Tuesday, August 24, 2010

Problems from early daycare

Family under the microscope
Avoid putting the under-threes in daycare if you can

Oliver James

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/may/08/oliver-james-daycare-under-threes

The article came to my attention in this paragraph:
In an op-ed for the Guardian, James described a study measuring the amount of cortisol, the stress hormone linked to our flight-or-fight response, in babies left at daycare facilities. On the first, fifth, and ninth days, the babies’ cortisol levels doubled from their home levels. Five months later, the levels, though no longer doubled, were still significantly elevated. And these effects appear to be long lasting, he says: “When cortisol is measured at age 15, the longer a child was in daycare when small, the higher its levels. As high cortisol has been shown many times to be a correlate of all manner of problems, this is bad news.”


...which appears at the end of this blog post at BigThink.com: http://bigthink.com/ideas/21812

It's #16 in a series called "Month of Thinking Dangerously." This one is called Parents Don't Matter, and has a pro and con (quoting studies and articles). Oliver James was quoted in the rebuttal section, why parents DO matter.

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