The quality of child care affects your children through their teen years

The Washington Post printed an article last month on the long-term effects of low-quality child care, and the results have significant implications for parents.

According to the largest study on child rearing in the U.S., children are affected by low-quality child care through (at least) their teen years.  Kids not only received lower testing scores, but were more likely to have problem behaviors such as arguing, mean behavior, and getting into fights over children who received high-quality child care.  This information proved true for children all ethnicities, races, home life situations, and socio-economic backgrounds.

Although the differences between kids was only a few percentage points, the differences were surprisingly long-term.  The study suggests these behaviors will continue into adulthood, creating life-long difficulties.

What constitutes low quality?  Researchers observed many factors, including the caregiver's warmth, sensitivity, emotional support and how much cognitive stimulation they provided.

What really stood out in the article was the sentence: "Other factors, such as the influence of parents and family members, were clearly more important. However, the findings held true even after researches took those and other factors into account."

This is certainly an issue to take very seriously.  We'll talk more in our next blog about how to locate high-quality child care.

Read the full article here.