A lot of parents are struggling whether they should stay at home with their children or send their children to daycare centers. That can be challenging especially if both parents are working. Sending them to a daycare Cambridge center would be their option while they’re in the office. “Children develop better socially and they mature well in a daycare environment.” That’s what many of us believe. However, there are parents who believe that being stay-at-home parents helps more in nurturing the children.
Should you keep working and rely on the daycare center to take care of your child? Or should you stop working and just stay at home to guide your child? Below are things that will help you decide which is better for you and for your child?
What to Consider
The first thing to consider when coming up with a decision is your finances. Do you have enough budget to send your child to a daycare Cambridge center? Are you financially ready to just stay at home and take care of your child? Some families cannot afford one parent to stay at home to take care of the child. Others find quality daycare facilities to be too expensive to afford even if both parents are working. As a matter of fact, the cost of daycare centers nowadays has doubled for the last 25 years. What’s more interesting is that 7% of the family’s income is spent on daycare.
Another thing to consider is the distance of a good daycare center from your home. Most parents are reluctant to send their children to a daycare Cambridge center if it’s too far from home. In fact, most families who live far from the daycare center prefer to take care of their children at home. This means less expenses and more quality time with their children.
You may also want to consider your children’s disposition. Are they emotionally ready to be in a daycare setting? Some children can easily adjust being away from parents compared to others. However, there are those who will throw a fit as soon as their parents leave.
What are the benefits?
Daycare and home care both have their benefits which entice families. To help you decide for yourself, please see the list below.
Daycare benefits include:
- Providing a wonderful environment for important enrichment activities. These activities include art, games, and nature. These help increase children’s social skills, cognitive skills, and intellectual skills. Children who attend daycare Cambridge centers tend to score higher in terms of academic and cognitive achievements.
- Fostering independence in children. Because they are away from their family, they get to learn how to do many things for themselves.
Home care benefits include:
- Allowing great parent-child bonding. This bonding makes the child feel secure, confident, and happy in the environment.
- Making the children feel special and loved. Because of the one to one ratio, children are given full attention.
What are the drawbacks?
While there are a lot of benefits of both child care, they both have drawbacks, too. Below are the following drawbacks:
- Children who attend daycare centers are at risk of catching colds and other illnesses. That’s because they’re exposed to more germs than children who are just at home.
- Children who attend daycare centers may be required to spend a lot of hours away from home. This can be very frustrating and tiring. According to studies, children who spend more time in the daycare tend to have less interaction with their parents.
- Children who stay at home with parents may not learn social skills that can be achieved from a daycare center.
- Children who stay at home with parents may not mature as fast and even suffer from separation anxiety by the time they start going to school.
- Parents who always stay at home may find it difficult at times. They may become fatigued and feel isolated from other adults if they spend all day taking care of the children.
What are the societal issues?
Our society takes sides on the issue of working versus staying at home.
- There are traditionalists who strongly believe that a parent (usually the mother) should only stay at home. They believe that children should be raised by parents at home instead of spending many hours being in a daycare center.
- Other people in our society believe that parents need to work, and being stay-at-home parents is a bad thing. They associate stay-at-home parents with laziness.
- A lot of people think that children need to learn how to socialize at an early age. They think that going to a daycare center is better than staying at home.
These societal issues cause parents to be pressured when it comes to making the decision. Is it better to stay at home and take care of the children? Or is it better to work and to send the children to a daycare Cambridge center? We can’t have the best of both worlds, so it’s better to focus on the child’s development instead. By doing this, parents will have to compromise a thing or two. Weighing the pros and cons of daycare versus home care, parents can come up with something that will work for them.
Some parents work part time and send their children in a daycare center for a limited period of time. Many daycare centers allow part-time spots to accommodate the needs of working parents. If you prefer doing this, just make sure that you don’t compromise the quality of the daycare center. Your child’s development is important so you need to ensure that the staff is well-trained. Also, check the kind of environment the daycare center has. A good quality daycare should have an environment that is conducive for learning.
If you choose to be a stay-at-home parent, make sure to focus on your child’s development. Allocate time in teaching your child with letters and numbers. Lastly, make sure you give your child 100% attention since it’s just a one to one ratio.