Child Care & Stuff.

This story about a survey into the effects of nursery care on the behaviour of children doesn't seem too surprising to me:

Toddlers who spend three or more days a week in nursery are more likely to become anti-social, worried and upset, government research has found.

The evaluation of a £370m scheme to expand children's centres found youngsters were more likely to behave poorly the longer they spent in care.

I suspect that the cause of the poor behaviour isn't nursery care as such but the reduction in parental care that accompanies it. It isn't exactly news that good behaviour is learnt to some exten,t by very young children interacting with their parents, assuming the parents are reasonably competent and reinforce good behaviour and set boundries on bad behaviour. A nursery carer cannot provide the same framework of discipline and rewards to large groups of children that parents can give to one child at a time. Other than Polly Toynbee is there anyone who would have expected any other result from the study?