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.

Here is today's instalment from Madeleine Bunting. What do people think about her recommendations? here

Well, she still doesn't address the point made, by the statistics expert who took part in the study reported, that the negative effect of children in childcare was slight and 'weak' and that there were six spearate benefits of childcare, including reduction of anxiety and stress on starting school and early socialisation that were strongly statisticaly significant. None of the reporters who wrote on this topc contacted the statistician to get the results explained, except a radio 4 reporter working on a Maths program!

quite interesting - have only skim read it (will try and read it all later) , I totally agree that nursery staff should be paid more to stop the high turnover rates. This is a point I made to them when they interviewed me for the original piece she wrote. Based on the rates at our nusery I am certain that they could pay them more, pay for all the overheads and still come out with decent profit.

there was an item about this on the news last week. the main thrust of the piece was that it made small children more demanding and competitive, possibly aggressive in order to get attention, and wasn't that shocking. A tiny part of the item spoke to one of the researchers who said that this negative aspect of pre-school childcare had usually vanished by the time children started school, but the huge benefits were still evident when children started school

Well said HMB; even though I read a lot of research and came to similar conclusions it's hard not to be hurt and frightened by this piece. I can't believe she has the cheek to complain that people contacted her to protest. Someone attacks you and then complains she's had negative feedback! I don't think she feels half as shocked and hurt as I do and I didn't pick this fight.

A review of the book Madeleine Bunting refers to as one of the sources of her story is here .

At least she makes the point at the end that men should take just as much responsibility as women for childcare. Men have the same rights as women to make a request for flexible working (although it may still be impractical for either or both parents in their chosen career).

She's also making the extremely important point about the value and status of mothering and mothers. Not to mention the care ethic vs work ethic - not sure how useful it is to make a distinction, because imo caring for someone is work, but overall she seems to be arguing for more money, more research and more choice in childcare.