Preschool vs Daycare Wars

[Anonymous]

Our preschool is 3 hours per day and closed on holidays and breaks; it is proverbial “pre”-school and mimics school. Daycare is 8 hours or more and year-round, so nothing like school. It’s weird to call that preschool.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Our preschool is 3 hours per day and closed on holidays and breaks; it is proverbial “pre”-school and mimics school. Daycare is 8 hours or more and year-round, so nothing like school. It’s weird to call that preschool.

Clearly you don't have a preschooler in daycare, and that's fine! But daycares typically include preschool curricula at the appropriate ages. In the afternoons, they have "aftercare". During the summer, they transition to summer camp. It's not complicated. What you just hate is that the kids' moms WOH. You can't handle the fact that their kids are getting a preschool education.. Those kids don't deserve that!

[Anonymous]

They may be getting a preschool "education" (probably more harm than good at this age—as studies on universal Prek show) but they are much less likely to get the same preschool experience—the small, steady cohort. The naps and meals at home, the teachers who truly chose this path. Do you really not see the difference?

Of course all children deserve the best early years experience. It has nothing to do with SES: If you care about children, stop pretending their developing nervous systems are adapted to 10 hours a day of institutional care—even with the kindest teachers you can hire. I am a feminist but that shouldn't require me to be in denial of child development. Feminists' goals should be to improve daycare and allow much, much more flexibility and job security when kids are 0-3.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our preschool is 3 hours per day and closed on holidays and breaks; it is proverbial “pre”-school and mimics school. Daycare is 8 hours or more and year-round, so nothing like school. It’s weird to call that preschool.

Clearly you don't have a preschooler in daycare, and that's fine! But daycares typically include preschool curricula at the appropriate ages. In the afternoons, they have "aftercare". During the summer, they transition to summer camp. It's not complicated. What you just hate is that the kids' moms WOH. You can't handle the fact that their kids are getting a preschool education.. Those kids don't deserve that!

Many parents who WOH call all childcare for under 3's "daycare," especially if they fall into a lower SES. Many parents who WOH and use nannies and half-day preschool also may not call childcare for 1 and 2 year olds preschool. There have been several on this thread.

Not all WOH parents enroll their toddlers in a childcare facility that labels itself as preschool, and half-day preschools are not solely used by SAHP. I even have a co-worker who uses an in-home daycare in addition to half-day preschool.

Personally, I don't care what you call it, but it's not a WOH issue. WOH vs SAHP is a whole different (and also dumb) debate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our preschool is 3 hours per day and closed on holidays and breaks; it is proverbial “pre”-school and mimics school. Daycare is 8 hours or more and year-round, so nothing like school. It’s weird to call that preschool.

Clearly you don't have a preschooler in daycare, and that's fine! But daycares typically include preschool curricula at the appropriate ages. In the afternoons, they have "aftercare". During the summer, they transition to summer camp. It's not complicated. What you just hate is that the kids' moms WOH. You can't handle the fact that their kids are getting a preschool education.. Those kids don't deserve that!

Many parents who WOH call all childcare for under 3's "daycare," especially if they fall into a lower SES. Many parents who WOH and use nannies and half-day preschool also may not call childcare for 1 and 2 year olds preschool. There have been several on this thread.

Not all WOH parents enroll their toddlers in a childcare facility that labels itself as preschool, and half-day preschools are not solely used by SAHP. I even have a co-worker who uses an in-home daycare in addition to half-day preschool.

Personally, I don't care what you call it, but it's not a WOH issue. WOH vs SAHP is a whole different (and also dumb) debate.

I'm glad you don't care but PP clearly does. Fyi, our daycare doesn't "label itself a preschool" but kids do start the "preschool room" when they are 3 yo at the beginning of the school year. Many in home childcare providers in our neighborhood specifically serve preschool aged children and offer a preschool curriculum.

Of course, not all childcare is preschool, but what PP was saying is that if your child's preschool doesn't look like her child's preschool, it's not a real preschool. She clearly has a chip on her shoulder about something and in these debates, the subtext is pretty clear.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They may be getting a preschool "education" (probably more harm than good at this age—as studies on universal Prek show) but they are much less likely to get the same preschool experience—the small, steady cohort. The naps and meals at home, the teachers who truly chose this path. Do you really not see the difference?

