The Effects of Day Care on Children's Cognitive and Social Development

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The Effects of Day Care on Children's Cognitive and Social Development What is day care? According to Scarr (1998) day care is the non-maternal care of children who reside with parents/guardians. There are two types of day-care, 'out of home' (including Crèches, day nurseries and childminders) and 'in the home' (including nannies and non-residential grandparents). Today, a lot of mothers of infants under 12 ¾ months need to put their children in day care so that they can go out to work. But some people believe that day care can be harmful for children because it could interfere with their attachments. Bowlby (1951) said that 'mother love in infancy is as important for mental health as vitamins and proteins are for physical health'. So if a child is in day care and always away from its mother it might not be able to form the first attachment it needs as a prototype for later relationships. But non-maternal care is shared in some cultures as Scarr (1998) said: 'Exclusive maternal care of infants and young children is a cultural myth…not a reality anywhere in the world now or in earlier times. Childcare has always been shared, usually among female relatives. What has changed over time and varies cross-nationally is the degree to which care is bought in the marketplace rather than shared among female relatives.' So children have always had some type of day care, but the quality of the day care could matter. Bredekamp (1989) defines quality care as 'Warm, supportive interactions with adults in a safe, healthy, and stimulating environment, where early education and trusting relationships combine to support individual... ... middle of paper ... ...cores in things like word recognition, reading comprehension and mathematics but there was only a slight difference. Work or not? There have been a lot of studies on day care and how it can affect a child's development but a lot of them took place in the USA so not all of these can be applied to other societies and cultures. There is also no evidence that day care does effect children's emotional and social development. In fact good quality could actually be beneficial and even poor quality day care might make no difference to a child from a stable family. Clarke-Stewart (1989) said: 'maternal employment is a reality. The issue today, therefore, is not whether infants should be in day care but how to make their experiences there and at home supportive of their development and of their parent's peace of mind.'

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