Day Care, Effects on Child Development

Most infants and young children initially respond with distress to enrollment in a new child care setting. This distress diminishes over time and is replaced by smiles, vocalizations, and increased interest in peers, but there is no doubt that enrollment in child care is typically stressful. Furthermore, because enrollment in day care often coincides with other important family events, like mothers' return to work, it is quite common for the security of child-mother attachment to change when day care begins. Attachments become secure as frequently as they become insecure, however, and consequently day care is not associated with an increase in the proportion of child-mother attachment relationships that are insecure (Ahnert, Lamb, & Seltenheim, 2003; National Institute of Child Health and Human Development [NICHD] Early Child Care Research Network, 1997).

Although most scholars emphasize the importance of high-quality care, quality of care has been assessed comprehensively in relatively few studies concerned with the association between infant day care and attachment. The quality of care appears not to affect the security of infant-mother attachment, although rates of insecurity are disproportionately elevated when infants are exposed to such multiple risks as poor-quality care both at home and in nonparental care settings, more extensive care, and less stable care (NICHD Early Child Care Research Network, 1997). Researchers still need to specify what types of care are potentially harmful or beneficial for specific subgroups of infants and families and to define with greater precision those aspects of quality likely to be of particular significance in defined circumstances.

In early studies, primarily of infants enrolled in intervention or enrichment programs, researchers reported that infant day care was associated with later aggression toward peers, although the aggression diminished over time (Lamb, 1998). The results of several more recent studies suggest that nonmaternal child care in infancy is associated with less harmonious [Page 321]child-mother interactions, noncompliance, and other behavior problems, particularly when the care is of poorer quality (e.g., NICHD Early Child Care Research Network, 2003). Enrollment in day care allows children to form additional significant relationships but does not lead care providers to displace mothers as the primary objects of attachment. As with parents, the security of infant-care provider attachments is determined by the care providers' sensitivity and involvement, as well as the quality of care they provide (Ahnert, Pinquart, & Lamb, 2003). Unfortunately, however, more than half of the infants in day care are insecurely attached to their care providers.

Even though children in group care settings typically have more experience with peers than do children cared for exclusively by their parents, Howes, Matheson, and Hamilton (1994) reported no differences in peer interaction skills among groups of children who entered child care in infancy, early toddlerhood, or late toddlerhood. Other researchers have reported that group care experiences indeed facilitate the development of children's social skills, although it seems clear that simple enrollment in day care during the preschool years does not reliably facilitate or impede the development of positive relationships with peers (Lamb, 1998). Instead, the quality of nonparental care is predictively important: Children receiving care of high quality have superior relationship skills, whereas children receiving care of poor quality have deficient social skills. Other studies speak to the beneficial effects of high-quality care on the quality of peer interactions. Howes (1988) reported that preschoolers were more sociable with their peers when they began high-quality day care in infancy, although low-quality care beginning in infancy is associated with poorer relations with peers at kindergarten age. Longitudinal studies show that more complex, more gregarious, and less aggressive play with peers at age 4 is associated with more secure teacher-child relationships earlier, whereas dependence on teachers is associated with social withdrawal and hostile, aggressive behavior later. These associations parallel other reports that, among preschoolers, children who have secure relationships with their teachers and care providers are more socially competent with peers (see Lamb, 1998, for a more detailed review).

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