As a subcommittee member focused on the successful developmental development of three year old children who have been continuously enrolled in day care since six weeks of age, I believe an emphasis needs to be placed on the children’s physical, cognitive, emotional, and psychosocial development. According to the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development’s Study of Early Child Care (NICHD, 2002), which assessed over 1,000 children over time, early experience in child-care settings predicts the development of children after accounting for non-controllable characteristics. Ensuring a high quality daycare program that focuses on multiple domains of a child’s well-being is especially crucial as research documents that low-quality daycares can actually increase cortisol, a stress hormone, in children (Geoffroy, Côté, Parent, & Séguin, 2006). Overall, I propose a number of changes to the current daycare program in order to focus on a well-rounded educational program for these children; I propose an emphasis on the children’s physical, cognitive, social, and emotional development.
In order to attend to children’s physical development, time will be set aside each day to work on new physical activities and movement skills. Since yoga is widely known to help with relaxation, and can be a good practice to maintain throughout life, while also helping to develop focus, a short ten-minute yoga session should be done daily. The yoga session would, of course, be developed with the limited attention span of a three year old in mind. In fact, an emphasis can be placed on simple poses and breathing regulation. In terms of other physical activity skills, it will be important to play games in which children learn to hop and skip. They should have these skills by the time they leave the class for the year.
To address cognitive development, a wide array of puzzles, blocks, paints, and paper should be provided. Using age-appropriate puzzles can help children with visual skills, as can working with blocks. Paints and paper can be used to help with their motor skills. Learning cards should be provided so that children can review pictures and letters in order to develop language. Before leaving the class, the three year olds should be able to identify five colors and five animals from photos.
To address emotional development for children in the daycare, time should be spent each day listening to relaxing music in order to learn self-regulation skills. Children should also be encouraged to model self-regulation demonstrated by the teacher. Teachers should be taught to maintain a sense of calm and to use breathing exercises when they are feeling overwhelmed.
Psychosocial development is important throughout the lifespan, and starting at an early age can be very helpful. The children should be encouraged to name one thing each day that they like about themselves and one thing each day that they like about a designated classmate. This will encourage self-esteem and will also bolster the confidence of the designated classmate; further, this will teach the children how good it feels to provide a compliment. Role-plays can be used to demonstrate sharing of toys, and this can help children adopt this behavior on their own. A sticker chart can be used to “catch the children being good” and to reward pro-social behaviors.
Overall, these are a small subset of the possibilities that can be implemented to improve our children’s daycare experience. Daycare plays a crucial role in the development of our children and we need to invest the appropriate amount of time, finances, and care, in the well-being of our children. Since our children spend the majority of their day in these centers, we want to make sure that they are being cared for a “whole” child, and my proposed solutions will help us meet this goal.
- Geoffroy, M., Côté, S.M., Parent, S., & Séguin, J.R. (2006). Daycare attendance, stress, and mental health. Canadian Journal of Psychiatry, 51, 607-615. doi:10.1177/070674370605100909
- NICHD Early Child Care Research Network. (2002). Early child care and children’s development prior to school entry: Results from the NICHD study of early child care. American Educational Research Journal, 39, 133-164. doi:10.3102/00028312039001133
