Chapter 5

Ecology of Nonparental Child Care

Prologue

What kind of support is most appropriate for families in caring for

children?

• Should parents seek caregiving help (full- or part-time babysitter, nanny, day care)?

• How can parents and caregivers collaborate for optimal socialization and developmental outcomes?

Fig. 5-1, p. 179

Child Care

• Components of optimal quality care– What is involved in quality care?

• Size of the overall group• Caregiver-child ratios• Specialized retaining of caregivers in

child development or early childhood education

High Quality Child Care• The standards are the foundation of the NAEYC accreditation system, which

assesses the quality of early childhood education programs and helps families make the right choice for their

• children. High-quality programs:• 1. Promote positive relationships for all children and adults• 2. Implement a curriculum that fosters all areas of child development—cognitive, • emotional, language, physical, and social• 3. Use developmentally, culturally, and linguistically appropriate and elective teaching • approaches• 4. Provide ongoing assessments of child progress• 5. Promote the nutrition and health of children and staff• 6. Employ and support qualified teaching staff• 7. Establish and maintain collaborative relationships with families• 8. Establish and maintain relationships and use resources of the community• 9. Provide a safe and healthy physical environment• 10. Implement strong program management policies that result in high-quality

service.

Child Care

– What factors contribute to less than optimal quality child care?• Inadequate education credentials• High staff turnover• Low staff compensation

Child Care

– What is involved in advocacy for quality child care?• Child care centers• Family day care homes• In-home care: nannies

Fig. 5-2, p. 184

Child Care

• Macrosystem influences on child care– What aspects of society have influences

child care?• Political ideology• Economics• Science/technology

Child Care

• Macrosystem influences on child care– Child care has been used during the

twentieth century for the following purposes• Social service• Enrichment• Employability• Intervention• Readiness

Social Services• Social service. The first day nurseries were

established to care for the children of masses of immigrants to the United States during the mid-19th century. Day nurseries were also established to care for the children of women who worked in factories and hospitals during wartime.

• The motivation to establish these day nurseries was social service to care for neglected children, and the care provided was essentially custodial (Clarke-Stewart, 1993).

Enrichment• The first cooperative nursery school was inaugurated at

the University of Chicago in 1915. The purpose was to give the children of faculty opportunities to play in a supervised environment where they could develop impulse control, verbal skills, and knowledge about the world. Parent participation was required. Such nursery schools were popular with middle-class families from the 1930s to the 1960s.

– In the late 1960s, as a result of child development research and political pressure for the United States to compete globally—specifically to keep pace with Russian scientific advances—a new purpose was incorporated into nursery school programs: to stimulate intellectual growth (Clarke-Stewart, 1993).

Employability• Parent employability. Child-care services are used to enable

women to seek job training and/or employment outside the home. Economic necessity, including increases in the cost of living and in the number of single-parent families, has led to a growing reliance on non-parental care. Recent welfare reforms to increase employability have also contributed to this trend. – The 1996 welfare law allows recipients of Temporary

Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) to collect federally funded benefits for a maximum of 60 months. States can modify requirements with state funds. Recipients of TANF must be engaged in work-related activities (training, job search, job) within their state’s time limit. The immediate effect of the imposed time limit for welfare was to increase the demand for available, accessible, affordable child care.

– Today, part of welfare reform is government funding of child care for qualifying families so that mothers of young children can be employed.

Intervention• In the 1960s, civil rights groups demanded equal

opportunities in education, jobs, and housing. The Economic Opportunity Act, passed in 1964, funded preschool programs designed to compensate for the physical, social, and academic disadvantages of children who came from low-income families, were members of cultural minorities, had various disabilities, or were identified as abused.

• The purpose of such intervention was to provide children with skills they would be unlikely to get at home, enabling them to succeed in school and avoid poverty in adulthood. Intervention programs are usually comprehensive, including health and nutrition services, social services, and parental involvement. An example of a federally funded comprehensive preschool intervention program is Head Start. Its goal is to enable children from qualified families to enter school ready to learn. – The philosophy is that public money spent to enhance the

early childhood years is more beneficial than public money spent to correct a deficiency in later childhood.

Readiness• Those who advocate that child care should

be synonymous with early childhood education also believe the period in a child’s life from birth to age 5 is a critical time for developing the physical, emotional, social, and cognitive skills they will need for the rest of their lives. That the formation of neural connections in the brain is most susceptible to stimulating experiences in the early years has been documented by scientific research (Shonkof & Phillips, 2000).

