If you have been considering childcare and wondering what the effects will be on your child, rest assured there are major benefits your little one can gain. Let’s take a look at what some of those benefits are!
What is Childcare?
Childcare is becoming more and more important in many families’ lives. There are many childcare and daycare centers out there, but they all typically allow children to develop socially, cognitively, and emotionally while their parents can work. Whether your child is four months, 18 months, or five years old, childcare centers provide care, play activities, and learning opportunities that are appropriate for your child.
The Big Benefits
Choosing a place for your child to spend their day is a necessity for many families, but that doesn’t mean it can’t come without some anxiety. The good news is that there are many benefits to placing your child in childcare, and some studies show there may even be some advantages compared to keeping the child at home.
Let’s go over some of the big benefits your little one can gain from daycare.
Regular Routine
If you have a toddler, this benefit particularly affects you! Structure is integral to the intellectual growth of a child – set bedtimes, bath times, and meal times help to provide stability and safety. Enrolling in a childcare facility only helps to add to that structure. Daycares maintain regular hours and reliable environments, which is great for your little one but also offers peace of mind for you as the parent. Also, at daycare, there’s a set schedule for every day, which includes times for playing, eating, and napping. This helps to provide everything a child needs to feel secure and blossom into a bright child.
Communication Development
One of the biggest benefits of taking your child to childcare is they get to learn and develop their communication skill from an early age. Learning to interact with children the same age as them will help your child learn to share, work, and play with others in a safe, structured environment where there are clear boundaries.
Often by the time they start school, those who got used to communicating with others from a young age are more confident in communicating with their peers, giving them strong social and emotional skills.
Instills Autonomy and Independence
To create a confident adult, independence must be facilitated at a young age. Childcare facilities can help instill autonomy and independence in your child.
When your child goes to daycare, they learn how to work with their teacher and other kids. But they also have opportunities to explore and learn with little interference. This only increases with age. Getting offered choices, doing little things by themselves (like unzipping their coat), and giving time to a child to do simple tasks on their own help to build up that independence. Soon enough, that autonomy will become second nature to them!
Helps Build a Community
Not only does taking your child to daycare benefit them, but it can also benefit you as a parent as well. Dropping off and picking up your child at the childcare center can be a bit of a hassle, but those moments you chat with other parents can be quite valuable. Simple social interaction with other parents can help to remove feelings of isolation and help create a social network. Even knowing other parents at the facility help to relieve feelings of anxiety about the center and allow friendships to flourish over time.
Exposure to Stimulating Activities
Stimulating activities can not only help to entertain your child but help them grow and learn. As much as you want to provide days filled with enriching activities for your little one, there’s not always time.
With the help of childcare, that’s one less thing to worry about! Daycares will have a number of activities throughout the day to keep your child entertained and stimulated. They’ll sing songs, have storytelling circle, and have coloring time, and you can rest assured that those activities will contribute to their intellectual growth and social development.
Gets them Ready for the School Transition
Childcare helps prepare children for school in more ways than one! First, when a child already has the tools to understand a structured day away from their parents, the move from childcare to kindergarten becomes much easier. They already understand how the day works, how they travel from to a new place from home, and how a parent will be there to pick them up and hear all about their day when it’s all done.
They’ll also thrive academically. Daycare will have given them a head start in skills like numeracy and literacy, so they’ll be able to access higher-level tasks and comprehension. You’ll have a smart cookie in kindergarten on your hands!
Let us help your child learn, play, and grow!
Enroll in the Right Care
Now that you know the benefits childcare has, it’s time to find a facility that is suitable for both you and your child! If you’re in Gilbert, Arizona, we’d love to be considered for your family.
At our daycare and preschool, we focus on the needs of very young children. We strive to make a positive difference in the life of every child by partnering with parents to provide an environment that is safe, nurturing, educational and individualized. Let us help your child learn, play, and grow.
