Nearly half spent 30 hours or more each week in those settings. Then again, children who spend long hours in day care, especially low-quality care, were slightly less engaged in their interactions with moms, who were themselves less sensitive to the child's cues. That was noted in particular among mothers who used day care heavily before a child was six months old. But the chief conclusion was that the impact of day care was far less important to the mental and emotional development of the children than was the character of their family life. That included everything from household income to their mother's vocabulary and the attention and intellectual stimulation they got at home.
Home is the learning center that counts.
Stay tuned for updates. The researchers hope to follow the same group of children through the age of 7.