Essay: What kind of care is beneficial for small children?

Urszula Grządziel
(essay)


What kind of care is beneficial for small children?

Upbringing youngsters is an issue which frequently generates a great deal of heated debate. Being a parent, especially for young mothers brings numerous challenges in terms of raising family and obtaining promotion in carreer ladder. For those reasons, majority of parents live hectic lives with piles of unsettled issues at workplace and household. Contemporary strenuous style of living enforces solutions that are controversial for not only scientists but also parents. Some academics claim that putting offspring into the custody of extraneous guardians in nursery schools results in social development of a child. What is more, it enhances their physical well being. Needless to say, parents are discharged from the necessity of devoting all their time to raising their children and their time could be devoted to providing for their families. However, it is proved that children who are reared at their natural surrondings – at home, develop quicker in all aspects: physically, emotionally, intelectually, socially, perceptually and personally.
Opponents of raising children only at home ague that such children cannot properly develop socially because they are devoid of contacs with their peers. In their opinion, such children cannot learn how to cooperate, negotiate and act assertively. While it is true to say that environment rich with interactions contributes to the child's progress, in fact the family factor is indispensable in terms of their development. It is proven that children who spend entire time with their relatives mature quicker than those who are with their family only temporarily. Psychoanalytic theorists allege that a child's personality is established by the age of five. Therefore, early childhood experiences have more profound impact on development than the latter events. Clearly, the best caregivers are the one who gave birth to the child and act as the role models for them. Childern adjust to the social environment looking up to their parents as the most crucial exemplars. Even the well equipped care centres cannot compete with the warm, loving atmosphere at home where the child feels secure, confident and happy. It promotes their process of maturation in every aspect. The fact is that the self-esteem of the child raised at home is more healthy than of the child raised under the care of custodians. Consequently, that child will feel good about himself or herself, appreciate his or her own worth, take pride in own abilities, skills, accomplishments. The statistics show that children who eat their meals regularly with their families get better grades at chool than those who do not.
Opponents also mantain that good-quality childcare has a positive effect on cognitive and language development. In many countries today it is normative for children to start childcare at some point in the first years of life and stay there to the end of education process. They state that although in those children the level of aggression rose, it disappeared at the age of eleven. In addition, they concede that behavioural problems, fearfulness and hyperactivity in children taken from their parents under daycare could or could not occur at all. However, recent research on the level of cortison – the hormon released in a state of stress is greater in children being at daycare than those being at home. Moreover, the level of cortisol is higher in children under three. Owing to the stressful interactions in a group setting cortison level elevates. What small children need is to make an attachment to particular people, to create a special bond. At nurseries or with childminders it is unattainable. In this case children could create only superficial bonds. At this age there is no need for stimulation and thus cognitive development. Besides, there is also no need for socializing. There is a need for trusting someone and buliding an attachment.
It should be evident that the arguments for children daycare are not valid. On the contrary, many scientists point the beneficial effects of parents' care for children. What is more, even the best quality childcare beyond the family nest causes harm to children altough, it may have a positive effect on cognitive and lanuage development. Lack of security of parental relationship may result in aggression, disobedience, poorer relationship with teachers at school as well as involvement in risk-taking activities as: alcohol, drugs, promiscuity at the age of puberty.