How Children Benefit From Childcare

Latchkey kids are a thing of the past and for good reason. Child care is a necessary part of parenting, and there are many services available today to assist with this tough challenge. Societies now encourage children to learn more, become responsible at an earlier age, and to put it simply, grow up faster.

Parents are no longer encouraged to allow a child of seven or eight to take him or herself home after school and stay alone until Mom or Dad get home from work. Sexual predators are a very real threat; a child can be followed home from school and victimized. But if there is child care, this will be avoided.

Today, child care abounds. There is full-time, part-time, drop-in and day care centers. Child care doesn't have to mean you're away from your child all day from morning to night, missing the milestones we all enjoy. Depending on your child care needs, and your work situation, sometimes child care can be very minimal. Maybe several hours a week will be all you need from an in-home child care provider, with a backup of drop-in child care for those emergency or unplanned occasions; a drop-in child care provider can be a lifesaver.

Many times by the time a child reaches preschool age there is only one teacher responsible for up to fifteen students, if not more (licensing guidelines state that there should be no more than fifteen students per teacher at the four and five year old level; however, a fluctuating population of drop-in students may cause this number to be nothing more than a myth).

The results of a long term study done by the National Institute of Health showed that those children who spent a great amount of time in a lower quality daycare displayed more instances of aggressive behavior and demands for constant, individual attention, a trend that continued through the sixth grade. This behavior may stem from the need to compete for attention from a very young age, and is displayed in children of large families as well.

Aside from learning socialization skills, he may also have the opportunity to learn some of the basics such as the alphabet and numbers. This pre-preschool learning environment teaches your child a basic understanding of what will be expected of him once he enters kindergarten. He learns to listen and accept the information that will be thrust upon him in school. Entering school for the first time is challenging, children benefit from childcare by already having exposure to a classroom like environment.

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 damage is done that is irreversible.

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About the author: Alex F Nowell runs an information web site about Daycareand how can Children Benefit From Childcare
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