Parental involvement, day care and childhood behavior

Lots of media attention being focused today on newly released results from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development study, which found that "the more time children spent in center-based care before kindergarten, the more likely their sixth grade teachers were to report such problem behaviors as 'gets in many fights,' 'disobedient at school,' and 'argues a lot.'" Also noted is that kids in higher quality care before kindergarten had better vocabulary scores than did kids from lower-quality places.

Less attention is being given to the caveat the authors note, quoting here from an NIH release: "[T]he researchers cautioned that the increase in vocabulary and problem behaviors was small, and that parenting quality was a much more important predictor of child development than was type, quantity, or quality, of child care."

the way I see it, on average it looks like active, involved parents can help overcome the slight increases in bad behavior that may come from sending the little ones off to day care. This is good news to me, as I have one in daycare and one who just transitioned to kindergarten.