Anti-social behaviour: Little terrors?

Recent studies prompted sensationalist newspaper stories about nurseries causing children to develop 'problem behaviour'. Annette Rawstrone reports

Nurseries are turning the children in their care into 'thugs' and are causing 'long-term damage', or so recent sensationalist newspaper headlines would have us believe. But what are these claims based on and is there cause for concern? The terror tot stories were sparked off by findings from two longitudinal studies - the National Institute for Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) Study of Early Child Care, that tracks the development of more than 1,300 children in nurseries in ten towns and cities across the US, and the Effective Provision of Pre-school Education (EPPE) project that looks at the effects of pre-school education on more than 3,000 British three- and four-year-olds. Evidence from both studies identified similar findings cropping up, that where long hours in group care are started early in life there is a higher risk of children developing anti-social behaviour. The NICHD study found this 'problem behaviour' manifested itself in children becoming 'disobedient' and 'aggressive'.