IT is traditional for children to be taken care of by their parents or their legal guardians. In families where children live with one or both of their parents, the childcare role may also be taken on by the child’s extended family. If a parent or extended family is unable to care for the children, orphanages and foster homes are a way of providing for children’s care, housing, and schooling.

The two main types of child care options for employed parents needing childcare are centre-based care (including creches, daycare, and pre-schools) and home-based care (also known as nanny or family daycare). As well as these licensed options, parents may also choose to find their own caregiver or arrange childcare exchanges/swaps with another family.

At home, care is known as family childcare. It is typically provided by nannies, au-pairs, or friends and family. The child is watched inside his own home or the caregiver’s home, reducing exposure to outside children and illnesses. Depending on the number of children in the home, the children utilizing in-home care enjoy the greatest amount of interaction with their caregiver, forming a close bond. There are no required licensing or background checks for in-home care, making parental vigilance essential in choosing an appropriate caregiver. Nanny and au-pair services provide certified caregivers and the cost of in-home care is the highest of childcare options per child, though a household with many children may find this the most convenient and affordable option. Many nannies study towards childcare qualifications. This means they are trained to create a safe and stimulating environment for your child to enjoy and thrive in.

Typically, au-pairs or nannies provide more than routine childcare, often assisting with daily household activities, including running errands, shopping, doing laundry, fixing meals, and cleaning house.

At the same time, a nanny or au-pair is not always the best methods of childcare. Nanny care is the most expensive form of childcare. Recruiting a nanny can be costly when using a Nanny agency. Weekly salaries for nannies are 2 to 3 times the cost of a week of daycare. It confines the child into a world of their own.

It keeps them from interacting with other children a lot of the time. As mentioned the caregivers do not need licenses or background checks so there is no way of telling if a person is really qualified or has a criminal background (unless you live in a country where there is an option of obtaining home-based care through a government licensed and funded agency). These things should be taken in consideration when making a choice.

Family childcare is provided from a care giver’s personal home, making the atmosphere most similar to a child’s home. State licensing requirements vary, so the parent should conduct careful interviews and home inspections, as well as complete a background check on the caregiver’s license. Any complaints against the caregiver will be documented and available for public record. Family care (depending upon the relative levels of state subsidy for centre-based care) is generally the most affordable childcare option, and offers often greater flexibility in hours available for care. In addition, family care generally has a small ratio of children in care, allowing for more interaction between child and provider than would be had at a commercial care centre.

Family childcare helps foster emotionally secure interpersonal relationships for everyone involved. The providers are able to communicate each day with parents on a personal level and share information about the development of the child.

Providers care for multi-aged groups of children allowing children to remain with one caregiver for many years, which helps children develop a sense of trust and security. Multi-aged settings allow children to learn from one another and allow siblings to stay together. Some family childcare providers may offer parents more flexibility with hours of operation such as evening, weekend, overnight, and before and after school care. They may also offer care for children with special needs.

Family day homes offer group care to young children in another person’s home. This is often a choice families make based on either the desire to keep their child in a more typical family-friendly environment (compared to a child-care centre), or on finances, since a family day home may not be as costly as a center-based programme. The adult-to-child ratio may be the same, but the environment more closely resembles that of a family’s home.

Commercial care centres also known as daycares are open for set hours, and provide a standardized and regulated system of care for children. Parents may choose from a commercial care centre close to their work, and some companies offer care at their facilities. Active children may thrive in the educational activities provided by a quality commercial care centre, but according to the National Centre for Early Development and Learning, children from low quality centres may be significantly less advanced in terms of vocabulary and reading skills.

•Classes are usually largest in this type of care, ratios of children to adult caregivers will vary according to state licensing requirements. Some positives of commercial care are children gain independence, academic achievement and socialization.

• Pre-school is often the term used to refer to child care centers that care primarily for three and four- year- old children. Preschool can be based in a center, family childcare home or a public school. Head Start is a federally funded program for low income children ages three and four and their families.    Similarly Early Head Start serves low income children birth to three years of age. The cost for the Head Start programme is estimated at $9,000 per child. Head Start program provides federal grants directly to local agencies to provide comprehensive child development services for low-income children and families.

Today, Head Start serves more than one million low-income children. Head Start programs aim to promote school readiness by enhancing the social and cognitive development of children through the provision of educational, health, nutritional, social and other services to enrolled children and families.

Infants may also be cared for in infant and child care centres.

Resources for Infant Educarers is a non-profit world-wide organization, founded by the late Magda Gerber, a specialist in Infant Care.

Another method of childcare is for before and/or after school: the Young Men Christian Association (YMCA) program. There are buses that bring the child to the location. YMCA website claims that its programmes are staffed with people who understand the cognitive, physical and social development of kids, the need children have to feel connected and supported in trying new things, and the caring and reinforcement parents and families need to help each other. The YMCA aims to enable preschoolers to experience early literacy and learn about their world, and school-age kids make friends, learn new skills and do homework.

Regardless of type of care chosen, a quality care provider should provide children with (a) light, bright and clean areas to play as well as separate sleeping and eating areas and (b) be the kind of person you can have confidence in leaving your child with. Most western countries also have compulsory education during which the great majority of children are at school starting from five or six years of age. The school will act in loco parentis meaning “in lieu of parent supervision”.

In many locales, government is responsible for monitoring the quality of care. For instance, in Scotland Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Education is responsible for improving care and education for children from birth to eighteen. This is implemented by inspections carried out by HMIE itself or by other members of inspection and review teams. Inspection reports include feedback from staffers and parents as well as the inspectors, aiming to provide parents and care givers information to help them decide whether a particular child care setting is providing good quality child care and meeting government standards.

Informal childcare is a variation of childcare that utilizes family members as a childcare system, for example grandparents and siblings. Informal childcare is an especially inexpensive form of childcare, and is utilized typically by those who are considered poor. Parents may need to utilize informal care for a variety of reasons. Typically informal childcare is necessary for families who do not have enough funds to finance placing their children in a more expensive childcare facility. Those low income families are also more apt to work longer hours on an irregular and inflexible schedule, which ultimately makes using a childcare facility that has regular business hours unlikely.

A study done by Roberta Iversen and Annie Armstrong explains that due to long and irregular working hours, sometimes including evenings and weekends, poor parents are more likely to utilize informal childcare.

Unlike those children who receive centre-based or home-based childcare, those children who receive informal childcare do not receive the same educational preparation and school readiness that centre-based and home based children receive. In his book Social Inequality and Social Stratification in US Society, sociologist Christopher Doob finds that poor children are less likely to attend the centre-based and home based childcare programs, which Doob finds that informal care thus results in the less developed school-related skills children need.

Doob concludes that due to a lack of financial capital, poor families are thus subject to substandard amounts of human capital, which results in lower quality childcare programs, and ultimately leaves children at a cognitive disadvantage.