Are nurseries bad for young children's emotional development?

[OldieMum]

The Guardian has made this a front-page issue today and it also has a long, and thoughtful article by Madeleine Bunting, here Both stories report on a growing body of evidence suggesting that children under 2 in group daycare (ie not childminders, grandparents or nannies) show signs of being less co-operative and more aggressive later on, even though they may have better cognitive skills. Children over 2 seem more clearly to benefit
from group care, perhaps because they are interacting more with other children by then. Under 2, they mainly interact with staff, who do not pay them enough individually-tailored attention (Bunting talks about an 'emotionally bland' kind of interaction). DD (18 months) goes to a small nursery three days a week, so I have a strong personal interest in all this. What are other people's observations about the impact of daycare on their children? I feel very positive about it. DD gets a lot of attention from the staff and she loves going there.

HMB is right about the quality of the research being questionable. I gather (but haven't looked at this in detail) that the studies mentioned are either very small or show very small/insignificant results with no evidence that whatever results they do claim either persist or matter. I think it is ridiculous to use them to make such grandiose claims and I'd be very suspicious of the research methodology.
If it encourages the Government to extend paid maternity leave can't be a bad thing though, I suppose.
I certainly think my ds is happy at nursery and his nursery is a thousand times better than all the childminders I saw. Of course there are good childminders out there, but I couldn't find one. The toddlers at ds's nursery don't seem particularly aggressive yet some of them must have come through the baby room. Ds is happy, confident, bubbly, developing fast and the staff are very, very warm towards him and the other babies in their care.
Theoretically, isn't a day nursery more like the sort of childcare you would have in a tribal society anway, with lots of women sharing the tasks?

Sorry , that should have read with our, not with out.

For anyone interested in looking at this research, here is a link to the web site of the Effective Provision of Pre-School Education (EPPE) study, link to abstracts of publications, here . It's the UK longitudinal study mentioned by Bunting. I have taken only a quick look at the site. There may be a page giving more succinct information on the study.

Like others who have posted here I am the main breadwinner in our family and so had no choice but to go back to full time work after dd was born and will do the same again after this new baby comes.
But even if it wasn't a financial necessity I would still want to work. I like the stimulation I get from work and interacting with other adults.
I also love my daughter and enjoy playing with her and giving her attention. But I would be terrible at doing it all day every day.
You sound like you're a good networker Stripey, but I'm not. I found my maternity leave a very lonely and isolating time and although I enjoyed being with dd I couldn't have kept it up forever.
Through nursery she has made some very good friends, one of whom is going on to school with her, and we have made a network of friends amongst the parents which I think can only be beneficial for all of us. Dd is very affectionate and well adjusted and generally well behaved.
Different things suit different people. If you can afford to be a SAHM and enjoy it then that is fabulous, but that doesn't mean that those who can't or don't are wrong or bad parents.

Hmb, spot on.

Stripey, you may consider yourself lucky enough to be able to be a SAHM; I consider myself lucky enough to have found a lovely nursery that enabled me to go back to the job I loved part-time. It would have been like having my arm cut off not to be able to do research any more, nothing to do with money. Please don't be so smug. And no, the nursery I used did not leave my children with sore bottoms, and yes, they played outside loads of the time. And yes, my children also have lots of friends now, they are very loving and very much loved.

Amd here is the study design. EPPE

Doh! Must read previous posts thoroughly before posting, had missed the points about tribal societies (but then this is a VERY long thread and I am supposed to be working )

Not read this thread but IMO the answer is a definite no. My children haven't been to one (you mean private?) but the kids I know that do because their mums/dads work are great and v balanced.

Bunting mentions three studies. The one that's just been linked is certainly large but hardly objective on behavioural aspects, which are the ones they are using to beat nurseries with:

'A profile of the child?s social and emotional adjustment was completed by the pre-school educator who knew the child best.'

I didn't have time to look up anything else. If anyone's interested, I can take some time to look all this up more thoroughly, as I am just starting to plan my own research on early childhood health inequalities, but I don't have time to do it before the weekend.

Or look at the NICHD web site - it's too large to find the project quickly.

Must depend on the nursery surely. DS1 went to 2 (ds2 is at his second now). HIs second nursery is small, the children are in mixed age groups (which I like). Half the staff are from the same family (sisters) - the owner also manages it so is in all the time. it's warm, loving and friendly.

Ds1's first nursery was a different story. And frankly I wouldn't trust that nursery to look after a goldfish. There were lots of staf turnovers. Children were singled out (my son was- he kept being left in a room siting on a chair by himslef whilst the other children were playing next door- he wasn't even 2, and hadn't been naughty- I think they just didn't like him as they said he was odd).

Our experience of that first nursery made me very wary about putting him in another- but the one he goes to is wonderful. I'm also a SAHM, but with a SN child we needed a break, and having an autistic brother ds2 saw hardly any NT children until he went there age 2- I felt it was really important for him to get some normal ineraction by then.

This sort of research is always going to be a bit daft, because its always going to depend on the quality of the individual setting vs the individual's homelife.

agree with you jimjams. our nursery has a strong history of sn children - including a profoundly deaf child and twins on the autistic spectrum, they've all now left the nursery but I know got a lot out of the environment. we had some of support from the local authority, i think.

Completely agree Jimjams- depends on the nursery and also, it has to be said, on the quality of care at home. It's an extreme example I know, but when you think of the little boy on Child of Our Time whose mother was too depressed to get him out of his cot and left him there all morning it's hard to believe he wouldn't have been better off in childcare for a few hours, at least. Having said that, the nursery he went to when he was older looked pretty awful, so it's swings and roundabouts I guess. I certainly looked round some nurseries when I was looking for a place for ds where I wouldn't have left a dog quite honestly, let alone a baby .

