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.'
If illness or other emergencies should arise during child care hours, every attempt will be made to have a substitute so the daycare can remain open. Whenever possible, medical and personal appointments will be made after child care hours; however, if I must use child care hours to secure appointments, every attempt will be made to have a substitute. Every attempt will also be made to minimize any changes in the paid holiday and vacation closings schedule.
This paper is but a brief overview of this topic and a great deal more research not included in this paper has been devoted to the biopsychosocial influences of genetic predisposition, parents, daycare providers, the daycare environment, and the many other factors that effect children that attend daycare. However, it’s encouraging to know that progress is being made in the development of a safe, healthy, and nurturing environment for our children at this most vulnerable age.
...ter, because in order to receive daycare help you must be working. A lot of times this still leaves the mother in a bind, due to the lack of hours she works and the lack of support she will receive. At times the mother has to choose a low quality daycare which only makes it worse on her children; they may not endure the proper amount of attention needed as well as nutrition.
Most parents would probably prefer a family member would take care of their child; it could possibly be no cost and would make them feel as though they weren’t having someone else raise their child because they have to work. This is not an option for many parents so they go outside the family to make their choice of care. A day care center and an individual caregiver both have their pros and cons. Day care centers are open longer hours and have more workers in case of illness, caregivers could become ill and the parents would have to take the child to an emergency back up or miss work entirely. Children are very much individuals and have to be considered in the choice the family makes for care of their child. Every family must decide first what they can afford and then weigh the options to provide the best care available to them.
To start examining these long-term affects, this article suggests that a committee be brought together with professionals of many different areas who work with the child and have observed their growth. Research should span across the child’s physical, mental, and behavioral health areas. Having professionals from many different disciplines allows for a wider expanse of knowledge of the development of a particular child. That child’s Pediatrician will be able to give information on the child’s physical health. The school-teacher would be able to provide information on the child’s social development. A psychologist would be able to provide information on the mental status of an abused child...
The part-time work given to hourly employees is often paid with low wages that make it hard to even pay for daycare. After having a second child I had to leave my hourly part-time job because the pay would not cover the cost of having two children in child care. They lack health insurance, paid sick leave, or time to care for a sick family member. 7.5% of low-income children between ages 5 and 8 are left alone while their parents work because they can’t afford child care.
An increase in baby booming makes it tougher for working parents to find daycare. The facts prove that having children come with a true price. Even so it doesn’t change the issues of finding child care or makes them go away. When parents work, quality child care is a necessity. And it does not come cheap. For families with more than one child, child care can eat up one salary, leaving parents wondering both working is worth it. When thinking of child care there are some options to consider like choosing a child care center, the costs of child care centers, and waiting lists.
The Effects of Day Care As more and more mothers are entering or returning to the workforce, the demand for good quality crèches, nurseries and childminders is growing rapidly. This section considers the effect that day care has on the children's cognitive and social development. Important: It is very difficult to generalise the effects of day care because the quality and types vary so widely and research studies only sample a small section of this variation. Generalisation is also difficult because most of the research is carried out in the USA, which means that the findings may not be relevant in other cultures.
"Child Care Quality: Does It Matter?" LifeSkills 1 (Dec. 2000/2001): 4.Http://www.danrpeoplelinks.ucr.edu/nb3/lib/ls_1_4.pdf. University of California. Web.
It is common knowledge that a parent is considered the most efficient caregiver for their children. It’s also known that with daily responsibilities of caring for a child financially, parents partake in full-time and/or part-time employment. While needing to do so, many children attend daycare/preschool facilities. Granted, it is the parent’s responsibility to cautiously select where they decide to take their children. This is because parents know that while they are away for numerous hours of the day, their children are in the hands of another care provider and that their care would have an enormous impact on their children. At a young age, a child’s social and cognitive skills are continuing to take shape and the amount of time spent in these facilities has a resilient impact on a child’s development. With proper and superior care no matter the time spent, such positive effects on a child’s development should endure in a child’s cognitive and social development. In other words, there is a great benefit of childcare/daycare attendance on a child’s development.
A baby’s arrival can be very joyful for a first time mother in a way that it brings particular challenges and experiences that could change a life forever. When a baby is born premature it can discomfort the family knowing that they’re child is at risk and even exposed to death. Some of the premature babies come for the first time in the world with a defect that causes agony in the family and especially in the mother. Premature babies are a very important issue in today’s society because it involves the health of a new born. The birth of premature babies can be prevented with the help of families and the community. Therefore people have to take action in raising money for preemies to take advantage of new technology since they have a less chance to survive compared to 9-month baby.
A normal day for a daycare facility is to have many classrooms full of students like a typical public school; however, they are younger children and are being supervised by an adult. That adult is responsible for, on average, four to ten students at any given time, ages ranging from zero to six. During that time, a lot can happen. These busy workers have many responsibilities throughout the day. The most important one is safety. Because these children are so young, they are also adventurous therefore need a lot of attention. Daycare workers have to spend much time supervising these children while performing other tasks throughout the day. Not only do children need to be supervised to be safe, but they also need to have a safe, clean and presentable environment that the daycare workers of the facility are to maintain. One way to keep things clean is to sanitize, in which is a big task of these workers. Children are always putting things in their mouth and then passing it off to other kids; therefore, sanitation is a big deal in these types of facilities. Another responsibility that daycare providers have are to enforce rules. When rules are broken, these providers are to then enforce discipline policies. These can sometimes become an issue seeing that these providers are not the parents of the children thus they have to consult with the parents on certain discipline techniques to use on specific children. On the other hand, these providers are similar to parents in the sense that they wash children's clothing and clean up after every child. In addition to all the other responsibilities, daycare providers also have to maintain current, accurate and confidential client files per child. These files are to consist of observations and r...
Umberto de Vonderweid, Marialisa Leonessa, Family centered neonatal care, Early Human Development, Volume 85, Issue 10, Supplement 1, Proceedings and selected abstracts from 1st International Conference on Clinical Neonatology Torino, Italy, November 2009, October 2009, Pages S37-S38, ISSN 0378-3782, DOI: 10.1016/j.earlhumdev.2009.08.009.
In addition to the above, it is worth noticing that children in day-care tend to be better adjusted people, due to spending time with people outside their own families. This teaches them how to interact with others. It is the interactions between the parents and other caregivers that actually affect the way a baby’s brain is wired for later learning, as has been sug...
Children from advantaged families attending child day care recorded a slight positive or negative effect intellectually. While children from what is considered economically disadvantaged families benefited from child day care centre attendances (Belsky & Steinberg). These children recorded higher score results on standard tests when compared to disadvantaged children who do not attend child day care. The child care experience seemed to reduce the low test scores usually associated with disadvantaged population. However standard tests used were considered not enough to predict intellectual development. The research stressed an importance for more research on the cognitive effects of child day care using observation in everyday situation not just standardised tests.