Of course all children deserve the best early years experience. It has nothing to do with SES: If you care about children, stop pretending their developing nervous systems are adapted to 10 hours a day of institutional care—even with the kindest teachers you can hire. I am a feminist but that shouldn't require me to be in denial of child development. Feminists' goals should be to improve daycare and allow much, much more flexibility and job security when kids are 0-3.

I am so glad you found what works for your child and your family. I found what works for mine, which you've just implied means I don't care about my child. Do you not see how closed minded and immature you sound? The research does not support that implication in any way, fyi. If it did you would see dramatic differences in children based on their child care arrangements at young ages. Just like kindergarten teachers can't tell which kids were breastfed, they also can't tell whether they went to a "real preschool". What matters most is the home environment (yes, even if the child is in daycare more than 30 hours per week).

[Anonymous]

So many parents use home daycares then switch to “preschools” when their kids are 3. Yes daycare and preschool are distinct but there’s some overlap in meaning as well, and plenty of centers with working parent hours have their “preschool” rooms.

It’s silly to get worked up about this.

I’m a SAHM and my kids attend traditional half day preschool. My husband calls it daycare. 😏

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They may be getting a preschool "education" (probably more harm than good at this age—as studies on universal Prek show) but they are much less likely to get the same preschool experience—the small, steady cohort. The naps and meals at home, the teachers who truly chose this path. Do you really not see the difference?

Of course all children deserve the best early years experience. It has nothing to do with SES: If you care about children, stop pretending their developing nervous systems are adapted to 10 hours a day of institutional care—even with the kindest teachers you can hire. I am a feminist but that shouldn't require me to be in denial of child development. Feminists' goals should be to improve daycare and allow much, much more flexibility and job security when kids are 0-3.

You aren’t a feminist. What you are is ignorant, and also you are going to be an absolutely terrible parent to older teens.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They may be getting a preschool "education" (probably more harm than good at this age—as studies on universal Prek show) but they are much less likely to get the same preschool experience—the small, steady cohort. The naps and meals at home, the teachers who truly chose this path. Do you really not see the difference?

Of course all children deserve the best early years experience. It has nothing to do with SES: If you care about children, stop pretending their developing nervous systems are adapted to 10 hours a day of institutional care—even with the kindest teachers you can hire. I am a feminist but that shouldn't require me to be in denial of child development. Feminists' goals should be to improve daycare and allow much, much more flexibility and job security when kids are 0-3.

You aren’t a feminist. What you are is ignorant, and also you are going to be an absolutely terrible parent to older teens.

Dp. She is right. There is research that shows long lasting detrimental affects of institutional care, especially with increased time and at younger ages.

We are not doing women a service by ignoring or hiding that. A feminist position would be to support mothers and fathers who take leave between ages 0-3 with both job flexibility and return job security. We actually do this with military or detail assignments all the time, it is entirely possible. We as a society have to value child rearing as much as we do going to war.

https://criticalscience.medium.com/on-the-science-of-daycare-4d1ab4c2efb4#:~:text=Children%20spending%20long%20hours%20in,negative%20effect%20on%20later%20behavior.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They may be getting a preschool "education" (probably more harm than good at this age—as studies on universal Prek show) but they are much less likely to get the same preschool experience—the small, steady cohort. The naps and meals at home, the teachers who truly chose this path. Do you really not see the difference?

Of course all children deserve the best early years experience. It has nothing to do with SES: If you care about children, stop pretending their developing nervous systems are adapted to 10 hours a day of institutional care—even with the kindest teachers you can hire. I am a feminist but that shouldn't require me to be in denial of child development. Feminists' goals should be to improve daycare and allow much, much more flexibility and job security when kids are 0-3.

You aren’t a feminist. What you are is ignorant, and also you are going to be an absolutely terrible parent to older teens.

Dp. She is right. There is research that shows long lasting detrimental affects of institutional care, especially with increased time and at younger ages.

