Every day there is a child born within a family. Families are very diverse. Most families have either one or two parents that provide income for the homes. They must find suitable child care for the children either in home or out of home. This is very important because the decision will affect the child in his development. There are many different factors that examine how child care affects a child’s development such as type of child care, social class, and quality. Do these different factors really make a difference on children development?
After all the research and different articles, which is the best choice for child care/ Characteristics of Child Care There are different characteristics to choose from when choosing care for children such as cost, location, safety, and child development. Research Gamble, Ewing, Wilhelm surveyed over 200 participants on what are the factors are considered when it comes to child care. Several of the factors that emerged from the present analyses matched our expectations for what parents consider in deciding on child care arrangements or judging quality, including scheduling (e. g.
, hours of operation) and institutional structure (e. g. , teacher student ratios, accreditation, routines, and environmental characteristics). Of particular interest was the emergence of the child centered orientation factor. This factor includes items describing program characteristics that would tailor lessons to a child’s abilities, provide freedom to explore, and encourage curiosity and choice. By knowing what specific characteristics the parents want when it comes to child care allows for parents to make a decision on the type of child care (Gamble, Ewing, Wilhlem, 2009).
It is stated by Kim and Fram that, “use of child care is similar for married and single mothers, single mothers are far less likely to rely on the other parent for child care, and more likely to rely on other relatives. ” (Kim and Fram, 2009. ). The research also states that another reason that parents may chose child care is, “child care can also be part of a family’s strategy to support and enhance child growth and development. For instance, parents appear to choose Head Start participation, at least in part, because of the
learning opportunities their children experience (Brookman and Blanton, 2003; as cited Kim and Fram, 2009 ). The decision to let children be cared for by someone other than the parents is a huge decision and there are many choices to choose from. Types of Child Care There are different types of child care available for children. The children can be cared for by a relative who sometimes are the grandparents. The children also could attend a child care center. Morrisey describes the type of child care as,
One of three main types based on the child’s relationship to the caregiver and the setting in which they take place: (1) “informal,” non parental home-based care, often referred to as family, friend or neighbor care or “kith and kin” care, that is provided in a private home (either the child’s or the caregiver’s) by a relative or trusted family friend; (2) “formal” family child care that takes place in the caregiver’s home and is typically regulated and/or licensed by the state; and (3) center-based care, or care that takes place in commercial, more “school-like” settings, which can include prekindergarten, preschool, or nursery school programs, Head Start, and child care centers. ” (Morrisey, 2009). As the article stated there are many different definitions of child care and each one provide a different environment for the children.
The article references previous research that has, “found that although most home-based child care provides a safe and unrestricted environment, providers tend to take on more managerial and supervisory functions than teaching roles (Layzer and Goodson, 2003). Also that contrast to home-based care, most center-based facilities were designed specifically for the purpose of early care and education and usually offer a greater number and variety of toys, space, and materials for children (Layzer and Goodson, 2003). ” (Morrisey, 2009). Some mothers prefer for their children to attend a child care center. A child care center is defined as, A child day-care center is a placed that offer
leisure activity, day-care, and other services to children in terms of their relations with a social envioronment. (Railiene and Gudzinskiene, 2011). There has been research on how children in child care develop their social skills by Railiene and Gudzinskiene (2011). The “results of the research revealed that majority of children who start attending daycare centers are not able to understand that other people also have their needs and rights, are not able to communicate with other children and lack a sense of responsibility. ” (Railiene and Gudzinskiene, 2011). The research concluded that, child day-care centers perform a compensatory function of (self-) development of social skills and career competences.
Specialists of the child day-care centers give a special attention to the development of the following social skills: ability to express/control feelings and emotions; communication and collaboration, identification and recognition of own needs and those of others; problem-solving and decision-making; ability to evaluate the impact and significance of choice/decision on oneself and on other people; creativity and critical thinking, and recognition of own needs, rights, duties and responsibility. ” (Railiene and Gudzinskiene, 2011). According to Feldman, there is ”research to suggest that preschoolers enrolled in child-care centers show intellectual development that at least matches that of children at home and often is better. ” (Feldman, 2011). Although child care has some positive aspects, it also has some negative research. Feldman stated that” Children in child care have been found to be less polite, less compliant, less respectful to adults, and sometimes more competitive and aggressive than their peers. ” (Feldman, 2011).
Feldman also stated that,” it is important to keep in mind that not all early childhood care programs are equally effective. One key factor is program quality: High quality care provides intellectual and social benefits, while low-quality care not only is unlikely to furnish benefits , but may actually harm children “(Feldman, 2011) Factors of Child Care There are other factors that could contribute to children’s development while they are being cared for. The quality of the care has an impact on the development of children. A study by Phillips and Lowenstein shows how early care and education affects the development of children. The “results from this and other studies indicate that the more hours children spend in non
maternal care, the more behavior problems and conflict with adults they show at age 2, age 4-1/2, in kindergarten, and in both elementary and middle school ” (Phillips and Lowenstein, 2011) The researchers also found that “Children from low-income families show a somewhat different pattern of findings in which no negative behavioral effects of center-based care are found when quality of care is controlled (Loeb et al. 2004, Votruba-Drzal et al. 2004). Furthermore, when quality is high, spending more hours in non maternal care actually leads to decreases in low-income children’s behavior problems (Votruba-Drzal et al. 2004). ” ( Phillips and Lowenstein, 2011) The author also found that there is” evidence that child care quality has modest long term effects on children’s language ability, math ability, memory, and attention skills through kindergarten, and in some cases through the later elementary and middle-school grades.
