Psychology
Effects of Long-term Daycare Setting on Children
With the increasing number of women in today's workforce, the number of working mothers with children proportionally grows. Statistics show that more than 40% of working mothers are bringing their young children to daycare centers. Hence, daycare becomes a trend for working mothers who need other's provision of care for their young children. This trend, however, is not totally accepted by parents, neither by those who bring their child to other's care. Most parents with a child at daycare are not entirely at ease while at work. Usually, some keep worrying about the situation of their child, how the child are being taken care of, and how their child feels about being in the care of others.
The issue of how daycare settings affect a child's development has been studied by many child experts and psychologists. Diverse factors such as the amount of time a child stays at daycare, the behavioral tendencies of a child, the child's bonding with his parents, and the social and environment adaptation capability of a child, are being used as measures in examining whether or not daycare causes negative effects to children. Two recent studies, conducted by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, and the Institute of Child Development, show that long-term childcare has an impact in the development of a child. This was indicated in the article The Negative Effects of Childcare, stating that Both studies found evidence that suggests the longer a child spends in child care, the more stress they may experience, and...
Goodman, a Clinical Associate Professor at NYU School of Medicine, explains that this problem may arise to children who have shy personality. Children with difficulty in interacting with others may experience an increase of stress level when at daycare. This, however, will decrease once they got home.
The emotional and psychological aspects of children are the critical issues in the effects of daycare, especially on those who attended long-term daycare at an age earlier than 5. Researches have shown that these factors in a child's development are weakened by lack of attachment and bonding from a primary environment that must consists of parents and family. The article Daycare describes two studies conducted by Janice Wallerstien (1995) and Karl Zinmeister (1998). Both studies indicate that even daycares with high quality of service are unable to provide the necessary attachment needed by a child in his childhood. Kelly, on the other hand, in her Child Docs to Parents, states that 85% of daycares do not provide quality service.
Proper attachment and bonding during a child's early years in life are…
