Discuss the impact of Day Care on Peer Relations (6+6)
Day care is probably the most common example where infants and children experience physical separation from their primary attachment figure. Day care is a form of temporary care that is provided by people that aren’t family or friends and usually takes place outside the home environment. Day care involves childminding or day nurseries. Childminders take care of small groups of children in their own home and are registered with the local authority.
Peer relations refer to how you get along with people around you and how you react to certain stimuli, which you come across which in this case at day care (nursery).
It is often suggested that day care can have positive effects on the sociability of the child, particularly in respect of relationships with peers. Using the peer relationships with the link to day care, Shea in 1981 carried out a study on infants in nursery. Shea videotaped 3-4 years old infants at playtime during their first 10 weeks at nursery school. Shea found that children became more sociable the longer they were in daycare. They stood closer together and engaged in more games together, and consequently moved further away from teachers. Shea came to the conclusion that being in day care helps social development and improves peer relations.
