Child Care

Back in the 1980s and 90s when the Mommy Wars were being waged, and child care was in the forefront of battle, the title of this page might have been "what does child care do to your child. For those of you too young to remember those times, there was a contingent that believed a woman's place was home caring for her children. And in the other corner were the women who felt they'd studied and prepared for the career they were in so why leave it to stay home with their children when there were perfectly capable child care professionals to care for them., This debate played out in newspapers, the media, churches, workplace cafeterias, and especially in women's consciousness raising groups. The elephant in the corner however was that not everyone had a choice. Then, as now, there were single moms, and moms who were part of two income marriages by necessity. 

While TV news programs conducted secret investigations intent on finding substandard and even harmful care, there were very few empirical studies looking at the long-term effects of childcare. Finally, in 1991, the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development conducted the Study of Early Childcare and Youth Development, a ten-year longitudinal study, which followed children who were then in daycare to determine its lasting impact. It revealed good news and bad news..

 

• The good news was that children who were in high quality, and even moderate quality childcare until the age of 4-and-a-half were more likely to reach higher levels of cognitive achievement at age 15. Likewise these children were less likely to misbehave or act out.

• The bad news was that only 17% of the children studied had received high quality child care. 24% were in moderately high quality child care, 24% in moderately low quality child care centers, and an astounding 35% were in low quality child care programs.

Fortunately for parents of today, and even more so for their children, child care has made a vast improvement since then as more and more teachers pursue degrees in early child care, and states enact more and more regulations. And if you live anywhere near Rochester Minnesota and are asking where is the best daycare near me, a school dedicated to promoting my child's social, emotional, intellectual, physical development, we have more good news. Your search is about to come to an end as soon as you come in and observe our teachers giving one-on-one instruction, overseeing small group explorations, or conducting large group instruction.

​

Why not invest in your child by signing them up for a hands on learning STEM preschool.