Key Question

Question 1

Question

Answer 1

‘What should parents consider before sending their children to Daycare?’

Question 2

AO1

Answer 2

• Many parents need/want to go back to work after the birth of a child so they need to put them in day care.
• Day care can consist of other family members looking after the child, sending the child to a child minders or sending them to a nursery.
• Being looked after by family members has the advantage of the child knowing who is looking after them and more one on one care.
• Child minder and nursery nurses have to be qualified and are inspected unlike family members.
• However, parents may worry about the quality of care and whether they are doing the best for their child.

Question 3

AO2

Answer 3

• Parents need to consider the staff to child ratio as the more staff there are to smaller numbers of children the better the day care.
• Parents also need to make sure that the staff are highly qualified, there is a low staff turnover and the staff interact with the children in their care in a positive manner.
• Children in full time day care may experience negative effects.
• Key workers in day care provide a temporary attachment for the child when away from the primary caregiver.

Question 4

AO3 Li

Answer 4

Children in high quality daycare improved their academic abilities, memory abilities and language abilities

Question 5

AO3 Andersson (1992)

Answer 5

found that children who went to high quality day care before the age of one were more socially and cognitively advanced by the age of 8.

Question 6

AO3 The EPPE (2004) project

Answer 6

found that children in high quality day care benefitted cognitively and socially.

Question 7

AO3 Shea (1981)

Answer 7

Children became more sociable the longer they were at nursery. The amount of aggressive behaviour towards one another decreased.

Question 8

AO3 Belsky & Rovine (1988)

Answer 8

found that children who were put into day care for 20 hours a week, before they were one, had an insecure avoidant attachment with their mother, and those over 35 hours a week also had an insecure attachment with their fathers.

More full-time care infants were classified as insecure (47%) than those with little or no daycare altogether (25%). Those with low part-time care showed 21% insecure attachments (and 35% for high part-time care)

Question 9

AO3 NICHD study

Answer 9

found that day care can lead to the children having behavioural problems, especially if the day care was of low quality.

found that children who’s mothers lacked responsiveness (and therefore may be insecurely attached) did less well at day care

Question 10

AO3 Clarke-Stewart (1994)

Answer 10

Children who had attended nurseries could cope better in social situations, and were able to interact better with peers, compared with children previously looked after in family settings

Question 11

AO3 DiLalla (1988)

Answer 11

found a negative correlation between the amount of time spent in day care and pro-social behaviour: children who spent more time in day care were less cooperative and helpful in their dealings with other children

Question 12

AO3 Vandell (1990)

Answer 12

extensive child care since infancy is associated with poorer academic & conduct report cards, as well as being rated as having poorer peer relationships & emotional health.

Question 13

AO3

Answer 13

Children with poor cognitive ability were found to gain most in the long-term from daycare and the earlier they started the better