“( Phillips and Lowenstein, 2011) The conclusion show that ,” sometimes ECE environments pose risks to young children, sometimes they confer benefits, but their impacts are best understood in conjunction with other potent influences, notably family resources and the quality of parental care on early development. ” ( Phillips and Lowenstein, 2011) Yamachui and Leigh published an article that asks and answers the question which children benefit from non-parental care. The research provides “that the OLS results consistently indicate that center care use is driving the negative association between non-parental care and children’s behavioral outcomes, our results are likely to reflect the relationship between the outcomes and full-time center care. ” (Yamachui and Leigh, 2011) Most of the child care centers available for children have a lot of children enrolled.
The research showed that” the results also suggest that the negative relationship between full time center care and child outcomes could be mitigated for children who attend centers with higher care giver/child ratios. ” (Yamachui and Leigh, 2011). This research also concluded that,” for other forms of non parental care, the associations with behavioral outcomes are generally small. ” ( Yamachui and Leigh, 2011). The article really did not provide a clear answer to the question on who benefits from non parental care. It can be infer that children do not benefit from non parental care because the behavioral outcomes are more negatively associated with non parental care children. Therefore non parental care for children would not benefit them long term.
Another factor to consider when it comes to child care is a child health. When a child is cared at home there are no questions on how to proceed with your child illness. Also you’re able to contain the illness better and are able to respond appropriate to your child reactions to getting a illness. At a child care center, you are unaware if a child is sick and how the trying to clear it up. Although, many rules are put into place such as a child should not attend if they are sick, still parents send their children with a running nose or even a slight cough. What might be minor to one parent could make a huge difference to another. Children at a child care center are able to pass germs more easily.
If a child is cared for at home, then you are able to medicate them appropriately and sanitize so that others in your house don’t get sick. The additional benefit of child care being provided at home is that you don’t have to take time off of work because the person caring for your child is a relative or hired specifically for that child. Research by Hedin, Cars, Rofhamre, Ekdahl , Fredlund, Petersson stated” daycare also increases the transmission of infectious agents, resulting in higher risk of common sicknesses such as respiratory tract infections (Hurwitz et al. , 1991;Schwartz et al. , 1994; Kvaerner et al. , 2000; Bradley, 2003) and acute gastroenteritis (Pickering et al. , 1986; Holmes et al.
, 1996; Bradley, 2003). ” (Hedin, Cars, Rofhamre, Ekdahl , Fredlund, Petersson, 2010). Conclusion As many of the research showed, there are more positive outcomes when it comes to caring for a child at home until they are older than six months. “Prior research examining child care quality using data from the NICHD SECCYD suggests that home-based care may provide high-quality care for infants and toddlers, whereas center care may provide higher quality care during the preschool years” (Morrisey, 2009) More hours in center care during infancy have been negatively related to cognitive and behavioral outcomes at school entry (Loeb et al. , 2007).
By contrast, enrollment in child care centers during the preschool years has been linked to more advanced intellectual and language development than for children who were cared for by their parents or in home-based arrangements (Morrisey, 2009) “Many parents feel guilty about their choice to use non-parental care”. (Yamachui and Leigh, 2011). It is hard because there will not be one child care that has everything you may want for your child. If you want your child to be more socialize than child care centers are the best route. ”Research has not identified one “best” type of child care; if high-quality, all child care can foster positive child development (Morrisey, 2009)” There are different ways that child care can be effective whether one chooses home-based or a child care centers.
As Morrisey suggested, greater investment in high-quality home-based programs for infants and toddlers, such as Early Head Start’s family child care model, and increased investment in early childhood program staff could be used to create smaller groups in child care centers for children of all ages, as a growing body of research has demonstrated the importance of lower child–adult ratios for cognitive and social development (e. g. , De Schipper et al. , 2006). Secondly, it is possible that across both home- and center-based child care settings, more time could be devoted to helping children effectively manage peer interactions, incorporating curricula demonstrated to improve self-regulation (Barnett et al. , 2008). ” (Morrisey, 2009) The quality of care a child receives is the biggest factor to ensure that children will have better development. Feldman list several characteristics that are important to the quality of child care. The characteristics are, the first is that the care providers are well trained.
Second, the child-care center has an appropriate overall size and ratio of care providers to children. Single groups should not have many more than 14 to 20 children, and there should be no more than 5 to 10 3- year- olds per caregiver, or 7 to 10 4- to 5- year olds per caregiver. Thirdly, the curriculum of a child-care facility is not left to chance, but it carefully planned out and coordinated among the teachers. Fourth, the language environment is rich, with a great deal of conversation. Fifth, the caregivers are sensitive to children’s emotional and social needs, and they know when and when not to intervene. Sixth, the materials and activities are age appropriate. Lastly, basic health and safety standard are followed. ” ( Feldman, 2011)
A way to reduce illness if a parent decides to use a child care center is suggest by Hedin, Cars, Rofhamre, Ekdahl , Fredlund, Petersson that from their study it, shows that sickness absence is lower at DCCs with less than 50 children. Regular contact between the DCC and the local child health care centre also seems to have a positive impact on sickness absence. Regular contact with a child health centre helps to train the personnel and to give feedback on routines at the DCC. Regular contact also provides possibilities to discuss exclusion policies and how to handle outbreaks of infections. ” (Hedin, Cars, Rofhamre, Ekdahl , Fredlund, Petersson, 2010). If a parent chooses to use a child care center that has less student than the chances of their child getting an illness is reduce.
