The Benefits of High Quality Child Care

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It is common knowledge that a parent is considered the most efficient caregiver for their children. It’s also known that with daily responsibilities of caring for a child financially, parents partake in full-time and/or part-time employment. While needing to do so, many children attend daycare/preschool facilities. Granted, it is the parent’s responsibility to cautiously select where they decide to take their children. This is because parents know that while they are away for numerous hours of the day, their children are in the hands of another care provider and that their care would have an enormous impact on their children. At a young age, a child’s social and cognitive skills are continuing to take shape and the amount of time spent in these facilities has a resilient impact on a child’s development. With proper and superior care no matter the time spent, such positive effects on a child’s development should endure in a child’s cognitive and social development. In other words, there is a great benefit of childcare/daycare attendance on a child’s development. It’s been noted that recent studies specify that “more than half of all 3-5-year-old children in the United States attend child-care centers prior to kindergarten” and “Given these high usage rates, the quality of these early child-care experiences has become an important public policy issue” (Peisner-Feinberg 2001). It is believed that part of the issue is a result of parents not knowing what the primary purpose of daycare/child care facilities are and what high quality daycares consist of in considering a their child should attend. First and foremost, knowing the purpose of daycare/child care facilities is the primary factor in determining whether a parent should conside... ... middle of paper ... ...J: NIEER. Brandtjen, H., & Verny, T. (2001). Short and long term effects on infants and toddlers in full time daycare centers. Journal of Prenatal & Perinatal Psychology & Health, 15 (4), 239-286. Loeb, S., Bridges, M., Fuller, B., Rumberger, R., & Bassok, D. (2005). How much is too much? The Influence of Preschool Centers on Children's Social and Cognitive Development (No. 11812). National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. Peisner-Feinberg, E., Burchinal, M., Clifford, R., Culkin, M., Howes, C., Kagan, S., & Yazejian, N. (2001). The relation of preschool child-care quality to children's cognitive and social developmental trajectories through second grade. Child Development, 72 (5), 1534-1553 Phillips, D., McCartney, K., & Scarr, S. (1987). Child-care quality and children's social development. Developmental Psychology, 23 (4), 537-543. doi:10.1037/0012-1649.23.4.537

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