Am I hurting my child by putting her in daycare at 22 months?

On Thu, 6 Dec 2007 16:07:18 +0000 (UTC), enigma
wrote:

not to mention that after a time unemployed people 'fall
off' the unemployment rolls. if you have been out of work for
long enough to run out of employment compensation (i think
it's 16 or 18 months, but it's been a while since i got
employment compensation), or if you have just given up on
finding a job because there aren't any you are qualified for
in your area, then you 'fall off' the unemployment roll and
are no longer counted in the % unemployed.
also, if you work for *one hour* during a quarter, you are
not counted as unemployed... so you can take those wonderfully
low unemployment figures with a huge grain of salt.
technically i'm unemployed because i don't work and am able
to (although one field i'm eligable to work in is retail & i'm
highly chemical sensitive to formaldyhide and the ink on US
currency, so i can't work in a mall or handle cash. there's
not much call for sys admins that don't do Winbloze around
here either), but i'm certainly not counted in that 4.7%, as
i'm not particularly seeking employment & i don't qualify for
compensation anymore.

Neither am I counted. I'm not sure what the unemployment rate for our
particular county is, but I know it's not an accurate accounting.
Besides, Beliavsky is pointing out only one factor that makes up an
economy.... rising prices on everything affect the economy as well.

Nan

In article ,
Beliavsky says...

On Dec 6, 12:56 pm, Banty wrote:
In article , Penny Gaines says...

Beliavsky wrote:
[snip]
immunizations? A few people have mentioned that day care may have no
ill effects or be beneficial if the mother researches the alternatives
carefully and chooses a high-quality center. Yes, but mothers
intelligent and conscientious enough to do that will probably be
better SAHMs than mothers in general, and I doubt that their children
will enjoy health or cognitive benefits from extended periods in day
care.

Alternatively, the kind of mother who enjoys a project like researching
the local daycare centres and assessing their suitablity for their
child might find the day to day care of a young child tedious. Coming
up with metrics to analyse staff ratios versus outdoor time could be
much more pleasant to them then getting out the finger paints, or taking
that slow dawdle to the park for the fifth time this week.

Yes. OR just tapped out from doing all those wunnerful finger painting, dawdle
to the park, etc. etc., things during all the non-daycare hours.

Kids can benefit from being with all kinds of people, with different things to
offer. Not only the intelligent have things to offer. A really bright mom
might actually connect better with the child as an eight year old, or later,
than a two year old. Not that he or she can't connect with the two year old;
it's just that parenting changes as the child goes through development, and that
meshes better or to a lesser degree with what any particular parent has to
offer. This has been the argument that men have been giving for not connecting
with infants or young kids for some time - that they'll be more involved when
the kid can start carrying a fishing pople!

Beliavski - what exactly is it that you think intelligent mom will be doing with
her kids that's so all-fired special that she should be there for every waking
hour??
I've heard this thrown about, regarding smart moms should be staying
home to make for smarter kids, but it seems a mantra.

I think children with educated and caring SAHM moms who never go to
day care or preschool can do just as well as kids who attend them. I
don't think I have asserted that day care and preschool cause
cognitive *deficiencies*, I am just questioning that they have
cognitive *benefits*, especially lasting ones, for kids with good
mothers at home. Quoting from a study

Strawman. Again, I'm not saying that childcare is necessarily *better*; I'm
questioning if there is actual benefit for a child staying home all day with an
intelligent mom vs. spending *some* time in childcare. *You* were the one
asserting that.

I think it's a very individual thing. Depending on the personality and
situation of the parents, what opportunities there are for play and stimulation
from siblings and others in the household, many things. Spending all day with a
very young child is crazy-making for some parents. Fathers have been able to
beg off that for some time, without the world falling down around them. Certain
mothers need that break, too.



Darcy Olsen and Lisa Snell
"Assessing Proposals for Preschool and Kindergarten: Essential
Information for Parents, Taxpayers and Policymakers"
Goldwater Institute
http://www.reason.org/ps344_universalpreschool.pdf

"To help determine the efficacy of early education programs, we
examine the results of some of the
programs considered to be early education models--including, Perry
Preschool, Chicago Child
Parent Studies, Abecedarian, and Head Start--and find the research to
be flawed and therefore of
questionable value. We also review information from the National
Center for Education Statistics,
which reports no lasting reading, math, or science achievement
differences between children who
attend half-day and full-day kindergarten. We also examine the results
of the National Assessment
of Education Progress in Georgia and Oklahoma, where universal
preschool has been fully
implemented without quantifiable benefit. We find the widespread
adoption of preschool and fullday
kindergarten is unlikely to improve student achievement.

