There’s a lot to think about when it comes to raising your children as well as finding a balance in your life. Having a young child is very exciting, no matter if it’s a good or bad kind of excitement In our experience, it’s usually a pretty mixed bag. That being said, if you haven’t found yourself wondering “where is a good day care near me?” and you have children the appropriate age for daycare, today we’re going to explain to you why a good daycare program is essential for childhood development.
There has been a lot of research on the topic, and many experts agree that enrolling your child in daycare is incredible for their development. On top of that, it allows you to be sure that your child is in a safe place being taken care of by people that understand the way that the mind of a child works. Whether this is your first child or your fifth, knowing the benefits of enrolling your child in a good daycare program can help you be sure that you’re doing everything you possibly can to ensure that your child has a successful future.
Social Skills Learned Earlier
When a child enters kindergarten they’re confronted with a lot of new things. One of those new things is, most likely, being surrounded by a group of children that are roughly the same age. Of course, as a child, the difference between 5 years old and 6 years old feels like an insurmountable gap, but as adults, we realize that those two ages are a lot closer than children tend to realize, especially from a developmental standpoint. This kind of experience can cause a lot of shellshock in children that haven’t had the chance to learn to socialize with that many children the same age as them.
Daycare programs often have as many children as a kindergarten class, if not more. Mos daycare programs are geared for children that are too young for kindergarten, which gives your child a chance to be used to interacting with a large number of children around the same age as themselves. By interacting with children that are at the same developmental level as themselves, they’re able to help one another discover how social interaction works while on a level playing field. That can do wonders for the child’s confidence.
On top of that, studies show that children that do daycare programs often have better social skills earlier on. That’s because at the proper age for daycare children are exceptionally good at learning. The earlier on a child learns to pick up social cues and how to properly react to them, the more likely these things are to become second nature as the child gets older and even matures into adulthood. This could very well be a big part of the reason why your child grows up to be successful, social skills are really that important.
We as humans use social skills on a daily basis. We are an incredibly social species, to the point that we’ve even made friends with other species and let them live in our houses. We’re so social that we domesticated wolves and made them into our furry friends, and cats evolved in such a way that they domesticated themselves just to be friends with us. We have whole sectors that are entirely dedicated to socialization, such as bars, concerts, networking events, and even social media itself. Social skills are something that many people don’t even realize that they use on a daily basis.
Let’s just look at an average person’s workday. You wake up and make breakfast with your family, having a conversation while you eat. You then get in your car and have to stop at the gas station to fill your car up, so you go inside and talk to the clerk to fill your car up. You get to work and have to go into a meeting. After the meeting, you have to make phone calls to clients and the such. Once you get onto your lunch break, you go to Subway and order a sandwich then get back to work to send out emails. After you clock off you drive home and eat with your family and spend the evening conversing amongst yourselves.
The only times during the day that we just looked at that didn’t need social skills were when you were driving. You have to have social skills to survive in this world. We created language with the sole purpose of making socializing easier, and in the modern-day, these skills are even more important. Getting your child started on these skills early can help you be sure that by the time they enter the workforce they’re ready for whatever social challenges await them.
Jumpstart Your Child’s Immune System
Nobody likes getting sick. Oftentimes you just feel gross and like all you want to do is sleep. It’s just not a great time, especially if you have things that you have to be doing. Children also don’t particularly enjoy getting sick, but it’s just one of those things that happens when your immune system is first being introduced into the world. Of course, you can vaccinate your children and that will give them a headstart for the world. In fact, many states require parents to vaccinate their children before they’re able to enroll them in school.
Vaccinations aren’t the only way to make sure that your child is ready for whatever the world is going to throw at them. You see, there are a lot of things that can get us sick. Viruses, bacteria, fungi, the list goes on. When our bodies encounter these things, antibodies go and fight them off. It’s a lot more complicated than that, but this is an article about why you should enroll your child in daycare and not about how the human immune system works so we don’t really have time to go too deep into detail on that.
In any case, when our bodies are presented with any sort of antigen, it reacts by creating antibodies. Once your body has seen a certain antigen, it learns how to deal with it. So it might not be fun for you or your child for them to get sick a lot, but it actually helps their immune system grow stronger. The more often a child gets sick, the less likely they are to get really sick as an adult. That’s a good thing, especially if they’re hoping to get a good job like a doctor.
Putting your child into a daycare program gives their bodies the chance to interact with antigens that wouldn’t be found in your home, as well as allowing the other children in the program the same opportunity. This might mean that your child gets sick now and then, but what is a better place to get your immune system jump-started than around a group of children? Children are generally really good at spreading germs because they haven’t learned how to properly cover their coughs or sneezes, so really daycare centers are just full of antigens waiting to get your child sick but in a good way.
Academic Supercharge
School is hard. It’s hard for children, adults, and everything in between. It’s hard to learn and be graded for how well we learn. It’s especially difficult when you’re first getting started with schooling because you have to learn the very basics of everything. Most children going into kindergarten either can’t read or they have a very basic grasp on the concept, and they have a lot to learn about it before they get into 1st grade. It can be a lot for children that are starting from scratch to learn all of this stuff.
Daycare centers typically help children learn the basics at a comfortable pace before they go to kindergarten where they’ll be graded on their progress. That allows children to feel more confident about their work, and when children feel more confident about their work they typically do better in school. In fact, there is a large body of research that suggests that children that do daycare programs before they start school actually outperform children that didn’t at all levels of education, ranging from kindergarten all the way up to postgrad school. It makes a huge difference when you give your children a headstart.
Preparing Your Children for the Future
It can be scary to think about your child’s future. Children are a blank canvas and can become any number of people. As their parent, it’s your job to ensure that they have the tools they need to become successful adults when they grow up. There are a lot of ways that you can go about that, and studies show that daycare programs are an excellent way to make sure that your child is ready to succeed they grow up so they can be contributing members of society.
