Child care or childcare, child minding, daycare, or preschool is the caring for and supervision of a child or children, usually from age six weeks to age thirteen. Child care is the action or skill of looking after children by a day-care center, babysitter, or other providers. Child care is a broad topic covering a wide spectrum of contexts, activities, social and cultural conventions, and institutions. The majority of child care institutions that are available require that child care providers have extensive training in first aid and are CPR certified. In addition, background checks, drug testing at all centers, and reference verification are normally a requirement. Child care can cost up to $15,000 for one year in the United States. The average annual cost of full-time care for an infant in center-based care ranges from $4,863 in Mississippi to $16,430 in Massachusetts. Early child care is a very important and often overlooked component of child development. Child care providers are our children’s first teachers, and therefore play an integral role in our systems of early childhood education. Quality care from a young age can have a huge impact on the future successes of children. 

Licensed home day care or family child care

Licensed or unlicensed home day care is also referred to as family child care, or in home care. It refers to the care provided to a group of children in the home of a caregiver. State laws differ regarding rules for licensed versus unlicensed care. In Canada, most home daycares are unlicensed, and this is completely lawful. Licensing home daycares in Canada can help greatly with oversight, but at the cost of a large portion of the daycare provider’s pay. Family child cares are small in size and provide families the same securities as a day care center, but also has the benefits of flexible hours, lower costs, accessibility, and cultural compatibility. Home-based providers can give more individualized care and therefore better meet the needs of working families. Family care (depending upon the relative levels of state subsidy for center-based care) is generally the most affordable childcare option, and offers often greater flexibility in hours available for care. In addition, family care generally has a small ratio of children in care, allowing for more interaction between child and provider than would be had at a commercial care center. Family child care helps foster emotionally secure interpersonal relationships for everyone involved. The providers are able to communicate each day with parents on a personal level and share information about the development of the child. Providers care for multi-aged groups of children allowing children to remain with one caregiver for many years which helps children develop a sense of trust and security. Multi-aged settings allow children to learn from one another and allow siblings to stay together. Some family child care providers may offer parents more flexibility with hours of operation such as evening, weekend, overnight, and before and after school care.

Effects on child development

For many, the use of paid childcare is a matter of choice with arguments on both sides about whether this is beneficial or harmful to children. The parental decisions of leaving a child with someone and who that someone will be are two of the most difficult decisions in the lives of most parents. A parent fears for the safety and security of his/her child. They need to be able trust the person or facility they choose as a provider for childcare. Whether this person is family, friend, live in, center based, young, old, well educated, or barely trained, the parents want to feel comfortable leaving their children with them. To have trust in the caregiver, the parent wants to know what kind of effects the type of service they provide will have on the development of their child. The development of a child has many factors, but it is most directly influenced by the type and quality of care that is most regularly provided to the child.

Child development researcher, Lian Tong, analysed the results from a Haley and Stansbury experiment saying, “Parent responsiveness also facilitates cognitive, social, and emotional development and reduces negative emotions in infants.” This study applies to more age groups than just infants. To sum that up, the amount of time that a parent or teacher is willing to spend teaching, listening to, playing with, and exploring with the child the more socially, emotionally, and educationally developed the child will become. Whether that child receives the majority of his or her care at a center or at its house, the biggest factor in deciding what will have the best effect on the child will be those willing to put in the time and effort it takes to properly develop a child’s social, physical, and academic skills.

In discussing the numbers it is important to note that in 2001, more than one half of the children in the United States attended childcare facilities. This number has only increased as the number of working parents has increased. The increase in the amount of children that are required to have some sort of childcare service has made childcare facilities more necessary than they have ever been. The quality of childcare given by a facility is generally indicated by the center’s cost of enrollment. If the center charges more for the service, it will generally provide better care to the children. Centers that charge more for their services can provide quality education, more current resources, and nicer facilities. These are all helpful when trying to educate a child academically. A higher standard for teachers, such as requiring a degree in early childhood education or a degree of the like, has shown to result in improved growth in the development of a child. The childcare system in France is a great example of this. They have two separate branches of early childhood childcare. These two separate branches are called crèche and école maternelle. Crèche is the program for infants and toddlers and école maternelle is part of the education system. They both require teacher to have a college degree and sometimes a specialized degree on top of that.

There are links between the income, education, and importance of consistency and the well being of the child, to the parents, and the development of their child. Higher educated parents place more importance on the education of their children than the parents who do not have a college degree or have not graduated from high school. Likewise, parents who have a higher income level are more willing to part with their money to purchase a private tutor or nanny to assist the parent in the education of their child. They also tend to stress the importance of being socially inept. The first few years of a child’s life are important to form a basis for good education, morality, self-discipline and social integration. Consistency of approach, skills and qualifications of careers have been shown in many studies to improve the chances of a child reaching his or her full potential. Child care in much of western society is currently in crisis: there are not enough daycare spots, the cost for most parents is beyond their means, and child care staff are grossly underpaid. Starting wages for Early Childcare Educators start at $11 or $12, causing a high turnover rate, and decreases the likelihood of potentially safe, effective, and loving child care providers from even entering the field.

7 Affordable Childcare Alternatives Are As Follow:

a) Babysitting Cooperatives

b) Babysitting Exchange

c) Shared Babysitting (“Sharecare”)

d) In-Home Daycare

e) Non-Profit Centers

f) School-Sponsored Childcare

g) Close Friends and Relatives