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options Viewing Is Daycare Harmful or Beneficial for Your Children?

 

 Is Daycare Harmful or Beneficial for Your Children?  
Parents, scholars, and politicians have argued the pros and cons of childcare facilities until families are absolutely certain that placing their child in day care results in either an infant prodigy or a teenage delinquent. Where does the truth lie?

By Alex F Nowell

Ever since women entered the workforce, the great daycare debate has raged on. Parents, scholars, and politicians have argued the pros and cons of external childcare facilities - until families are absolutely certain that placing their child in day care results in either an infant prodigy or a teenage delinquent.

If you can understand some of the ways children benefit from childcare, you will feel you are helping your child grow into a well rounded, happy child instead of punishing both of you by sticking him in daycare.

Babies need interaction with other children. It's never too early to start engaging him in activities with other children, whether they are other babies, toddlers, or older children. Learning to interact with other children prepares a child for his first encounter with school. A daycare environment is a perfect place to get a child used to other children. Daycare is a gentler environment, there are less rules and more flexibility than strict teachers may impose.

Children benefit from childcare by learning self-control, how to get along with others, and how to share. They are initiated into the world of friendship. Without daycare, he knows only you; you are his whole world. What a shock to find one day around his 4th birthday that he will have to start school and be away from you at great lengths during the day. Children benefit from childcare by expanding their world to include people other than their parents.

You can also surprise your child and stop by during your lunch break and offer to eat lunch with him, read a book, or just play with him. If your child care provider has a website or a newsletter that is sent home, you can plan ahead to attend one of the events they have scheduled - such as a field trip to a museum or a park. Just spending some time with your child is important and meaningful while he is spending his day in child care.

Child care can also mean a family member watching your child. However, there are still some vital guidelines to follow. If the relative is an older person, you certainly want to make sure that they are capable of handling any type of emergency that might arise. Also, if the relative has to take any medication while he is providing child care to your child, the medications should be unavailable to the child. No matter what age a child is, it is strenuous activity at the least.

The key to a positive day care experience is to carefully screen any day care before a child is enrolled. The school should have a low staff-to-child ratio, with one adult to every two or three children at the infant level, gradually rising as the child increases in age, but still sufficient for individual attention.

The teachers should display a genuine love for the children, with experience and training in child development and psychology, allowing them to quickly detect a problem with a student before it becomes uncontrollable.

Parents should remain in contact with the child's teacher, receiving progress reports and observing classroom behavior on a regular basis. Any instance in which a parent is deliberately left 'out of the loop' in their child's education, even at this early stage, is cause for concern - and should be considered an immediate warning sign that all is not as it should be. In this case knowledge is power, and allows a child to quickly be removed from an unsuitable situation before irreversible damage is done.


About the Author:

Information in this article was supplied and written by Alex F Nowell: owner of this site about daycare. It contains articles, news, resources, and video about how children benefit from childcare. Article Source: 1st Rate Articles - http://1stRateArticles.com


  Article added 07/04/07, last revised 07/21/07.

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