If your child is in a daycare program, daycare activities can be hugely instrumental in the growth and development of their brain. Though daycare typically comes before traditional schooling begins in kindergarten, the type of daycare activities that your child or children are exposed to are still very important in the formation of their neural pathways. After all, the most important chunk of brain development happens from the ages of birth to three. Daycare activities can help to promote healthy brain development, as well as expose your child to other children. Summer programs from toddlers and summer programs for preschoolers are also common, especially among parents who both work full time.
And with more and more parents both working full time in many households across the country, daycare and preschool programs have become more and more of a necessity. Statistics have shown that less that one third of young children have a parent that stays home full time. In fact, nearly seven billion kids in the United States alone receive care from someone who is not a relative on a regular basis, typically from a qualified daycare center or even a home daycare. At least seventy five percent of American kids have been enrolled in a daycare program at some point, and nearly ninety percent of preschool aged children will be enrolled in a preschool program.
Studies have shown that daycare centers and daycare activities can have a significant impact on children that attend, particularly those children who are considered to be at risk. Among at risk children, the propensity for violence was nearly three quarters greater among those who did not attend a daycare or a preschool program, and the rates of high school drop outs was at least 25% more likely if the at risk child did not attend a daycare program. These children were also more than 55% more likely to stop pursuing education after earning their high school diploma, meaning that daycare and daycare activities can be directly linked to higher rates of college attendance and eventual graduation. Among all children, preschool children have been found to have had an educational advantage later on in their educational careers, outperforming their peers that did not attend a daycare program or a preschool program by up to 80%.
Sending your child to a daycare program for the first time can be somewhat daunting. For many parents, it marks the first time that they have been separated from their child for an extended period of time. However, the impact of daycare centers and daycare activities is overwhelmingly positive, and has been shown to impact children years down the road, giving them an educational advantage later on in their educational career, even as far down the line as college. Daycare programs are particularly advantageous for children who are considered to be part of an at risk population, and can lower the chance of those children committing a violent crime or dropping out of high school or college by a considerable margin.