Pub. date: 2005 | Online Pub. Date: September 15, 2007 | DOI:
10.4135/9781412950565 | Print ISBN: 9780761928201 | Online ISBN:
9781412950565| Publisher:SAGE Publications, Inc.About this
encyclopedia Day Care, Effects on Child Development Michael E.
Lamb Most infants and young children initially respond with
distress to enrollment in a new child care setting. This
distress diminishes over time and is replaced by smiles,
vocalizations, and increased interest in peers, but there is no
doubt that enrollment in child care is typically stressful.
Furthermore, because enrollment in day care often coincides with
other important family events, like mothers' return to work, it
is quite common for the security of child-mother attachment to
change when day care begins. Attachments become secure as
frequently as they become insecure, however, and consequently
day care is not associated with an increase in the proportion of
child-mother attachment relationships that are insecure (Ahnert,
Lamb, & Seltenheim, 2003; National