Day Care Linked to Behavior Problems

The good news for working parents? Children who spend ten or more hours per week at a day care center have stronger vocabulary skills by fifth grade, particularly if they receive high quality care. The bad news? The more time they spend in child care, the more likely these kids are to be described by their teachers as "disobedient at school," "gets in many fights," and "argues a lot."

These findings come from a study conducted by the National Institutes of Health as part of the NICHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development (SECCYD), a longitudinal look at child care and child development begun in 1991. Children were tested on their ability to name pictured objects using the Woodcock-Johnson Psycho-Educational Battery -- Revised and evaluated by teachers using The Child Behavior Checklist Teacher Report Form.

Researchers suggest child care providers have neither adequate time or training to deal with individual behavior issue, leading to later problems. They emphasize, however, that the behavior disturbances were within the normal range and that quality parenting, above all, was shown to be the most important factor to child development.

Read more: Early Child Care Linked to Increases in Vocabulary, Some Problem Behaviors in Fifth and Sixth Grades
ABSTRACT: Are There Long-Term Effects of Early Child Care?