Can my daycare refuse to put my 3.5 year old son into the 3-year-old classroom because he is autistic?

It sounds as though your husband is concerned about placing his child's life in other people's hands. To be fair, that is a risk you take when you send your kids to daycare. The truth is that you won't be there in the rare event of a life threatening emergency.

And more than likely the daycare workers don't have the same concern for your child that you do and may not go to the extent you would to protect them. Children have died in daycare for sure. In Australia we had an incident where an out of control driver smashed into a daycare facility so fast that he went through the fence, hit the building, the brick wall collapsed and a number of toddlers were killed and seriously injured.

Last year an toddler in America was found dead in a daycare van, apparently forgotten by staff. There are dozens of SIDS deaths, 2 states have reported deaths at higher rates than in the general population. It happens mostly in unlicensed daycares.

Some deaths are homicides or suspected homicides. It does happen, but it is very rare. For your husband to say that kids die in childcare all the time is outlandish though.

They don't. But you have to try to understand his concerns and not dismiss them as children have died in childcare and he's obviously feeling a emotional about it. As for the illness thing.

I have one friend who put her son in childcare at the age of 4 months and unfortunately he did get a number of fairly minor illnesses which together affected him and he will likely have problems with his immune system throughout his childhood and possibly adulthood. Other than that, it's colds and flus. Here is the abstract from an article I found: Fatalities and the Organization of Child Care in the United States, 1985–2003 Julia Wrigley, Joanna Dreby City University of New York Graduate Center City University of New York Graduate Center Nearly 8 million children of employed parents are in nonrelative child care, but little is known about safety risks.

Drawing on the literature reporting mistakes in organizations and medical errors, the authors analyze fatalities in U.S. child care. Types of child care vary greatly in organizational features, from formally organized centers to informal care offered in providers’ or children’s homes. This allows analysis of how the social organization of care affects risks.

A unique national dataset is used to provide a lower bound on fatalities and to analyze fatality rates across types of care. Data come from three sources: (1) a systematic national media search for 1985–2003, (2) legal records of civil and criminal court cases involving fatalities and serious injuries in child care, and (3) ethnographic data from state records in seven states. Overall child care is quite safe, but there are striking differences in fatality rates across types of care.

Center care is significantly safer than care offered in private homes and offers particular protection against fatalities from violence. Detailed narratives of how fatalities occur suggest that the organization of work is a crucial factor in risk differences. Maybe print the full article out for your husband to read.

This is an actual study rather than anecdotal evidence based on one or two cases i.e. I sent my child to childcare and he's fine...

It totally depends on the daycare. While the vast majority of daycares are safe - and some even (GASP) high quality with trained, loving staff, some are not. Just like anything else in this world.

"Kids always die in daycare...is he right?" No, he's misinformed. I live in Canada and have yet to hear of a child dying in daycare period, let alone due to staff neglect.

I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.