Research supports the view of Dame Lesley Max on extensive use of non-parental ECE (childcare) being linked to more aggressive behaviour in young children.

However a political lobby group for early childhood centre providers and owners, the Early Childhood Council, disputed the view of their invited conference keynote speaker at the weekend.

Dame Max says children are more at-risk of developing challenging and aggressive behaviour if they spend long hours in ECE. 

Many children in that circumstance lack a sense of safety and security and life seems to them a bit of a battle ground. And they have to be the dominant one, or the one that suffers.

Extensive research built up over many decades into the effects of childcare or non-parental ECE on young children's development shows a clear risk for children developing more aggressive and anti-social behaviours (e.g. defiance and disobedience) compared to children who do not attend childcare or who attend for shorter hours. 

Read more:  The Evidence on Child Care/ECE Effects

Speaking for the executive of the Early Childhood Council lobby group, CEO Peter Reynolds denied that extensive childcare participation had a negative effect on children's behaviour, saying that many aggressive children did not attend ECE. 

Recommendations made by Dame Max included government funding to allow for more in-home care for young children instead of placement in non-parental ECE and supporting parental choice (e.g. of hours and type of ECE) by attaching funding to a child and not through early childhood centres.

For more on this see the following media stories:

• The Dominion Post - 28 May 2011
• TV3 news story and film footage

ECE centre political lobbyist, the Early Childhood Council, is correct that early childhood centres can if they choose, exclude children who are aggressive and have challenging behaviour.  Not all early childhood services and professionals, however, agree that exclusion is the answer.  The role of the early childhood professional is to support all young children in their development and learning.  Centres have been known to exclude a child when a child has a severe behaviour problem and staff feel they can't cope and keep other children safe, or they believe the child would do better in a home-based setting rather than in their centre with a large number of other children and adults.    

Read more:  "A three-year-old who was removed from an Invercargill preschool for assaulting children in "spasms of anger" this past year is part of a growing national problem, early childhood workers said".

Read More:   A parent's concern about how the long hours of care at a large daycare centre is effecting his child's behaviour and the centre's alleged covering up of abuse

Read More:  Some suggestions for parents who see their child being hassled or hurt by other children and this going unnoticed by childcare or kindergarten teachers.

In New Zealand government policy has financially incentivised non-parental ECE services (i.e. kindergartens and childcare centres) to extend the hours of enrolment required of families for a place for their child.

"Growth in Over 2 hours in 2007 and 2008 [the hours that children two years of age and older attend teacher-led ECE] reflects the additional demand sparked by the introduction of 20 Hours ECE [funding]. The growth in funded child hours has remained strong and data available for 2010 suggests that this growth is continuing.

"The additional government funding provided for all-day services has reinforced incentives [for centres providing part-time or shorter hours of care] to switch to all-day provision.  A result has been a widespread shift towards all-day provision" (funding and fiscal analysis No. 7 paper prepared by the ministry of Education ECE Taskforce Secretariat, 1 October 2010).

Dame Lesley Max's concerns about the effects on children of early extensive and non-parental ECE are expressed in the context of a policy environment that currently pushes for children to participate more and for longer hours in teacher-led ECE centres over what might or might not be the best choices for every child