Why Day Care is Good for Your Children

As a parent you may often be riddled with a sense of guilt, when you leave your children at day care. On one hand, you have done your homework and know it’s a safe place, but the pangs of guilt remain. The truth is that you are actually doing your children a favor. Surprised? Here’s how:

The nanny option has it’s limits

A nanny is often thought of as the best option for parents who need child care. And while a good nanny is a blessing indeed, they are hard to find. When you leave your child to the care of an individual there are a number of other factors to consider carefully:

• What happens if the nanny becomes sick? 
• Everyone has bad days. What if your nanny is having an off day? Can she remain professional and still take care of the child or will her own problem occupy her? 
• Taking care of a child can be stressful. How well equipped is your nanny for handling discipline issues, temper tantrums, picky eating and the other challenging part of being a nanny?  
• And, of course, nannies are dreadfully expensive.

The reasons why day care makes sense

Many parents have the disturbing opinion that day care centers are “institutionalized”, and cannot provide the individual care and attention a child needs. This is a misconception.

A good child care center will have staff, who are trained in early childhood education and development. They know clearly what kind of care and support children need to grow physically and develop psychologically. In addition, they help facilitate the children getting along with other children amiably.

Acquiring social skills and ability to function as part of a group are two of the many advantages of group child care, which will be invaluable to them in later life.Other benefits include the following:

• Children learn to be at ease in a structured environment, which will help them when formal schooling starts. 
• They participate in a number of activities such as dancing, storytelling, singing and so on.  Such activities develop their innate curiosity to learn more about what is going on around them, besides honing a set of special skills. 
• The system is stable with no worries about the usual disruption caused, when a nanny falls sick or quits without notice. 
• Accidents do happen from time to time while playing. It is only natural. Good child care centers are fully equipped to deal with minor injuries and parents are notified when these things happen. 
• Although no positive proof has emerged yet, ongoing research by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development suggests that children in day care may have an edge over others, when it comes to initial academic progress and test results.

Your child deserves the best care – from you and from others. When you are not available, a day care center offers them the safest and most productive environment. A welcome change for you would be not to worry about your child while at work.