Article: Mum's the word as the well-adjusted child finds love and happiness

Babies who spend long periods in day-care nurseries are more likely to behave badly than those who stay at home with mother. They are also less likely to make friends, according to research.

It has traditionally been thought that children who have early experience of playing with their peers find it easier to adapt to social situations.

But Professor Dario Varin of the University of Milan, speaking at the British Psychological Society conference in Oxford, said that children who attend day-care centres eight hours a day until the age of three tend to have less respect for the rights of other children. He looked at 89 children between the ages of three and five in a nursery school, 36 of whom ...