The Southern Baptist Academy Blog

By Mimi Rothschild

In other news, new study shows water found to be wet. In all seriousness, it gets my goat that the results of this study would be considered surprising. This eCanadaNOW report explains:

A much-anticipated report from the largest and longest-running study of American child care has found that keeping a preschooler in a day care center for a year or more increased the likelihood that the child would become disruptive in class — and that the effect persisted through the sixth grade.

Parents, your children’s formative years are not worth it. Even if you can’t make those mortgage payments without a second income, consider finding work that would allow you to be at home taking care of the children.

The New York Times hits on an even more pressing issue, and one that should raise eyebrows among homeschoolers:

That the troublesome behaviors lasted through at least sixth grade, he said, should raise a broader question: “So what happens in classrooms, schools, playgrounds and communities when more and more children, at younger and younger ages, spend more and more time in centers, many that are indisputably of limited quality?”

If daycare centers are linked to bad behavior, couldn’t we extrapolate and assume that elementary schools are as well? I don’t need to conduct a scientific study to tell you that the average homeschool student is better-behaved than the average public school student.

As a society we’ve come to assume that the natural way for children to grow and develop socially is through constant peer-to-peer interaction. While peer socialization is important, parent-to-child socialization may prove to be more critical. Homeschooled children look up to their older siblings and parents, desirous of their maturity, knowledge, and social status. This is a good thing!

Public schooled children, on the other hand, spend a majority of their waking hours for twelve straight years surrounded by peers who are no more mature than they are. How can we expect our children to transcend behavior problems when we place them in such an environment?