It is often said in some social circles, and it is often defended by some education professionals, that going to daycare or nursery school is something very positive for children, because there they take a lot of autonomy and “crawl” too much.
Many other professionals and many parents, on the other hand, argue that the best thing in the first years of a child is the coexistence with the reference person, alias caretaker, alias mom (or dad, although rarely).
A recent study wanted to see how it affects the fact of going to kindergarten and one of the conclusions that is drawn from it is that Children who go to daycare perform better at ESO that children who have separated from their parents with three years.
The study has been carried out by the CIIMU Institute, in Catalonia, and is the first study that attempts to elucidate the effects of early schooling on the future of children.
As it is said, the fact of having gone to a nursery before the age of three makes the average grade of the ESO is 1.65 points higher If the mother has university studies. If the mother does not have these studies, the difference is 1.27 points.
The reason this happens, according to the authors of the study, is that in children's schools with good professionals, children increase their cognitive abilities. In other words, the ability to learn develops faster at these ages if children are encouraged to learn by appropriate professionals.
Is this true?
I could not read the study because it is not yet published on the website of the CIIMU Institut. This is a report that covers many other issues related to childhood and adolescence, so my conclusions can be biased as long as I have not accessed the data.
The first question that arises is to what extent there is a cause and effect relationship between going to daycare and getting better grades in ESO, because there may be related confounding variables that affect those final scores. To give some examples, if children go to kindergarten because parents believe they will learn more there, if they are parents who worry that they also learn at home with books and stories and in an environment that values learning, notes in ESO they will be superior more for the educational style of the family in general than for the fact of going to daycare.
If on the other hand we take into account that many children go to school simply because it is mandatory, but at home they give little value to formal education, books and learning, without promoting activities that help children to develop, all these children They will be part of that group of children who, when not going to daycare, have worse grades in the ESO, but not because they do not go to daycare, but because in their environment not so much importance is given to the promotion of learning.
As I say, all these are nothing more than hypotheses, because these variables could have been taken into account (at least we do observe that mothers with university studies of mothers without such studies have been divided).
Do parents not know how to encourage learning?
As it is commented, children get better grades because in nursery school children are encouraged to learn by good professionals. However i don't see how can a good professional in charge of 8 to 12 children encourage their students better than a good mother who has fewer “students” in their care.
It is true that the role of each other is different, because a child who is at home is not playing and doing activities continuously, however, as we have said on other occasions, quality time, time in which the child learns things, It is the time when Mom is sitting with him playing but also that time when they are cleaning, they are shopping, they are on the street, they are talking, etc., because after all this is all life.
On the other hand, at the level of emotional intelligence, at the level of relationship and bonding, the role of a caring and understanding mother or father is hardly substitutable. It is true that a comprehensive and caring teacher or educator will do a great job too and in that case the impact will be less, but all things being equal I doubt that going to a nursery school is better for any child than staying at home.
In Finland, for example ...
I know that I resort many times to talk about Finland, but I can't ignore the education that Finnish children receive because they are the ones in adolescence get better results in PISA reports (better, of course, than Spanish teenagers).
There the children begin school at age seven because they believe that the best way to learn is to be motivated for it and the maternal leave is very long because they consider that the first years, where they are better, is at home with mom.
Here, however, it seems that the sooner they start the more the children will perform and this is, in my view, quite dangerous, because how soon children are separated from their family nucleus and for the time being it is intended to fill children with content that they probably do not yet want to learn.
The emotional development in the first years
The first five years are the basis of the future adult. Many of the things that happen during those five years will be critical in the children's future.
That is why the most advisable thing is that in those years we offer them all the support and affection possible and that is why everyone is clear that, where a child is best, it is at home or where adults living with him are understanding, respectful , affectionate and able to offer stimuli and dialogue to allow the child to grow and develop properly. I do not say that a nursery cannot do this, but as it is often said: Mother there is only one.
