Interesting! As a more educated etc parent I think natural warmth and affection for infants and toddlers is orders of magnitude more important than any certificates. Kids can tell if caregivers care about them and other than literal maiming or death that is way more important than anything else in positive outcomes for kids. Though if there are too many kids to be able to supervise them or be able to pick crying ones up that’s obviously an issue.
A theme I’ve seen come up a lot in infant/toddler childcare conversations I hear or overhear is a specialization/optimization view. Parents, mostly moms, saying that they prefer formal childcare (daycare) because the carers there are experts or professionals in child development and so by choosing daycare, they’ll actually be providing their child with a better development environment than they’d get with the parent because of the presence of early childhood educators — mostly with socialization and milestones.
I think quite possibly the perspectives I hear aren’t representative! I tend to also think that natural affection is very important and not necessarily captured by a certification. But I’ve also never heard a parent say that they felt like they couldn’t provide enough warmth/affection for their child, whereas I’ve definitely heard that they didn’t feel they knew enough about childcare/child development to take on that full time childcare role.
Interesting! As a more educated etc parent I think natural warmth and affection for infants and toddlers is orders of magnitude more important than any certificates. Kids can tell if caregivers care about them and other than literal maiming or death that is way more important than anything else in positive outcomes for kids. Though if there are too many kids to be able to supervise them or be able to pick crying ones up that’s obviously an issue.
A theme I’ve seen come up a lot in infant/toddler childcare conversations I hear or overhear is a specialization/optimization view. Parents, mostly moms, saying that they prefer formal childcare (daycare) because the carers there are experts or professionals in child development and so by choosing daycare, they’ll actually be providing their child with a better development environment than they’d get with the parent because of the presence of early childhood educators — mostly with socialization and milestones.
I think quite possibly the perspectives I hear aren’t representative! I tend to also think that natural affection is very important and not necessarily captured by a certification. But I’ve also never heard a parent say that they felt like they couldn’t provide enough warmth/affection for their child, whereas I’ve definitely heard that they didn’t feel they knew enough about childcare/child development to take on that full time childcare role.