The Importance of Early Years Childcare for Children’s Social Skills

Early years childcare can be invaluable for children’s developmental skills, and in particular can pave the way for how they socialize in the long-term. 

Countless benefits of early years childcare have been frequently recorded including fostering a life-term love of learning, improved behavior and concentration as well as countless social skills.

The first three years of a child’s life are formative and it is well known that this is when the brain is most able to absorb information and all that goes on around them, so what they learn and experience during this time has the potential to affect them forever.

If parents are unable to afford childcare, many parents turn to the likes of loans and short-term finance options or even borrowing from friends and family (source: Kallyss) in order to pay for early years childcare, such is its importance.

Here we explore the ways in which early years childcare positively impacts children’s social skills and helps shape them in the long term.

Socialization

When attending childcare, children are able to socialize with people other than their immediate family in a safe environment.

Not only are they exposed to other children, which allows them to cultivate friendships and interact with children from different homes, it also exposes them to other care-giver figures. 

This can help ease separation anxiety from their parents or primary caregivers, who are likely to be out at work and developing the home life that the child will come back to. If the parents are unable to concentrate on their jobs, they may end up falling into debt (more information), which can both directly and indirectly harm a child too.

This exposure to adult figures is also important as it teaches children to respect adult authority figures that are not their own parents.

The earlier a child is exposed to this type of socialization, the easier they find it to overcome shyness and adjust to meeting new people.

Cooperation

Early years childcare encourages sharing, cooperation and turn-taking. This is especially important for children who are not used to sharing in their home environments.

In a daycare environment, children are able to practice forming new relationships, cooperating as part of a team and playing well with other children. All of this is fundamental for long-term social skills and teamwork.

Even in their earliest years, settings like this can help children develop conflict-resolution techniques, compromise, and problem-solving in a safe and compassionate setting.

All of this will help a child start to develop emotional intelligence which will serve them well for navigating any future relationships in a healthy way.

Increased Language and Communication Skills

Attending early years childcare will help children develop their language and communication skills. By being exposed to different children and different adults, they will also be exposed to new voices, gestures and communication styles.

Even for children too young to speak, they will learn so much just from listening. Exposure to new vocabulary assists children to develop language and literacy. In these first years of live, they absorb things from their environment including copying new words that they hear and committing them to memory.

All of this will assist a child’s understanding of how to communicate and help themselves be understood effectively.

Understanding of Structure

Being in a formal setting from a young age has been proven to help children learn how to concentrate better, a skill which will help them throughout their lives. It has also been linked to better behaved children as they become used to routine, structure and listening to authority figures.

A daycare helps children find order in a chaotic environment. In a totally organic way, they are taught the value of respect, both for people and objects, and taught how to be civil and well-mannered.

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