Early Child Care and Children's Later Development

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EARLY CHILD-CARE AND CHILDREN’S LATER DEVELOPMENT- PARENTAL CARE VS. NON- PARENTAL CARE The past 150 years has seen dramatic changes in the family system and its effect on household, interpersonal relationships especially on the parent-child relationship. With both parents working, children are kept in foster care. Some of the researchers, psychologists etc. have shown concern towards the negative impact of separation of children from their parents. Researchers have shown direct correlation between deterioration in children’s mental, physical and social well-being and separation from parents. Thus, the quality of child care has to be taken care of so that a child has healthy development. The paper tries to unravel whether parental care is better for a child’s later development or even under foster care a child can have a normal and healthy development. KEY WORDS: Attachment, parental care, non-parental care, quality of child care, quantity of child care, family and parental features, cognitive development, language development, social/ behavioral development. For many of us, the very notion of non-parental care especially infant day care conjures up an unpleasant. Dickensian image. Subjecting a baby to daily care by a surrogate so that its mother can work seems to go against the notions of many societies. Home- based child care especially by the parents is considered to be the best way of rearing children so as to develop their full potential. But with the trend of both parents working outside homes since ‘70s, the concept of foster care has grown stronger along with the emergence of day care centers/ crèches etc. The current paper addresses the effect of quality and quantity of care on the later development of children and to figure out which kind of care is helpful for the healthy growth of the children. This paper also takes into consideration the

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