UK: Children who spend time in nurseries ‘more likely to develop behavioural problems’.

The study, led by Prof Alan Stein, of Oxford’s Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, found that “spending more time in day care centres, over the total period was a predictor of total problem scores”.

“Children who spent more time in day care centres were more likely to be hyperactive,” it said. “Children receiving more care by childminders were more likely to have peer problems.”

Related: Are There Long-Term Effects of Early Child Care? “Children with more experience in center settings continued to manifest somewhat more problem behaviors through sixth grade. The fact that this result was not moderated by age means that this seemingly adverse consequence of center-based care did not dissipate as did so many other effects of amount of child care on social functioning detected previously.”

Also: The Trouble With Day Care.

About 26 percent of children who spend more than 45 hours per week in day care go on to have serious behavior problems at kindergarten age. In contrast, only 10 percent of kids who spend less than 10 hours per week have equivalent problems.

Developmental psychologists are sweeping this information under the rug, hoping studies will churn out better data soon, argues Jay Belsky, a child development researcher at London’s Birbeck College and a longtime critic of his fellow scientists. He contends that the field of developmental psychology is monopolized by women with a “liberal progressive feminist” bias. “Their concern is to not make mothers feel bad,” he says.