The average American family has gone through numerous changes over the years.
Families were once larger than they are today, and at least one parent had the
opportunity of staying home with their children, while the other parent worked.
With today's career standards evolving, many parents are working to provide
the income to achieve security for their children and family lifestyle. This
change is leading more and more career-involved parents to enroll their children
in daycare programs.
A common problem with the combination of fulltime jobs and daycare facilities
is that children are being left at the centers for up to eight hours. While
many might not view this as a problem, how do children being “left behind”
feel? According to Deborah Fallows, a Radcliffe graduate, linguist, and former
assistant dean at Georgetown University, quoted in The Problem with Daycare
by Karl Zinsmeister, a child’s experience in daycare is frighteningly
empty.
Leaving a child in daycare for too long can cause them to become more aggressive,
and gain a feeling of resentment toward their parent(s). “For two years
we watched day care children respond to the stresses of eight to ten hours a
day of separation from their parents with tears, anger, withdrawal, or profound
sadness,” claims William and Wendy Dreskin in their book The Day Care
Decision.
For five years the Dreskins’ co-directed a nonprofit nursery school and
then began to provide a full-time daycare center. Once the Dreskins’ provided
full-time care they began to notice changes in children: “Some of the
same boys and girls we had known as nursery-schoolers became different children
when they were subjected to the stress of full time day care,” states
the Dreskins. “Three year-olds who had been happy in a morning program
began to withdrawal, lash out, or cry for hours at a time. Some children lost
previously acquired skills. Others began to refuse to take their toys home at
night -- what’s the use? I am here more than at home.”
An individual becoming withdrawn from their environment can sometimes be a normal
part of behavior, but when you usually think of a 15-month old or a 5-year old
active child, this behavior seems abnormal and disturbing. According to Karl
Zinmeister, “Human attachment research has demonstrated that the early
relationship between infants and preschoolers and their parents is the ‘foundation
stone’ of all subsequent personality development. It has also shown that
very marginal parental care is better for a young child than institutional care.”
Concurring in this view is John Bowlby, a two-time award winner of the American
Psychiatric Association, “…a home must be very bad before it
is bettered by a good institution.” People fail to take into consideration
that children are human beings. Even though they are smaller than and not as
educated as an adult may be, children do have the same emotions. It hurts kids
to see their mommy or daddy leave them in a place full of strangers, particularly
when they don’t realize that their parents are coming back. Deborah Follows
explains, “Children clamoring to go to mommy’s house are quieted
with small fibs --‘Yeah, mommy will be here soon’.”
The characteristics of a child’s mind start to develop within the first
years, and without parents guiding them down the “right” path, how
will children gain the discipline to decide between what is right and wrong?
As Zinsmeister states within his book, “The path to the sturdy self lies
directly across the lap of mother and father; there is no other route.”
A parent’s child is their responsibility; a child is a job, not a hobby.
As a child’s personality develops, he or she adopts the characteristics
of those around them. Being in a daycare center, a child can possibly pick up
unacceptable habits of behavior, such as biting, pushing, and pinching. While
these may appear to be “regular” or “normal” aspects
of early childhood behavior, daycare facilities can stimulate children to adopt
the habits in a near-permanent fashion, and allow them to continue for a much
longer period of time.
Though daycare centers are not necessarily bad ideas for parents who work, limiting
the amount of time a child is without parental care should be considered. If
another alternative can be created -- such as a nanny, a relative baby-sitting,
or being able to work from home -- it will not only benefit the child but help
enhance the relationship between them and their parents.
Parents must think of their children’s feelings. When it comes to choosing
the best type of care possible, parents should put themselves in their child’s
position -- would the parent want to be left for hours with strangers, or would
he or she rather be around people they know and trust?
Placing children in daycare center does give them a chance to socialize, but
it also gives a child a sense of displacement. Psychologist Penelope Leach states
in Zinsmeister’s book, “A baby who is cared for by many well-meaning
strangers, or one who is cared for sketchily and without concentration, sharing
his caretaker with other needful small people, is like an adult who moves from
country to country, knowing the language of none.”
Leach adds, “Some youngsters learn not to attach themselves to any caregiver.
They lose the ability to feel or express warmth, and develop a shallow and indiscriminate
emotional life; such children end up without any sense of personal connectedness,
and thus lack concern for winning any other person’s approval. This leaves
then unaccountable, and sometimes socially dangerous.”
Parents always want what is best for their children, and being confident in
their child and their decisions for care is important. The effects of one’s
parental decisions can have enormous repercussions later in their “family”
life.
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Rachel Vincent is a Senior at Kennesaw State University.
Copyright © 2002 by Rachel Vincent. All rights reserved.
The Magazine’s writers welcome your feedback. Please be sure to reference the specific article in your response.
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