We are not doing women a service by ignoring or hiding that. A feminist position would be to support mothers and fathers who take leave between ages 0-3 with both job flexibility and return job security. We actually do this with military or detail assignments all the time, it is entirely possible. We as a society have to value child rearing as much as we do going to war.

https://criticalscience.medium.com/on-the-science-of-daycare-4d1ab4c2efb4#:~:text=Children%20spending%20long%20hours%20in,negative%20effect%20on%20later%20behavior.

Please don't use this blog post as an excuse to tell other parents they don't care about their children. That just makes you a mean, rude person. Also, read the studies cited in the post. The evidence is not nearly as definitive as the author makes it sound.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They may be getting a preschool "education" (probably more harm than good at this age—as studies on universal Prek show) but they are much less likely to get the same preschool experience—the small, steady cohort. The naps and meals at home, the teachers who truly chose this path. Do you really not see the difference?

Of course all children deserve the best early years experience. It has nothing to do with SES: If you care about children, stop pretending their developing nervous systems are adapted to 10 hours a day of institutional care—even with the kindest teachers you can hire. I am a feminist but that shouldn't require me to be in denial of child development. Feminists' goals should be to improve daycare and allow much, much more flexibility and job security when kids are 0-3.

You aren’t a feminist. What you are is ignorant, and also you are going to be an absolutely terrible parent to older teens.

Dp. She is right. There is research that shows long lasting detrimental affects of institutional care, especially with increased time and at younger ages.

We are not doing women a service by ignoring or hiding that. A feminist position would be to support mothers and fathers who take leave between ages 0-3 with both job flexibility and return job security. We actually do this with military or detail assignments all the time, it is entirely possible. We as a society have to value child rearing as much as we do going to war.

https://criticalscience.medium.com/on-the-science-of-daycare-4d1ab4c2efb4#:~:text=Children%20spending%20long%20hours%20in,negative%20effect%20on%20later%20behavior.

Please don't use this blog post as an excuse to tell other parents they don't care about their children. That just makes you a mean, rude person. Also, read the studies cited in the post. The evidence is not nearly as definitive as the author makes it sound.

No way am I (or this study) saying full time dual working parents of young children care less about their children. It is the only way to stay afloat for many middle class families and poverty is a much worse indicator for child outcomes.

I’m saying we need better workplace flexibility to reduce the early need for 40+ hours of institutional care by freeing up BOTH parents (especially for the men who tend to forego longer paternity leave because it is not normalized enough). As Americans with more working years than any rich country (40-50 !!) Each parent taking 2-3 years of part time or time off to share in raising two kids is so trivial and with such high potential social payoff that it’s absurd we can’t normalize this. exaggerated accounts of ‘welfare queens’ have really blinded us to this reality.

And, yes, I do think the data is pretty compelling since we are talking about 20% of kids affected having behavior issues in early elementary, not to mention adolescent mental health issues. This puts extra pressure on schools and kids and frankly leads to over-medication of kids imo.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They may be getting a preschool "education" (probably more harm than good at this age—as studies on universal Prek show) but they are much less likely to get the same preschool experience—the small, steady cohort. The naps and meals at home, the teachers who truly chose this path. Do you really not see the difference?

Of course all children deserve the best early years experience. It has nothing to do with SES: If you care about children, stop pretending their developing nervous systems are adapted to 10 hours a day of institutional care—even with the kindest teachers you can hire. I am a feminist but that shouldn't require me to be in denial of child development. Feminists' goals should be to improve daycare and allow much, much more flexibility and job security when kids are 0-3.

Why are you talking about childcare for children too young to attend preschool, whether it's a traditional preschool or an accredited preschool program that occurs in a daycare setting? The Medium article has zero relevance to this discussion.

Oh, wait, I know why.