America's flexible approach to early education gives children a strong
foundation. Skills
assessment at kindergarten entry and reports by kindergarten teachers
show a large and increasing
majority of preschoolers are prepared for kindergarten. The
effectiveness of the current system is
also evident in early test scores. At age 10, U.S. children have
higher reading, math, and science
scores than their European peers who attend the government preschools
cited by advocates as
models for the United States. To the degree that the state remains
involved in financing early
education, we recommend measures for transparency, program assessment,
and improved
flexibility through individual student funding."

So - what.


I would favor increasing child tax credits over increasing government
subisidies to day care centers and preschools. Tax credits let
parents, not the government, decide whether to use the extra money to
reduce the working hours of one of the parents, most often the mother,
or to use the extra money to purchase better care.

Actually, I don't favor tax credits to parents or for childcare at all! (But
then I think the deduction for mortgage interest payments is an initially
unecessary, but unfortunately entrenched, federal subsidy for the middle class).

The biggest benefits to parents, and the rest of us, would be a truly universal
health care system in the U.S., and some legislation concerning retirement and
other benefits for part time as well as full time workers. Then we could make
family decisions which are truly more to the benefit of our families, and
receive compensation commensurate with our work, to bring home to our families.
Those two things would do much much more than what any child credit or childcare
subsidy would do.

Banty

"Ericka Kammerer" wrote in message
Oh, pbbbthb on the health issue. If the child were immune
compromised, that would be a problem, but otherwise, it's not the
end of the earth for kids to get sick.

I have an immune-compromised child and even that did not stop me from taking
her out and enrolling her in preschool. We started a mommy and me playgroup
when she was 18 months old. She then started preschool at 2 yrs old because
she was behind because of her hospitalizations and liver transplant. Our
doctor told us then to not keep her in a bubble. She definitely got sick,
but we dealt with it. Unfortunately, through some of the illnesses, she had
to be hospitalized. Being exposed in the earlier years was actually better
because her immune system was able to buid immunities. Once she got older
and in the higher grades, she gets sick less often.
--
Sue (mom to three girls)

"Beliavsky" wrote in message
...
On Dec 6, 11:33 am, Ericka Kammerer wrote:

Oh, pbbbthb on the health issue. If the child were immune
compromised, that would be a problem, but otherwise, it's not the
end of the earth for kids to get sick. They're going to start building
up their immune systems sooner or later. Sure, she'll come home with
crud (and likely pass it on to you), but keeping her home will just
postpone that process until later.

Yes, but older kids are more robust than younger kids, and it is
plausible to me that delaying the age at which a child is exposed to
many illnesses has value.


That seems right backward to me. When my kids were little, they got past
their illness more quickly.


Make sure you're happy with the
sanitary practices at the daycare, keep her home perhaps if something
bad is going around, and just deal with the rest. I'm enjoying a
cold brought home by my 4yo preschooler now. I'd love not to have
to deal with that, but what else is one going to do?

If the OP has absolutely no choice other than to send her child to the
day care center, why did she start the thread?

On Dec 6, 11:02 am, Beliavsky wrote:
On Dec 6, 11:33 am, Ericka Kammerer wrote:

Oh, pbbbthb on the health issue. If the child were immune
compromised, that would be a problem, but otherwise, it's not the
end of the earth for kids to get sick. They're going to start building
up their immune systems sooner or later. Sure, she'll come home with
crud (and likely pass it on to you), but keeping her home will just
postpone that process until later.

Yes, but older kids are more robust than younger kids, and it is
plausible to me that delaying the age at which a child is exposed to
many illnesses has value.

Actually, older kids often experience disease much worse than younger
kids, although it depends on the particular disease in question. An
older child who has not developed immunity is not really better off
than a younger child who has, in most cases. The only way to develop
immunity is to be exposed to a disease (or to be breastfed and receive
maternal antibodies for an extended period of time - but that simply
allows time for the child to develop their own immunity without
becoming sick)

And, FWIW - I typically get sick whenever my daycare daughter gets
sick. Guess whose illness usually lasts much longer? Mine. Yes, she
does get sick at daycare, probably more than she would if she was at
home, although 2 of her 4 colds in her first year she acquired when
she was home for the week being cared for by my mom. Even if she
stayed at home, she'd still interact with other kids - I wouldn't hold
her back from needed social interaction out of mis-informed fear of
diseases.

cjra wrote:

And, FWIW - I typically get sick whenever my daycare daughter gets
sick. Guess whose illness usually lasts much longer? Mine.

No kidding. Whenever norovirus runs through our house,
it's pretty much an obvious relationship that the older the person,
the longer it takes them to get over it.
As you say, there are a few things that are more dangerous
to the very young, and some diseases that are more dangerous to
older children/teens.

Best wishes,
Ericka

Temperature of your house has nothing to do with catching infectious
diseases. Those are mostly viruses, and if anything you're better off
in a cold house. Many viruses don't survive very long outside the
moist, warm human body.

