As they grow, they are learning social skills, too; it matters where they learn them.

No matter how much we spend on schools, on early education programs, on day care, on a thousand heroic efforts to give children what they should get before age 6 but don’t, it all comes down to parents: Good parenting or bad parenting is the single biggest factor in how children turn out…

The current report says: Time spent in high-quality day care centers correlates with a higher vocabulary throughout elementary school. But keeping a preschooler in day care for at least a year increases the likelihood that a child will be disruptive in class, regardless of the quality of the day care center. As one commenter wryly noted: At least my kid might be able to talk himself out of whatever trouble he gets into…

The problems endure, though, only because they were there in the first place. Children at home, fewer behavior problems in school. Children in day care, fewer problems in school if their parenting is good. How hard is it to jump to the obvious conclusion that day care is not the best place for children? As they develop and learn skills, children are also developing socially, learning how to deal with others, how they should behave and how they should be treated. How, and where and from whom they learn their social skills matter very much, and it should be no surprise that there are long-term, cumulative effects.

It’s difficult to say that these days, because the immediate reaction is that heroic mothers who have to make difficult choices are being piled upon. That’s not the case. People have to make the best choices they can given the circumstances they have.

Source: News-Sentinel
http://www.fortwayne.com/mld/newssentinel/news/editorial/16987248.htm