EXCERPTS
Some mothers worry their child will develop a stronger bond with his or her daycare provider, but German and British researchers say that's not the case.
Researchers found that while child/parent and child/care provider relationships...share some important associations, children are much more likely to form secure attachments to their mothers than to their daycare providers.
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The study, published in Child Development, found the toddlers were less likely to form secure attachments to their childcare provider than their parents.
"We should not see care providers in public care as mother substitutes, dealing sensitively with individual kids, but understand how they regulate groups of kids while providing a harmonic climate to play and learn," said Lieselotte Ahnert, of the University of Applied Science in Magdeburg-Stendal and Free University of Berlin.