Childcare Policies

Childcare Policies

A: pay mothers to stay at home with their children by increasing

benefits- or

B: Provide state funded day care

I consider option B to be somewhat better then option A, however there

must certain endeavours which must be met for state funded day care to

excel.

Day care has many good points to which it is good for children, one of

them being that children cope better in social situations and

negotiate better with peers-a study carried out by Clarke-Stewart et

al.(1994). This suggests that early day care may be better for social

development.

It is also known that day care can have fastidious effects on

cognitive development, which is proven by a study carried out in

Sweden by Broberg et al. (1997), found out that at age 8 children who

had been in day nursery, from all social classes, were consistently

better on tests of mathematical and verbal ability than those cared

for childminders or at home. In fact, childminding came out worse.

Day care can be very advantageous to those children who aren’t as

fortunate as children who have highly literate and numerate parent’s

to socialise and interact with their children. Children from not very

bright family’s can really benefit form day care, so the kids will be

prepared for later life.

For those mothers who feel isolated or bored at home, day care may

provide a better alternative for their child. Brown and Harris (1978)

conducted a classic study on depression in women. They found that many

depressed women blamed their depression on being at home with their

children. A depressed mother will not provide good child care.

Children can do much more things at the day care then at home-they

will always be entertained. There are daily activities (such as

painting, playhouses, sand pits, story time, friends to have fun with,

and staff specially trained to look after children. Often mothers and

infants at home are quite isolated: some mothers plonk the baby in

front of the television for hours at a time- so day care in fact may