What is the best age for a child to start nursery or preschool?
For decades, this question has been asked by parents, researched by academics and opined on by anyone and everyone. It is one of the most hotly contested parenting topics out there (nearly as much as sleep training, but not quite!) and like all hotly contested topics, there is no one-answer-fits-all.
Research headlines
Pour over the research into this topic and broadly speaking, you’ll find these conclusions repeated over and over:
Early years education in group setting outside the home has well-documented academic and holistic benefits to the child, stretching into adulthood
Research is clear that these benefits kick in by 3 years old
Research is mixed for 2-3 year olds – while there some documented benefits for this age group, there are also some concerns
There are some concerns about a child younger than 2 attending centre-based childcare
There are also some concerns about children of any age being in a group setting outside the home for more than 35 hours a week
Is the research relevant to my family?
If your child started nursery as a baby or young toddler, you do not need worry about these findings. The measured detrimental impact of centre-based care for under-2s is very small. The same studies also point to equally small positive effects on cognitive skills. We also know that there are multiple factors that affect child development and so the potentially negative impact of starting nursery younger than two can be offset.
In short, if a child is healthy, has a supportive family environment and attends a high-quality setting, the age and hours of attendance matter less. The research is more relevant for the government and organisations that determine policies and funding into early childhood care and education.
And so for parents and carers, there are three relevant points from the research:
1 - By age 3, it is unequivocally beneficial for a child to attend a high-quality educational setting.
2 – Between 0 and 3, don’t worry about the research into this area and use other factors to make your decision about what is best for your child and your family.
3 - If you are going to use a nursery, choose the highest quality setting that is available to you. More on this later in the article.
It depends on the child:
If you are choosing to delay putting your child into a nursery setting until after they turn 2, you don’t need to worry that they are missing out. Before this age, research disproves arguments about the need for them to be in nursery to socialise, be stimulated or get ahead educationally.
From 2 onwards, there are some signs of child-readiness that you can look out for that suggest your child can start to reap the benefits of an educational setting. For most children, these appear between the ages of 2 and 3:
Being able to communicate their needs, either verbally or non-verbally, will help them settle more quickly
A basic understanding of time passing, so that they can feel reassured by concepts such as ‘daddy will come back later’
Shifting from solitary play (with enjoyable social interactions) to onlooker play / parallel play, showing that they are ready to benefit from playing regularly around their peers.
Becoming cognitively and developmentally ready to start taking turns – again, this is a sign that they will be able to cope with the frustrations of playing in a shared space with a number of other children on a regular basis. It’s worth noting, though, that turn-taking at 2-years-old will almost always need to be heavily supported and guided by an adult.
Even for those families who are able to make their decision solely based on their child’s readiness for nursery, these signs should not be used as a checklist. It’s ok to rely on knowing your child and their temperament - parental instinct is very powerful and should be listened to!
It depends on the family’s unique situation:
The best age for a child to start nursery undoubtedly depends on the family’s situation. It goes without saying that if one parent does not want to return to work and can afford not to, this is the preferable option until the child is between 2 and 3 years old. However, this is not possible for many families and even when it is, it is not necessarily the best choice for the whole family. It can come at a heavy price!
In 2010, 77% of mothers in the U.K. were back at work after 12 months. That means the vast majority of families need some form of childcare for their child before they are aged 2-3. Being looked after by a grandparent is also shown to be a good choice for the child, but again, this is not an option for many families. Using a nanny is often thought of as the premium choice for babies and young toddlers because of the 1-1 attention and the care taking place in the child’s own home. However, as well as being unaffordable for most, nannies are of variable quality and the best ones don’t always stick around for long. You can, therefore, end up paying a high price for little or no gain.
Childminders can be a great option – they are fully regulated, just like nurseries, but providing small group care in a home setting at more affordable rates than a nanny. Yet again though, quality is everything.
Faced with these options, it is no surprise that more than two-thirds of children start nursery before they are three years old. This is why research suggesting that nurseries can be detrimental for the youngest children is often met with despair or even anger. The co-founder of the parenting website Mumsnet, Justine Roberts, rightly said on this topic: "It is all very well saying that nurseries are not good but what upsets people is the suggestion that the solution is for women to take sole care of the baby, not that the answer is to improve nurseries. It is the 'Get her back to the kitchen sink' response that causes such anger."
It depends on the quality of the setting
One of the reasons why there is no “one-answer-fits-all” response to the question of what the best age is for a child to start nursery is that it depends heavily on the quality of the nursery (and of course on the quality of the alternatives!). When it comes to caring for babies and young toddlers, the markers of high quality care are:
Responsiveness – quite simply, there needs to be a caring adult who is alert and responsive to the child’s needs
Consistency in care-giving – there needs to be a specific carer that the infant or toddler can form a secure attachment to
High quality adult-child interactions – these are particularly important in speech and language development
Parents fully involved and consulted in their children’s care
A safe and hygienic environment
Nutritious food and enjoyable mealtimes
The first three features help explain why nurseries can fall short when compared to 1:1 care. However, a qualified nursery worker that has three children in their care can still be more responsive to each of them than an ineffective nanny might be to the one child they look after.
This is by no means intended as a criticism of nannies. Many are, of course, fantastic. It is just an attempt to illustrate that instead of making blanket judgments about different types of childcare, we need to consider the merits of the specific options available.
Conclusions
So where does that leave us? Taking all the research findings into account, my advice is:
When your child is under 2, if you need a childcare option, choose any type that works for your family, financially and practically, that has as many of the markers of high quality care as possible.
When your child is between two and three years old, choose a nursery or preschool that is strong on early years education as well as having those same indicators of high quality care.
At Two Hands Preschool, we offer high-quality early years education, combined with flexible, full-time hours that work for your family. Children can join us from two years old and are ready to meet their needs and help them settle, whether they are transferring from a nursery or it is their first time being cared for outside their home.
