Child care

The research I'm doing on child care is very interesting. Far from giving a black and white answer of either child care is good or child care is bad, it really points out the various shades of gray around the issue. There are different levels of quality in child care, and there are many different family characteristics that influence children's development. It is very clear that children that come from disadvantaged homes do better if they spend time in quality child care. But the majority of homes aren't disadvantaged, and I don't think the majority of child care could be called high quality. For everyone else, it can really be a crap shoot. It's impossible to say if a child will do better or worse in a given situation, and it's entirely possible for children to benefit one way (e.g. cognitively) and do worse another (e.g. socially) in the same situation. In general, though, the development of kids in care and the development of kids in parent care is roughly equal. Where research shows differences, they are often fairly small differences (outside of very disadvantaged kids).