Day Care Bad for Baby Behavior

In the kid eat kid world of Day Care, is it any surprise that a child who has been part of that system has more behavior problems than kids who are at home, relaxed, with mom or dad?

And then, as the kid gets older and exhibits the bad behavior in school, he gets doped up on Ritalin and denied recess until his behavior gets better and he starts submitting and obeying and oh, yeah, learning. The obvious solution? Extend the school day, of course. Ann Althouse notes the irony of extending the school day:

Is lengthening the school day the solution for failing schools? I think not. In fact, I think it is a morally wrong solution. It's bad enough that children are cooped up and physically restrained for as long as they are to get through a school day. To justify that physical restraint, adults owe children a lot. If the adults are now failing to do what they owe children to justify physically restraining them, it is outrageous to attempt to make up for their own failure by increasing the restraint. What makes it worse is that the solution is inflicted disproportionately on minority kids. Oh, but it's a benefit! It's not as if we're proposing to put them in jail during those long afternoons when they might otherwise be roaming the streets.

I don't think it's a race issue. It's a gender issue. Sure, girls might be more aggressive with years of Day Care, too, but it's the boys that are being drugged and dragged indoors. When I was in third grade, (my son's grade) we had a 1/2 hour recess in the morning, 1/2 hour in the afternoon and 45 minutes to one hour at lunch time, plus gym class twice a week. And the boys were still rowdy! And in the same breath, educators and government officials and doctors will kvetch over fat kids. Good grief! Let them run around and be kids.