my mortgage sadly) will already feel some sense of guilt and probably don't need that reinforced by some 'research' you've found on the internet.

The potential for making some people feel guilty about their decisions isn't a good reason not to discuss a topic. People don't have to engage if it's triggering.

I agree, nothing positive will come from this post, just another attack on women and the choices they make for their children

You've posted this twice......was that deliberate?

The vast majority of childcare providers in this study were rated as poor.
High quality childcare is actually hugely beneficial.
I'm also weary of the organisation who funded this 'research' ...I suspect they want more women to stay at home so are using this as another stick to beat working mothers.

Op you just come across as judgy and superior.

It stands to reason that babies and toddlers feel most secure with their primary caregivers. It's a relatively new thing for both parents to need to work, and not really something which is easiest on the child. But sometimes needs must.

Interesting. Before I put my boy in nursery, I looked a lot at the research and found many studies are conflicting and that mostly it seems to depend on the quality of the nursery and the amount of hours spent there. Under 1s rarely benefit from nursery. Over 1s can benefit immensely but only if the quality is good, as in a good or outstanding nursery. Most nurseries in the UK are much better than those in the US due to our rigorous inspection system. Children who spend more than 8 hours a day at nursery for more than 3 days in a row can also suffer, for the obvious reason that they don't get to spend enough time with their parents.
www.google.com/amp/s/www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/children-nursery-home-parents-study-develop-oxford-london-school-economics-a7420986.html%3famp
If neither of those conditions are true, then nursery can be highly beneficial and has proven benefits for the child.

^^ pp - come on OP, use a bit of critical thinking here.

@OlderthenYoungerNow I agree - the OP has tried to sugar this, but that is her aim. If you look at the background of the organisation then the motives are clear.

I hate posts like this- why do women try and guilt trip parents who may be struggling anyway.

And as for the poster who says mothers shouldn’t work If it for ‘luxuries’, I find that ridiculous. My children quite like the luxuries!

Some women just want to make parenthood a martyrdom.

What is the point of posting this? Lots of people need / want to work and need childcare do is this just to increase the guilt they may feel about that?

Also childcare has changed a lot since 1997 so you're not comparing with what is offered now.

And as a pp says check your sources. Look at the Perry Pre-School study / high scope for a different perspective.

I work in early years and have always thought that it doesn’t suit some children
I think the research such as EPPE showed that the quality of the care is crucial and that full time had no more benefits than part time
This is why the then government spent millions on improving qualifications for practitioners and making plans for every setting to be graduate led
Sadly, that was overturned by the tories
Quality costs money though and people seem to want the cheapest childcare they can get but then complain about the effects on children