"I-sarang" nurtures your child's future together
Shyness and separation anxiety are natural reactions in infants. However, getting them is important for your baby's emotional development and building trust in those around them. When you must leave your baby with someone else, consider the following things in advance.
The increase in women's employment, along with the shift toward nuclear families thanks to industrialization, has changed child-rearing from a more traditional method (raised by immediate family) to outside-the-home care (daycare, babysitters, etc.). When the Child Care Act was enacted in 1991, childcare began as a concept of outside-the-home care for low-income women with high employment rates. However, as outside-the-home care now includes protecting children and offering childhood education, the quality of childcare facilities continues to improve, and the introduction of the free childcare system childcare centers have expanded to look after all babies and infants.
However, as many infants and toddlers are raised by caregivers from an early age and spend a significant portion of their time in childcare centers rather than at home, the impact of childcare experiences on their psychological and emotional development has become a hot topic.
Many study results show that the presence or absence of childcare experience affects not child development but children themselves due to several complex variables, such as the quality of childcare, the experiences of children in childcare centers and with their family, and their own characteristics such as personality, age, and developmental stages.
In other words, if the qualitative level of childcare is excellent, babies and infants will not suffer psychological damage due to their childcare experiences. Even if the interactions between babies and infants and parents are quantitatively insufficient, there will be no obstacles to the formation of bonds between children and parents. For reference, the quality of childcare is determined by the number of teachers and their teaching experience, the size of groups within the childcare facility, the program level, facilities and environment, and the degree of interaction between teachers and children.
Further, study results report that marital satisfaction between couples ultimately affects children's development. Women who receive ample support from their husbands are generally more responsive and positive toward their children. This is because sensitive and warm parents foster a secure attachment, promote children's psychological and emotional development, and nurture the development of social skills that enable children to form positive relationships with others.
When mothers work, their husbands’ emotional support, division of household chores, and trust in the person caring for their child have a positive effect on the child's growth and development.
In conclusion, study results emphasize that children’s development is affected not by a single variable (such as childcare by others or educational institutions) but by a combination of several factors.
Therefore, it is inappropriate to say that their children's behavior or personality deteriorated after sending them to childcare centers. What you must keep in mind is that parental interest and affection are the most important factors in a child's growth and development, that childcare centers are places that perform the roles of parents for children for a certain number of hours, and that both parents and childcare centers must show sufficient interest and affection to the children for their healthy upbringing and desirable growth
(Source : Professor Kim Hye-geum, Department of Childcare Education, Dongnam Health University, Collection of Childcare Counseling and Childcare Information)