ExchangeEveryDay Past Issues

The ExchangeEveryDay for March 30th generated a record number of reader responses �" and the responses certainly set a record for the amount of emotion expressed. The story for the day focused on a New York Times article that charged that "keeping a preschooler in a day care center for a year or more increased the likelihood that the child would become disruptive in class."

While we cannot do justice to the impassioned and thoughtful responses from readers, we are going to share below a few "brief" excerpts from a sampling of the views shared. To read all the responses in their entirety, and to share your own views, go to the ExchangeEveryDay for March 30th.

Joyce Webster, Houston, Texas: "In too many cases, the child who is labeled as disruptive in school is the child who is eager to learn, confident, and active. Valued by the teacher, however, is the child who sits quietly and demands nothing."

Marsha Enquist, Chicago, Illinois: "When I reached the study's author, Margaret Burchinal, yesterday, she asked if she could explain something she feared had been missed. 'I'm not sure we communicated this, but the kids who had one or two years of day care by age 4 1/2 �" which was typical for our sample �" had exactly the level of problem behavior you'd expect for kids of their age. Most people use center care for one to two years, and for those kids we're not seeing anything problematic.'" [Note: We encourage you to read Burchinal's extensive comments in Enquist's response.]

Alison Pepper, New York, New York: "The consensus from the professionals in the field that I have spoken with about this article is that this actually reflects back on the elementary schools and their lack of best practices in behavior management for children."

Sheila Olan-MacLean, Peterborough, Ontario: "Perhaps the reasons that children are seen as more disruptive in class is that their sense of self is more developed and children who have spent time in child care have been encouraged to make decisions for themselves."

Gay Macdonald, Los Angeles, California: "Perhaps good changes for children will flow from the vigorous discussion engendered by this report. Our ECE staff has long been worried about the challenges faced by children leaving an environment that stresses critical thinking and self-regulation for highly structured elementary school classrooms where docility and conformity are the highest priorities. Every year we brace ourselves for the criticisms �" your children ask too many questions and have far too much energy! For these 'failings' they are noted as 'problem' children."

Gwen Morgan, Lincoln, Massachusetts: "Here's what people need to know. (1) This study produces findings every year, following the same children. It is an interesting study, long-term but not a longitudinal study that can be said to measure effects, unless they are huge effects, because there is no control group, no data on the quality of the service the parents chose. (2) Jay Belsky is not the principal investigator, and he appears to lack scientific objectivity about the findings, unlike the other authors and investigators in the study....(3) When first findings began to be analyzed, Belsky did an unprecedented thing for a scientific study: he wrote a New York Times article announcing that spending a long time in child care early in life makes children more aggressive, exhibiting disturbing behavior. That is unprecedented because scientists publish their findings in scientific journals, where fellow scientists can understand the meaning of the data, in this case a significant but tiny finding that parents would interpret as a large risk, but that scientists would understand in their more intense angels-on-a-pin discussions...."

ExchangeEveryDay

Delivered five days a week containing news, success stories, solutions, trend reports, and much more.