Parenting Australia

The Benefits Of Using Quality Childcare

Many families who use child care ask themselves from time to time whether it is beneficial for their child. Some parents can experience disapproval from others about their decision to use child care, particularly if their child is very young. This is often fuelled by the ongoing debate that frequently surfaces in the media about whether child care is ‘good’ or ‘bad’ for children.

Every child is different and will respond to child care differently. Current research in child development suggests that attending quality child care, which is safe, caring and supportive, is beneficial to children’s overall development and wellbeing.

Benefits to children’s learning and development

The early years are an extremely important time in child development, and the way that the brain is shaped in the first five years of life significantly affects a person’s learning, health and wellbeing outcomes throughout later life. Good quality child care settings play an important role in promoting children’s early development. They provide children with stimulating learning programs and ensure that staff and carers build strong, nurturing relationships with individual children that help them to feel secure and reassured.

Your child learns best through everyday play experiences that are supported by adults who talk with your child about what they are feeling, thinking and seeing. In quality settings, child care professionals spend a lot of time allowing children to explore their world in a spontaneous way. They ask children open ended questions that help them to extend their thinking and solve problems. Even very young children and babies learn a lot about their world simply by having unhurried time in which they can explore, experiment and do the same thing over and over again until they are ready to move on to the next experience. Skillful child care professionals are able to strike the right balance between planning individualised learning experiences for children based on their interests and using everyday happenings and routines to support learning.

Benefits to children’s social skills

One of the most important areas of children’s development is learning how to build relationships and get along with others. Because child care is provided for groups of children, it is an ideal setting for helping your child to develop positive social skills and friendships with others.

For young toddlers, a lot of their time is spent engaging in ‘parallel’ play, where they play alongside rather than with other children. These early parallel play experiences are an important foundation for later social development as they provide the step between the solitary play of babies and the more complex interactions that children have in cooperative play situations when they are older . As children move through the later toddler stages and into the preschool years, they are continually developing and refining their ability to make friends and to negotiate and resolve conflicts.

Child care professionals will help your child to develop their social skills by planning experiences such as dramatic/role play opportunities, small group activities and organised games that require some negotiation, sharing and/or turn taking. Most importantly, they will observe your child and their peers to monitor and guide the interactions that take place between them. They will use role modelling and verbal support to help your child to build positive relationships with others and to mange conflicts appropriately.

Benefits to school readiness

Child care services can play an important role in helping your child to develop the skills that will help them when they start school. Many services do a range of transition to school experiences for children such as:

• talking with children about school, and encouraging them to ask questions or voice their concerns about school
• arranging visits to local schools
• inviting school students to visit the service to talk with children about what school is like
• reading stories and watching videos about school
• including school props such as uniforms, bags, lunch boxes and chalk boards in dramatic play areas
• participating in local school activities such as fetes, open days and end of year concerts
• providing lots of reading and writing materials as part of the daily play-based program
• supporting children to develop their self-help and social skills
• incorporating school based activities as part of the early childhood program. For example, practicing using lunch boxes and opening drink bottles.

When they are helping your child to prepare for school, professionals in quality child care services will make sure that this is done with a focus on your child’s current interests and abilities. They will support your child to develop school readiness skills using an early childhood philosophy approach rather than making the child care environment into a ‘school’ setting.

Conclusion

Child care is a necessity and reality for many families. It is natural that many parents may experience concerns and feelings of guilt or anxiety about placing their child in care, particularly in the early days. However, using quality child care can lead to many positive outcomes that will benefit your child not only now, but throughout their future life.

National Childcare Accreditation Council Inc. www.ncac.gov.au

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