Three new studies carried out in the USA and China on how childcare practices affect empathy and moral development suggest that we should use the type of child rearing strategies common in hunter-gatherer societies if we want our children to have good mental health and to be caring and compassionate. These studies will be of interest to anyone studying Relationships (The influence of childhood and adolescent experiences on adult relationships) or Cognition and Development (Development of social cognition).

The latest results from the longitudinal study on the impact of childcare run by the American National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) have shown that high quality childcare before the age of 5 can have a postive effect on academic achievement at age 15.

Many studies have shown that children who receive non-maternal care have higher Cognitive Development and language scores than those who do not (e.g., Sylva et al, in press). Nevertheless, studies in the United States have found that children in full-day kindergarten have slightly better reading and math skills than children in part-day kindergarten, but these initial academic benefits diminish soon after the children leave kindergarten.