Benefits of Daycare
Let’s face it – today, it is nearly impossible to live comfortably on one salary. While most families would cherish the opportunity to have one parent stay at home to raise the children, the cost of providing for that family has skyrocketed. Instead, both parents are increasingly finding the need to return to the workforce, which leaves a very important need: childcare.
There are plenty of options from which to chose: care provided by family members, a nanny (live in or live out), home-based daycares, and daycare centers. Many parents look to the first three options, so as to avoid the “dreaded” daycare center, however, they overlook those benefits daycare centers offer.
Socialization
Perhaps the most important benefit, socialization opportunities for children are limitless in daycare centers. The average center has between 10 and 15 children per age group who are often ethnically diverse and representative of different socio-economic backgrounds. Each child comes from a unique home-life where customs, manners, and rules differ. The introduction and subsequent demonstration of these practices open the eyes of the child to new ways of doing things. Sarah, mom to Blake (one years old), comments, “[Blake] can learn many things from being around other children like sharing and manners. I hope it will...make it easier on him when another sibling comes along.” The opportunity for children to learn about their peers simply by playing and talking with one another is certainly one benefit not as easily afforded to those children whose parents stay at home.
Introduction to Educational Curriculum
Daycare centers that are licensed by the state are required to work with a curriculum to teach children certain skills and information. Many daycare centers market themselves not as mere “babysitters”, rather as early education and care providers. Kindercare® Learning Centers boast an extensive range of curricular offers that include monthly thematic units that provide a variety of experiences, as well as learning areas that focus on dramatic play, creative arts, language development, and sensory exploration for all age groups. Studies have also indicated that children of low-income families who attended daycare programs maintained higher IQs than those children who stayed home.
Institutional Rules, Procedures and Discipline
All children have rules, procedures and disciplines outlined and set by their parents, however, there are also institutional forms that children are introduced to once they begin school. Those children who attend daycare are introduced even earlier, learning how to properly follow the system’s requirements. In the household, it may not be necessary for children to raise their hand when answering a question, or walk through the hallways without talking. Once in kindergarten, it can be easy for a child to be confused by new rules to which they have never been introduced. Children who have attended daycare already understand these procedures and need not be confused by why they have been put in place.
Benefits to Mom and Dad
While there are many benefits daycare provides to children, there are also advantages for moms and dads! Often returning to the workforce is difficult for a parent after a baby is born, especially compounded if that parent stays home for the first several years. In a few short years, practices and methods may change in the field of work, and keeping current with new technology can be difficult. Also, maintaining a separate identity other than “mom” is nearly impossible when staying home with a child – they take over your world 24 hours a day! Isolation and loneliness are also potential stressors to a stay at home parent, while those moms and dads in the workplace often find comfort in the daily adult interaction they experience.
There is no perfect solution to the woes of childcare – there are plenty of both positive and negative aspects to each situation – but it’s time daycare is brought to a more positive light. For some families, daycare centers are the only solution – and successful solutions at that!
Sources:
Effects
of Early Intervention on Intellectual and Academic Achievement: A
Follow-Up Study of Children from Low-Income Families
by Frances A. Campbell, Craig T. Ramey
Child Development,
Vol. 65, No. 2, Children and Poverty (Apr., 1994), pp. 684-698
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