The guilt that sometimes comes with using childcare…..“I think I’ll stay with you today Daddy, and we can play all day”.
This short sentence broke my heart recently. This short sentence left me struggling with guilt over some aspects of the way of life in the 21st century. The sentence came from my little girl, aged 2 and a half as I was parking outside the crèche where she attends. I tried to make it fun, explaining that she had to go in to play with her friends for a little while and then Daddy would collect her later, maybe even with a surprise! Pause. Silence. Then came the loud crying from this small person who just wanted to play hide and seek with Daddy, not understanding (and rightly so) the need for the same Daddy to go to earn some coinage to pay for the necessities that go with just living.
As my 9am deadline to be into the office drew nearer I wished I could just turn the car around and go home, pack in the job and live on my yet to be won lotto prize. But, life for most of us is not that simple and the work/life balance that we all strive for is often the hardest thing to achieve and even mentally come to terms with.
I’ve come a long way from the first few mornings of dropping her to crèche and sitting outside her room with a lump in my throat hearing her asking her “teacher” where Daddy has gone. Despite this, the guilt of working still lingers in the background of my morning thoughts.
Now, don’t get me wrong, most days she likes “school” as she calls it. Some days I find it hard to get her out of there in the evenings. Her “teachers” and friends give her much more during the day then I probably could in terms of play, interaction, social interaction, learning and attention. But the guilt on the days that she does deicide she wants to stay with Daddy is something that is hard to rationalise.
However, it’s not all bad. If you find yourself struggling with the same guilt remember this ’cause it has surely helped me; if the childcare provided is of a high quality, children in childcare show greater confidence with peers and more compliance with adults, according to one of the most expansive studies ever of childcare. This recently released study (by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development in America) was carried out over a number of years on a broad spectrum of children. It has also produced a comforting conclusion: That family influences are the strongest in a child’s life.
The large and diverse study set out to bring some conclusion to a largely wondered issue: How does childcare outside the home impact child and family development? The study included 24 investigators and 1,350 children and was the first to take a truly comprehensive look at the question.
The study found that the quality of the childcare matters a great deal. The social attributes of children were directly related to the skill of the childcare workers they interact with. The researchers measured how sensitive, responsive, warm and stimulating childcare workers were with the children, and how many positive experiences they created in the group during the day. The better these aspects of the care the better result on the children.
So, if both you and your child are happy with the childcare workers and the childcare facility you use you should be able to go to work, guilt-free. Go in the knowledge that your child is growing in social skills and confidence as you wait for the day to be over until you see them again. And know that no matter what interaction they have with others during the day it’s the influences and experiences that you give them will have the greatest effect on them as people.
Article by MyChildcare.ie/ChildcareFinder.ie published on Dad.ie
