Word: psychologist
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Expert opinion on child rearing is no less subject to fashion than the length of hemlines. Witness the advice given to parents by Psychologist John B. Watson in his influential 1928 handbook Psychological Care of Infant and Child: "Never hug and kiss them, never let them sit in your lap. If you must, kiss them once on the forehead when they say good night. Shake hands with them in the morning...
...like a bombshell. In February four respected researchers issued a rebuttal, accusing him of misinterpreting data and rushing to conclusions. Belsky, they said, had failed to consider such factors as the family situation and the stability and quality of the child-care arrangement. Says one of the critics, UCLA Psychologist Carollee Howes: "We find that the quality of care makes much more difference than the age at which the child is enrolled...
...more women went to work and more babies went into day care, experts began to re-examine the question. One problem quickly emerged: how to measure the emotional well-being of a child too young to be interviewed. The answer, devised in 1969 by University of Virginia Psychologist Mary Ainsworth, was the strange-situation test, usually conducted on children twelve to 18 months old. It consists of a series of episodes in which the child is alternately visited and left by its mother and by a stranger, culminating with the stranger's departure and the mother's return. The researcher...
...first round of studies using this yardstick found no significant differences between toddlers reared in day-care centers and those attended by Mom. In 1978 Psychologist Jay Belsky of Pennsylvania State University co- authored a report concluding that day care can be perfectly fine for young children. Around the same time other studies suggested that good-quality day care may actually confer certain advantages to children from impoverished homes, such as promoting intellectual growth. Nonparental child care, it seemed, had the blessing of the professionals...
Some experts now question the use of the strange situation as a measure of adjustment. Children in substitute care are naturally going to respond differently to a series of separations and reunions, says Kathleen McCartney, a developmental psychologist at Harvard and another of Belsky's critics. "Kids in child care go through that every day." Tests measuring a child's energy level and attention span might be a better guide to emotional health...