CHILD CARE DAY CENTERS

Child Care Day Centers

Child Care Day Centers

Introduction

Most infants and young children initially respond with distress to enrollment in a new child care setting. This distress diminishes over time and is replaced by smiles, vocalizations, and increased interest in peers, but there is no doubt that enrollment in child care is typically stressful. Furthermore, because enrollment in day care often coincides with other important family events, like mothers' return to work, it is quite common for the security of child-mother attachment to change when day care begins. Attachments become secure as frequently as they become insecure (Ahnert, Lamb and Seltenheim, 2000), however, and consequently day care is not associated with an increase in the proportion of child-mother attachment relationships that are insecure. This paper discusses child day care centers within the context of personal experiences in a concise and comprehensive way.

Child Care Day Centers: Discussion

Quality child care/day care for families is an important aspect of daily life. At its best, child care provides positive socialization, enriches development, and improves social/familial/labor concerns. Child care/day care can simply be described as any service involving care of others' children, but child care is also complex in that it includes a variety of settings, activities, regulations, costs, quality, and types of providers. The three primary types of child care/day care are center-based care, in-home care, and family care.

Center-based child care outside the home is often referred to as day nursery, day care or child care center, nursery school, or crèches (French for “cribs”). These terms are often used interchangeably to identify various types of day care for children and for preschool educational programs. In most communities, religious institutions and civic groups also operate child care/day care and preschool facilities. Parents choose center-based child care because they believe that larger groups, multiple caregivers, and government inspections make programs safer for their children and make the arrangement more dependable (Ahnert, Lamb and Seltenheim, 2000). Parents respect the reputation of the child care program or the institution sponsoring the program. Many parents believe that more staff, space, equipment, toys, and organized activities provide a better learning environment for their children.

Schulman (2000) mentions in-home child care is another type of child care, in which an outside caregiver comes into the family home and cares for the child. These caregivers are frequently referred to as nannies, babysitters, or au pairs (French: a young foreigner who lives with a family and does child care and light housework). Parents often choose and place trust in a provider based on recommendations from friends or professional services. With an in-home provider, parents believe that their children will be safer and more secure in their own home and that they will have more control over the kind of care their children will receive. Some parents find in-home care is a more convenient arrangement for the family and may provide more flexibility (Schulman, 2000), as they can have all their children in the same location and may find that in-home care is not significantly ...