Childcare context and socio-emotional development in toddlers – a quantitative report from the FinnBrain Birth Cohort Study, Finland

ABSTRACT

Toddlerhood is a period of intensive and rapid socio-emotional development. The effects of different types of childcare settings on child development have been widely studied, but the results have often been contradictory. The aim of this study was to compare social competence and socio-emotional problems in two-year-old children (n = 1104; girls 47.2%) who were either participating in out-of-home, center-based childcare or were cared for at home by their parents in Finland. The results showed that mothers reported more internalizing symptoms in toddlers participating in out-of-home, center-based childcare when compared to children who were cared for at home. No differences regarding externalizing symptoms or social competence were found. Overall, the results suggest that out-of-home, center-based childcare is not associated with major differences in a toddler’s socio-emotional development. More research is needed to investigate whether differences in the socio-emotional development of the children participating in different types of childcare develop later in childhood.

KEYWORDS:

• Toddlerhood
• early childhood education and care (ECEC)
• social competence
• internalizing symptoms
• externalizing symptoms

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to the participating families for their commitment to the study. We acknowledge the FinnBrain research group and would like to thank research nurse Johanna Ravaska for the data collection, Teemu Kemppainen and Tuomo-Artturi Autere for data management, and Eija Jossand for coordinating the project and Robert M. Badeau for the English language checking service.

Data availability statement

The datasets generated for this study will not be made publicly available because restrictions imposed by the Finnish law and the study's ethical permissions do not allow sharing of the data used in this study. Requests to access the datasets should be directed to the Principal Investigator of the FinnBrain Birth Cohort Study.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by The Academy of Finland (grant numbers: 264363, 308252, 325292, 342748), the State Research Funding of the Turku University Hospital, the Finnish Brain Foundation, the Signe and Ane Gyllenberg Foundation and the Juho Vainio Foundation.