Chronosystem influences on child care: Correlates and consequences

• Child care and psychological development

1. Rene Spitz compared the development of infants raised by caregivers in foundling homes to infants raised by their incarcerated mothers. Infants raised by their mothers exhibited normal development whereas the other infants were delayed developmentally

Chronosystem influences on child care: Correlates and consequences

• Child care and psychological development

2. John Bowlby, after reviewing the studies of infants who had been separated from their mothers, concluded that any break in the early mother-child relationship could have detrimental effects for the child

Chronosystem influences on child care: Correlates and consequences

• Child care and psychological development

3. Harold Skeels found that the degree and nurturance received – and not the caregiver per se – is the most important determinant of children’s development. In follow-up studies, Skeels further concluded that infants who are initially deprived can grow up normally if intervention by a caring, nurturing person is provided

Chronosystem influences on child care: Correlates and consequences

• Child care and psychological development

4. Many researchers have found evidence to support the fact that children can and do form secondary attachments to caregivers as long as the caregiver is involved in their care a substantial amount of time

Chronosystem influences on child care: Correlates and consequences

• Child care and psychological development

5. Jay Belsky provides mounting evidence that infants under age 1 who receive non-maternal care for more than 20 hours a week are at greater risk of developing insecure relationships with their mothers. Other researchers, such as Phillips and Clarke-Stewart, disagree with Belsky and point out that children in full-time daycare may have different coping styles and that traditional assessments of attachment may not be adequate for children reared in diverse environments

Chronosystem influences on child care: Correlates and consequences

• Child care and psychological development

6. Michael Lamb feels that day care in itself does not reliably affect mother-child attachment. Adverse effects occur only when poor quality day care concurs with such risky conditions as insensitive and unresponsive maternal behavior

Chronosystem influences on child care: Correlates and consequences

• Child care and social development – Results of numerous studies have shown

that children who have experience in childcare programs are more socially competent than those who have not had such experience

– These children were also shown as being more aggressive and hostile toward others

Chronosystem influences on child care: Correlates and consequences

• Child care and cognitive development – The effects of child care on intellectual

outcomes– Child care programs developed to modify

the consequences of growing up disadvantaged

Table 5-1, p. 192

Mesosystem influences on child care

• School and community involvement in child care

1. One way to increase child care options is for elementary schools to extend their services to include children younger than 5 and to extend hours

2. Another extended day care program that is a cooperative community venture involves some urban school districts and the YMCA

Fig. 5-3, p. 193

Mesosystem influences on child care

3. Child care affects not only children and families, but communities as well

4. The quality of family life in communities is often elevated by the provision of child care

5. Child care affects the economics of communities in that it enables adults to work

Mesosystem influences on child care

• Government and business involvement in child care

1. The current policy in the United States is that the government will pay for child care for disadvantaged families and will grant tax credits to other families

2. Perry preschool research concluded that children who attended a quality preschool significantly out performed those who did not in various areas of achievement

Fig. 5-4, p. 196

Mesosystem influences on child care

3. The federal government has recently committed to expanding existing programs, such as Head Start to include more children

4. Some businesses provide assistance in child care for employees such as parental leaves, flexible scheduling

Table 5-2, p. 197

Child care and socialization

• Socialization effects of different preschool programs

1. Cognitively oriented curriculum – learner directed program

2. Direct instruction curriculum – teacher directed program

3. Montessori curriculum – learner directed program

4. Developmental interaction curriculum – learner directed program

Table 5-3, p. 198

Developmentally appropriate caregiving

• Collaborative caregiving

1. It is critical for professional who care for infants and children to collaborate with families regarding ideologies and socialization goals

2. Diversity in socialization can be observed in communication styles with infants

Developmentally appropriate caregiving

• Collaborative caregiving

3. Some experts suggest that parents and nonparental caregivers set aside “transition time” when children enter a child care center

4. Collaborative caregiving also refers to the support child caregivers can provide to parents

Fig. 5-5, p. 206

Developmentally appropriate caregiving

• Caregivers and child protection

1. Caregivers are required to report any suspected maltreatment under the law, Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act

2. There are numerous indicators of possible maltreatment

Table 5-4a, p. 208

Table 5-4b, p. 208

Table 5-4c, pp. 208-209

Table 5-4d, p. 209

Table 5-4e, p. 209

Table 5-4f, p. 210

Piaget’s Preoperational Stage

https://youtu.be/M244b2aDcz8

Video Questions Your EXIT Ticket

In your group answer the following questions.

We will discuss them in class and you submit a paper with your groups name with your answer.

•How important is it for early childhood teachers to understand child development?

•How does a child’s understanding and developmental level impact classroom activities? Classroom furnishing? Child guidance?

•How is child’s world broadened during the preoperational stage?•How is a child limited by preoperational thought?