Sir, – I see that the “creches improve your toddler’s social skills” chestnut is being given its annual outing (“Children of working mothers have better social and everyday skills”, November 28th).
How convenient that creches are “better” than parents; after all, there’s far more money to be made from the creche business and from frazzled dual-treadmill parents than stay-at-home parents.
In fact, a study by the National Institute of Child Health and Development in the US showed that three times more children had noticeable behaviour problems in the “more than 30-day care hours a week” group (17 per cent), than in the “under 10 hours a week” group (6 per cent).
And a 2005 Cambridge University study revealed the glossed-over reality that levels of the stress hormone cortisol doubled even in secure youngsters during the first nine days of childcare without their mothers present, compared with their normal level at home. The levels fell but were still significantly higher than for the same infants at home five months later, even though the children (aged between 11 and 20 months when they started nursery) by then appeared to have settled and no longer showed outward signs of distress.
Below the age of at least two, children care little for interaction with other children. During that period of their lives, a toddler’s development benefits most from dedicated attention from a primary caregiver, be that a parent, grandparent or nanny.
Of course, there are benefits to a kindergarten or playschool year for a four-year-old child, for example. It sets them up well for primary school.
However, the idea that a six-month-old “benefits” socially from being farmed out to a creche is a psychologically illiterate, albeit culturally fashionable, delusion. – Yours, etc,
SEÁN MacCANN,
Trillick, Co Tyrone.