“It is time to come to grips with what all too many have denied for all too long, namely, that all disconcerting news about adverse effects cannot be attributed to low-quality care, which has been more or less the mantra of the field of child development and the child-care advocacy community for decades,” Belsky said.
But advocates of universal preschool insist that quality is key. The Preschool for All initiative in California calls for offering every 4-year-old access to half-day preschool three hours a day, five days a week from teachers holding bachelor’s degrees.
“You have to look at all the research together and draw from it the lessons that have been clear for quite a while — that the quality of the program makes an enormous difference, and it makes a difference in terms of the social and emotional development of young children,” said Alan Simpson, spokesman for the National Association for the Education of Young Children in Washington, D.C., which accredits preschool programs nationwide. “A quality program has teachers and staff that know how to nurture children’s social and emotional development.”
Sorry to disagree with a “spokesperson for the National Association for the Education of Young Children”, but what gives children proper social and emotional development is an intense bond with Mom for the first three years, and a nurturing family environment until the child is eight.
One of the other telling points in the article, and this is important for those families who may be feeling the need for mother to work outside the home to purchase more “stuff”….
“Children from lower-income families lagged behind their peers who didn’t attend preschool an average of 7 percentage points on the measure of social behavioral growth. But children from higher-income families lagged 9 percentage points behind their peers. These wealthier children did even worse when they attended preschool for 30 hours or more: They trailed their peers by 15 percentage points.
It’s not clear why children from higher-income families exhibit more negative behaviors than their stay-at-home peers. Fuller speculated their peers might be in enriching home environments that include things like trips to the library as well as dance and music lessons.
Other studies have found childcare centers negatively affect children’s social development, said Jay Belsky, director of the Institute for the Study of Children, Families and Social Issues at Birkbeck University of London, in an e-mail interview.”
Mommas! Stay home! And take care of your own babies! You will never regret the time you spent or the investment you make in your children! If you don’t think you can manage it financially….ask your friends to give you some cloth diapers and a good book on Breastfeeding for a baby shower gift. Get a good cook book, and start making meals from scratch. You will be amazed at what these simply measures will do for your home budget. Baby formula, plastic diapers, prepared foods, and day care/preschool are the major reasons mothers feel the need to work. Please, just stay home with your babies and give them the best of yourself….every day…
Preschool study…
Jenny Hatch