One rule ds's nursery had in the baby room that I really liked was that they didn't have chairs there except at mealtimes. That way, if a baby was too small to sit up on its own, someone would always be cuddling it.

Dd and ds have both gone to a nursery from the age of 3, mornings only at first, and it is first rate. They have coped amazingly well with my kids who are at polar ends of the behaviour spectrum. They have devoted a vast amount of care to bringing them both 'on' and developing their individual skills.

ds goes into reception at the same school this year and dd is about to go into Y 3.

Interestingly they both got their reports today. As regular posters know ds has had lots of problems with his language development. This was the last part of the report,

'X has made tremendous strides this year. When we compare his language skills with a year ago, he just isn't the same child. He is becoming more of a team player and listens to instructions. I hope that his progress will continue and that he will be able to adapt to the changes of life in the Reception class. He is a lovely little boy who has made us laugh. Well done , X'

I'll be honest with you, I shed a tear!

there are bad childcare facilities, there are bad parents for that matter. I'm just so glad that I found a facility that realy cares about my kids! Their help has been invaluable.

My ds goes to a nursey full time and I feel it was the best thing for him. He is a very loud lively 2yr old and thrives when with other children. He was originaly with a childminder who could not offer him as many activities as the nursery. He does do painting which look like blobs but he has done them, he has music time and story time and they go for walks. I don't collect him at a set time and sometimes arrive earlier and on numerous occasions he has been having a cuddle or playing with one of the nursey staff. He has not become aggresive and is very settled at the nursey, I will be sad when he has to leave as i doubt I will ever find such a wonderful facility again. If anyone lives in Market Drayton I would recommend them to you.

Ok - I haven't read all the posts (there are soooooo many), but I used to run a baby room in a day nursery which was a job I loved! It was a warm and happy place and the children in our care were all happy as far as I could see. We always did our best to make sure all their needs were being met and that they enjoyed coming to nursery. However, having worked there in the three years before my ds1 was born, I always said that the nursery is a great place for the over twos, but I would never put my baby into one for the simple reason that I always felt that although we did our best, we could never give all of them all the attention they needed, all of the time when there were only two of us and six babies at different stages of development. It's very difficult to deal with things if three are crying at one time and one might be trying to sleep and you're in the middle of a messy activity with the other two - you get the picture? This is not meant to make anyone feel guilty at all though, (I'm sure the children in my care are happy, well adjusted young individuals) and I'm not sure about the research regarding agression etc, but having worked on the inside, I know how hard it is for staff to give attention to six demanding little people all at once and I just never wanted to put any of mine into that situation. But like someone said, there are nurseries and nurseries and childminders and childminders. People must make the decisions which are best for their situations and as long as they are happy and the children are happy, I don't really see how there would be any long-term 'damage'.

What an interesting thread! Just thought I'd throw my twopence in - for what its worth.

I am currently working as a nanny and am NNEB trained. I worked in a private day nursery - a very well known nationwide group, possibly the same group many of you sned your children to , or have looked around. I worked there for 4 years , working with ages 3 months to 5 years.

This research on the news today is questioning the emotional development of children under two.

From my experience of working in day care setting my opinion is that a child can bebfit stongly from this knd of childcare. In my baby room , babies are cuddled, sang to , entertained, loved. They do get one to one when others go to bed - and if you are a SAHM you dont give your child 10 hours of one to one anyway. THe babies all get to sit in a group wiht others and learn to interact with each other, to mimic, and yes, toys may get taken away from them by other children, but that just teaches new emotions and feelings, and how to react, which imo is what they need to grow into well rounded people.

How many children were actually researched? And where other factors such as home life taken into consideration to? Mothers are encouraged to go back to work, by the goverment providing more childcare places, and help with costs, and then you get crap like this in the news. You just cant win.

You know your child better than anyone. If theyre happy then the childcare they recieve - whether cm,n,or dn, is good.

Thank you cuppy

Can't be bothered reading the other posts on here atm so don't know if this has been said but I was watching a piece about this on the news this evening and they said something very interesting. They said that a child that goes into nursery for long periods under the age of 2 may turn out to be more agressive BUT BUT BUT these effects do not seem to continue long after the child starts school, WHEREAS the positive effects of nursery - socialising etc, last a lot longer!!!! So its not all balck and white, there may be short-term downsides but don't concentrate on these and forget the long-term benefits.

Do you know what, sometimes I long to live in blissful ignorance...

We all do our best regarding our kids but whether or not you send them to the best Nursery/cm's/schools in the land and whether or not they have the best parents and overall upbringing, what is guaranteed about the adult they will become?

hear hear - who knows, they might turn bad after all and turn into a reprobate who spends all day addicted to mumsnet!

Yes, sorry, didn't mean to sound negative - cuppy, you're right and all those things you mentioned happened in our nursery too (it' been 6.5 years), and I totally agree that I don't spend 10 hours a day giving my baby one to one, so yes, from that point of view, they do benefit enormously from the nursery experience, however, I just feel that I as a nursery nurse couldn't, because, simply of ratios (and worse when people went on lunch and there was only one adult in the room - I'm not sure if that still happens), give all the (what I felt was) appropriate care to all of them all of the time.

And as far as I can see the 'experts' behind this research say that any effect is very slight. So even if their research is credible, they are only talking about a tiny difference.