Other policy
Research: Early childcare and child development
3 Oct 2009
The research involved 4,800 children whose mothers went out to work when they were babies and who are being tracked by the Millennium Cohort Study. Babies looked after by grandparents were reported to have more behavioural problems by the age of three than those who had been in nursery or looked after by a childminder, nanny or other family member. However, the study also found that being looked after by grandparents appears to help develop a baby's vocabulary, possibly because grandparents have more time than other carers to talk to children and are more likely to use grammatically correct sentences and to correct children's language, as well as give the children more one-to-one time.
(Originally piblished in the Journal of Social Policy)
