A piece in the Washington Post examines what we can now, 17 years after the first comprehensive study of children in day care began, say about children cared for out of the home: they don't suffer any ill effects. While the Study for Early Child Care and Youth Development had to rely on observation and therefor can't address cause & effect relationships between child care and child development, researchers were able to conclude:
"There were few significant differences between children cared for
exclusively by their mothers and those in any form of day care. The
most important predictor of children's attachment, as well as their
cognitive and social development, researchers found, was the
sensitivity of their mothers and the characteristics of their families,
such as parental income and educational levels. The influence of these
factors trumped any effects of day care."
Okay, but what does "sensitivity" mean in this context? I went to the home page of the study but it was uninviting. If daycare doesn't matter much but "sensitivity of mothers" DOES, why won't the Post tell me how to be a sensitive mother?
