Nursery World - Daycare does not make pre-school children aggressive

Childcare does not lead to aggression and can improve behaviour, according to new research.

A study of 1,000 Norwegian pre-school children, that surveyed children attending daycare at various ages, found that the amount of time children spend in daycare has little impact on children’s aggressive behaviour.

The debate over whether daycare leads to behavioural problems has raged among academics for more than 30 years.

Since the 1980s, when women increasingly started to return to work after giving birth, some child development experts have warned that daycare can affect children’s social and emotional development.

Academics such as Professor Jay Belsky have argued that early childcare can pose a developmental risk for aggression and other problems.

Longitudinal studies that started in the 1990s - such as the NICHD Early Child Care Research Network - have suggested that long amounts of time in any form of non-maternal care during a child’s early years increase the risk for aggression and other problems.

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