When *equally susceptible* children are exposed to most viruses, then
a young child normally will have fewer symptoms than an older child.
That is a significant part of the reasoning in favor of childhood
vaccinations! Those vaccinations are a form of early exposure,
intended to provide immunization.

Once immunized to a given virus, a child with a normal immune system
will be far less susceptible to that virus. That is why an older
sibling in school may be less affected than the pre-schooler kept at
home. As far as infectious diseases go, attending a day care center
should be *good* for your child over the long term.

Caledonia, before starting your older child in a day care center,
please talk to your pediatrician about vaccinations. You might want
to add some, or not, but many pediatricians will ask you first about
caregiving arrangements before discussing vaccinations so it is
possible your pediatrician skipped one or two that you might now want
your child to have.

"Natural History of Infectious Diseases", although dated, is a good
book on the general subject of vaccinations.

Pologirl

On Thu, 6 Dec 2007 16:07:18 +0000 (UTC), enigma wrote:

not to mention that after a time unemployed people 'fall
off' the unemployment rolls. if you have been out of work for
long enough to run out of employment compensation (i think
it's 16 or 18 months, but it's been a while since i got
employment compensation), or if you have just given up on
finding a job because there aren't any you are qualified for
in your area, then you 'fall off' the unemployment roll and
are no longer counted in the % unemployed.
also, if you work for *one hour* during a quarter, you are
not counted as unemployed... so you can take those wonderfully
low unemployment figures with a huge grain of salt.
technically i'm unemployed because i don't work and am able
to (although one field i'm eligable to work in is retail & i'm
highly chemical sensitive to formaldyhide and the ink on US
currency, so i can't work in a mall or handle cash. there's
not much call for sys admins that don't do Winbloze around
here either), but i'm certainly not counted in that 4.7%, as
i'm not particularly seeking employment & i don't qualify for
compensation anymore.

Well, I think unemployment figures should reflect those who want to work
but can't find it. If you don't want to work, counting you makes things
look lots worse than they are.

Beliavsky wrote:
On Dec 6, 12:56 pm, Banty wrote:
[snip]
Beliavski - what exactly is it that you think intelligent mom will be doing with
her kids that's so all-fired special that she should be there for every waking
hour??
I've heard this thrown about, regarding smart moms should be staying
home to make for smarter kids, but it seems a mantra.

I think children with educated and caring SAHM moms who never go to
day care or preschool can do just as well as kids who attend them. I
don't think I have asserted that day care and preschool cause
cognitive *deficiencies*, I am just questioning that they have
cognitive *benefits*, especially lasting ones, for kids with good
mothers at home. Quoting from a study

It's that tricky "can" word, isn't it? The world is divided into more
then "good mothers who keep the child with them all the time" and "bad
mothers who don't".

I always thought there were cognitive benefits to my children to doing
a wide variety of activities, some of which I would not provide at home.
Of course, I could get the painting set out every day, although I would
spend longer setting it up and putting it away afterwards then Kiddo
would paint with it. Water play and sand play were relatively easy to
provide: however, I wouldn't vary these by using a tub filled with
several kilos of rice or pasta - playgroup did.

Darcy Olsen and Lisa Snell
"Assessing Proposals for Preschool and Kindergarten: Essential
Information for Parents, Taxpayers and Policymakers"
Goldwater Institute
http://www.reason.org/ps344_universalpreschool.pdf
[snip]

also evident in early test scores. At age 10, U.S. children have
higher reading, math, and science
scores than their European peers who attend the government preschools
cited by advocates as
models for the United States. To the degree that the state remains
[snip]

Note it is only comparing "preschools cited by advocates", as opposed
to "all preschools".

--
Penny Gaines
UK mum to three

Beliavsky wrote:
On Dec 6, 11:33 am, Ericka Kammerer wrote:

Oh, pbbbthb on the health issue. If the child were immune
compromised, that would be a problem, but otherwise, it's not the
end of the earth for kids to get sick. They're going to start building
up their immune systems sooner or later. Sure, she'll come home with
crud (and likely pass it on to you), but keeping her home will just
postpone that process until later.

Yes, but older kids are more robust than younger kids,

Beyond the infant stage, I'm not sure that's true. I can see that I'd
rather not have a small baby exposed to particular things, but I see no
physical benefit of putting off infections to age 5 as opposed to age 2
or 3. (As others have pointed out, there may well be disadvantages.)

and it is
plausible to me that delaying the age at which a child is exposed to
many illnesses has value.

Far as I can see, all that happens is that they end up getting them all
when they first start school instead, and have to take loads of time off
in their first couple of school terms.


All the best,

Sarah
--
http://www.goodenoughmummy.typepad.com

"That which can be destroyed by the truth, should be" - P. C. Hodgell