Daily Iowan

Issue date: 2/12/08 Section: Metro

"When you start with a strong relationship, it tends to snowball in a positive direction, not always, but often," she said. "It seems very likely to me that the kids who had these ongoing, positive relationships at a young age will benefit from those relationships at age 8."

Susan Bowton Young, an Iowa City resident and mother of four children under the age of 9, said the study is something she can relate to, and she believes being a stay-at-home mother, as she is, has many positive outcomes.

"The more time you are with your children, the better you know them," she said. "If [children] are spending time with their moms, you have time to correct things - it is a lot of that 1-to-1 ratio. If they are in a daycare setting, you can not address those things right away."

Coralville resident Colleen Schilling, who also chose to stay home with her three children, ages 6 to 10, agreed with the study's findings and noted she believed that which sex a child is plays a large part in obedience levels at the age of 4.

"Little boys are tougher than little girls, but certainly, my daughters were very obedient and still are," she said. "[My son] had to make more mistakes until he figured out what was wrong."

E-mail DI reporter Melanie Kucera at:
melanie-kucera@uiowa.edu

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