Depending on what you read, whether it be research, magazine, or mommy blog people’s different perceptions on daycare, preschool, and after-school programs differ. However, the most important thing to take into account is the actual research that is done about it. Great parents can have opinions about what they think is best, but the fact is there has to be a true answer. We need to consider the research that was mentioned above that said employment of the parents, as long as it's not too soon after birth, can still positively affect children. So, therefore if parents can go to work and still have a good home environment and outcomes for their children, then their children need to go somewhere. That is what things like daycare, preschool, and after-school programs were made to do, provide services for parents who still have careers/ jobs by keeping their children safe (Broderick & Blewitt, 2020).
There have been several studies to find out if daycare or childcare within the first year is bad for the child. Several different studies will give several different results just because it's a hard area and topic to research and quantify. There should be a few things to consider when thinking of putting a child in daycare (Broderick & Blewitt, 2020). The first and second, are considering the amount of time a child spends in daycare and the age at which they entered it. There has been research done that demonstrated that children who had parents who put them in daycare for over 60 hours a week independently, had a higher risk of disorganized attachment for infants. The next two things to consider about daycare would be the quality of this provider and the center. There has been research that was done that says the quality of 85% to 90% of out-of-home childcare in the United States is less than high quality (Broderick & Blewitt, 2020). Something else to consider when putting children in daycare is the different needs a child may have. For example, if a child has a special need or has different requirements for caretaking, they may require more than just a generic daycare. Finally, one should also take into account the temperament of the child and activity level. It has been shown that there is a higher risk of insecure attachment due to low-quality care being more present in boys than it is in girls (Broderick & Blewitt, 2020). Childcare that is good and caring for infants can have positive impacts on the family. This is because they can still facilitate secure bonds with the children and emotional awareness.
Some positives of preschool are that it can help grow a child’s cognitive, academic, and emotional ability (Broderick & Blewitt, 2020). It can help teach good vocabulary, how to tell stories, good literacy experiences, and some phonics. So educationally it can even potentially help children who are part of lower-income households who might not have as good academic support at home not be behind when starting kindergarten.
In regards to after-school care, I pulled my information from a study done by the German child panel with the value-added method. The study did not come back with overwhelming results but did show evidence for a correlation between after-school center-based care attendance and beneficial returns for disadvantaged children. They found that students who have mothers with less education and come from low socioeconomic families, benefit from going to after-school care in terms of their socio-behavioral development (Felfe & Zierow, 2014). After-school care is a wonderful opportunity for students to get a more direct influence in their lives. After-school programs could include mentoring, beneficial life lessons, or different interventions students might need to have a more successful academic, emotional, or behavioral career. Some of the negatives of after-school care would be the students are spending more time at school than with their family, but that is true for every student, not just the students in after-school care. However, if providing that care allows parents to finish up what they're doing at work and not bring it home and therefore be more engaged in the home, then I could see how that has a positive twist on a potentially negative factor.
Broderick, P. C., & Blewitt, P. (2020). The life span: human development for helping professionals (5th ed.). Pearson Education, Inc.
Felfe, C., & Zierow, L. (2014). After-School Center-Based Care and Children’s Development. B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, 14(4), 1299–1336. https://doi.org/10.1515/bejeap-2013-0131
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