New study challenges links between daycare and behavioral issues

A new study that looked at more than 75,000 children in day care in Norway found little evidence that the amount of time a child spends in child care leads to an increase in behavioral problems, according to researchers from the United States and Norway.

Several prior studies in the U.S. made connections between the time a child spends in day care and behavioral problems, but the results from Norway contradict those earlier findings, the researchers report in the online version of the journal Child Development.

"In Norway, we do not find that children who spend a significant amount of time in child care have more behavior problems than other children," Boston College Associate Professor of Education Eric Dearing, a co-author of the report, said. "This runs counter to several US studies that have shown a correlation between time in child care and behavior problems."

Dearing, who conducted the study with researchers from Norway and Harvard Medical School, said the Scandinavian country's approach to child care might explain why so few behavioral problems were found among children included in the study group.