[Anonymous]

Clicked on this thread from recent topics. My kids are now in middle school and high school and started daycare when they were babies and we sometimes called it daycare and sometimes school and sometimes by the name. And then they went to a full day preaschool when they were a little older and the main difference is that one had a infant-2 program and the other only had 2s, 3s and pre-K. We sometimes called it school and sometimes called it by the name. And what we called it had absolutely no impact on my now older kids and it also didn’t have an impact on any of your kids, so stop wasting so much energy on what other people call their childcare situation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They may be getting a preschool "education" (probably more harm than good at this age—as studies on universal Prek show) but they are much less likely to get the same preschool experience—the small, steady cohort. The naps and meals at home, the teachers who truly chose this path. Do you really not see the difference?

Of course all children deserve the best early years experience. It has nothing to do with SES: If you care about children, stop pretending their developing nervous systems are adapted to 10 hours a day of institutional care—even with the kindest teachers you can hire. I am a feminist but that shouldn't require me to be in denial of child development. Feminists' goals should be to improve daycare and allow much, much more flexibility and job security when kids are 0-3.

You aren’t a feminist. What you are is ignorant, and also you are going to be an absolutely terrible parent to older teens.

Dp. She is right. There is research that shows long lasting detrimental affects of institutional care, especially with increased time and at younger ages.

We are not doing women a service by ignoring or hiding that. A feminist position would be to support mothers and fathers who take leave between ages 0-3 with both job flexibility and return job security. We actually do this with military or detail assignments all the time, it is entirely possible. We as a society have to value child rearing as much as we do going to war.

https://criticalscience.medium.com/on-the-science-of-daycare-4d1ab4c2efb4#:~:text=Children%20spending%20long%20hours%20in,negative%20effect%20on%20later%20behavior.

Please don't use this blog post as an excuse to tell other parents they don't care about their children. That just makes you a mean, rude person. Also, read the studies cited in the post. The evidence is not nearly as definitive as the author makes it sound.

No way am I (or this study) saying full time dual working parents of young children care less about their children. It is the only way to stay afloat for many middle class families and poverty is a much worse indicator for child outcomes.

I’m saying we need better workplace flexibility to reduce the early need for 40+ hours of institutional care by freeing up BOTH parents (especially for the men who tend to forego longer paternity leave because it is not normalized enough). As Americans with more working years than any rich country (40-50 !!) Each parent taking 2-3 years of part time or time off to share in raising two kids is so trivial and with such high potential social payoff that it’s absurd we can’t normalize this. exaggerated accounts of ‘welfare queens’ have really blinded us to this reality.

And, yes, I do think the data is pretty compelling since we are talking about 20% of kids affected having behavior issues in early elementary, not to mention adolescent mental health issues. This puts extra pressure on schools and kids and frankly leads to over-medication of kids imo.

Data analyst here (not PP). You’re going to have to do better than that to persuade me that this data is so compelling. I’ve looked closely at these “studies” that people like you use to be gratuitously mean for sport.

Give me your hard data and facts. Argue with me using actual science. I’m here for it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They may be getting a preschool "education" (probably more harm than good at this age—as studies on universal Prek show) but they are much less likely to get the same preschool experience—the small, steady cohort. The naps and meals at home, the teachers who truly chose this path. Do you really not see the difference?

Of course all children deserve the best early years experience. It has nothing to do with SES: If you care about children, stop pretending their developing nervous systems are adapted to 10 hours a day of institutional care—even with the kindest teachers you can hire. I am a feminist but that shouldn't require me to be in denial of child development. Feminists' goals should be to improve daycare and allow much, much more flexibility and job security when kids are 0-3.

You aren’t a feminist. What you are is ignorant, and also you are going to be an absolutely terrible parent to older teens.

Dp. She is right. There is research that shows long lasting detrimental affects of institutional care, especially with increased time and at younger ages.

We are not doing women a service by ignoring or hiding that. A feminist position would be to support mothers and fathers who take leave between ages 0-3 with both job flexibility and return job security. We actually do this with military or detail assignments all the time, it is entirely possible. We as a society have to value child rearing as much as we do going to war.

https://criticalscience.medium.com/on-the-science-of-daycare-4d1ab4c2efb4#:~:text=Children%20spending%20long%20hours%20in,negative%20effect%20on%20later%20behavior.

The fact that you can apparently post this link unironically demonstrates nothing other than how profoundly weak your position is.