First stop for caregivers: Choose different caregivers.
Who is taking care of your children? Still looking for the right nurse? We divide the caregivers into five parts: mommy's personal care, Separate child care's care, nanny's care, kindergarten nursery care and foreign domestic helper's care, and describe their advantages and disadvantages in detail, so that parents can have some reference when choosing a better caregiver than mommy.
Mom will take care of it
The family taken care of by the mother herself has always been the most respected and ideal way for experts and scholars; Saffron, the author of "Being a Good Mother from a Distance-Building Your Own Parenting Style", believes that it is mother's nature to take care of children, and generally speaking, mothers are more educated and will absorb different information, so their physical and psychological structures are more suitable for taking care of children. However, when a professional woman has to take care of her children after work, crocus will want the other person to think about it first. First of all, money is an important consideration. If the quality of life is too poor, it may affect children's study. Besides, taking care of children at home is a chore without applause. Not everyone can accept such a lifestyle. When you decide to give up your job and become a full-time mother, you should still think carefully.
The disadvantage of mommy taking care of children alone is that mommy may spoil children too much and think that children are the best because she only touches children every day. Saffron takes the experience of raising children as an example. It will be great to watch her progress when she is taking care of the children! But another child began to have different observations after birth, and she was shocked to find that her child was actually very ordinary, not particularly smart, nor particularly outstanding.
Factors affecting children's intelligence
If mommy works when the child is young, will it affect the child's intelligence? A large-scale study conducted by the National Center for Child Health and Human Development in the United States is described in Alice Eliot's Making a Golden Brain. It is not found that there are many differences in cognitive development and language ability between children who are completely taken care of by their mothers and children who are taken care of by people other than their parents. On the contrary, other factors in the family, including income, education level and mother's personality, have a greater influence on intelligence.
Intergenerational foster care
Considering the economic factors, many mothers will entrust their babies to their mothers or mother-in-law. Because it is your own, it is more convenient to know the child's condition and save a lot of money. For many mothers, it is an ideal caregiver.
However, we often see that although it is the most convenient and economical, mommy is the most prone to quarrel because of different parenting attitudes. Associate Professor Huang believes that parents who grow up in different generations are different from nannies who are closer to their peers because their relationship with their parents is bottom-up. Many words are not so convenient to express, and communication is very tiring. Grandparents usually have less physical strength to take care of their children, so it is common to let their children watch TV all day, make their environment unsuitable, or let their children eat unknown things. Croce, a writer, couldn't accept the parenting style of grandparents at first, and the concept of the elderly is usually deeply rooted. Persuading them is harder than going to heaven! After several failed attempts to combine soft and hard methods, Dick Rokus learned to adjust his mentality and told his in-laws that they were from the previous era, and their education was different from that of himself and her husband. In fact, they are raising their children in the way they think is the most correct, so they have used their methods in recent years to wait until the children come home or grow up. Crocus advises parents to take their children home at night and weekends if they want to strengthen them.
And intergenerational parenting is not completely without advantages. Crocus believes that children brought up by several generations are relatively diverse emotionally compared with children without brothers and sisters because they have contacted many people who love them! Now because children have less contact, their world is narrower than that of their parents when they were children. If grandparents love them more, children will have a lot of rich life experiences. crocus believes that although children are easily spoiled, they will not be spoiled for a long time, so it doesn't matter whether grandparents love them or not.
It's easy to raise bullies when you are brought up in different generations.
It seems that children who grow up in different ages can easily become bullies. Is this because they are overprotected by grandparents? Dr. Akihashi, a Japanese parenting expert in Grade Two, wrote in "In this way, an enviable child is taught" that children who are truly fully protected and valued during their growth will never hit or rob others. Children will beat their brothers and sisters because somewhere in their hearts, they feel that they are not taken seriously. Although grandma is also distressed to hold the child in her hand, grandma is still a grandmother and can't replace her mother. What children like best is actually their mother. Beating people and grabbing things should not be interpreted as willfulness. He is releasing "Mom cares about me too!" ! Give me a hug! "news.
Is the nanny taking care of it?
Usually younger children are taken to the nanny. Because the nanny has few children and rich experience, she can take care of younger children wholeheartedly. Compared with intergenerational education, nannies have an equal relationship with their children's parents because they are employees, so there is room for communication.
Crocus also provided her friend's experience: her friend is an expert and scholar in preschool education. When the child was young, he chose an old couple as his nanny. The old couple also brought several other children at the same time, and their reputation spread far and wide. This friend of preschool education unexpectedly chose a nanny to take care of the children instead of a nursery, because he felt that this kind of small family care would make the nanny pay more attention to his children and make him feel more at ease.
The disadvantages of nannies are that, first of all, parents must pay attention to whether they have licenses and experience, and refer to the neighbor's word-of-mouth evaluation when looking for a suitable nanny, so that they will not have doubts about incomplete care because they are unfamiliar; In addition, incidents of child abuse by nannies also appear in the news from time to time. Huang, an associate professor, believes that most nannies take care of their children by themselves. In the absence of support system, sometimes the pressure of taking care of children is too great, which leads to the occasional unbearable problems of the nanny, and even the unexpected situation of venting negative emotions on the children. Of course, this kind of problem will also happen when the mother takes care of the child alone. Other family members must pay great attention and care to the caregivers to avoid tragedy.
Living in a study group
Kindergarten or nursery is also a good choice when the children are older. In institutions, children can easily acquire knowledge such as cognition, and they will learn no less than their mothers. In the case of other caregivers, children can gain life experience learning. In kindergarten or nursery, because it is a large group life, children must learn to get along with other peers and live a group life. This kind of experience is hard to get in ordinary families or other caregivers! In addition, Crocus also believes that kindergarten life will be diversified and developed. Because it is a systematic course, children's life and intelligence will be improved. Alice Eliot, the author of Building a Golden Brain, also mentioned that an excellent training plan can greatly help children's intellectual development, because a high-quality nursery or kindergarten can give children more opportunities for group interaction and cognitive development, while parents or nannies are unlikely to provide diverse social interactions, toys and activities like kindergartens or nurseries. Besides, a good kindergarten teacher knows children's psychology well and can be a good example for children and parents.
The disadvantage of kindergartens or nurseries is that parents must invest a lot of money in their children if they are too young or because of other factors. Carefully calculated crocuses have been calculated by themselves. If a month 1 1000, it will cost one million for two daughters to start a large class at the age of two and a half! If you meet a school or a teacher who doesn't meet the parents' expectations, it will give parents a headache.
Saffron's eldest daughter was sent to kindergarten at the age of two and a half, and began the first stage of group life in their lives; In her book, she describes that she chose to let her children go to kindergarten so early because both husband and wife were busy with work and overwhelmed. In addition, her daughters often watch TV at their in-laws' home all day, and crocus, as a mother, is of course very worried that her children have not developed good living habits, as well as muscle and muscle development. So she spent a very long time and a lot of energy choosing a kindergarten, thinking that since it will cost one million yuan, of course, she must make a very careful decision to place this order; So she tried to use her time to visit one family, collect and digest information in various ways, and then make a more confident decision after actually understanding it. After visiting at least 30 kindergartens and digesting dozens of Chinese and western parenting books, Crocus first set himself the criteria for choosing kindergartens, and then chose the most ideal kindergarten in his mind.
Interesting empirical research.
In Building a Golden Brain, a very interesting study confirmed that good nursing quality is very important! Children are taken care of by high-quality nurseries during the day, and their cognitive ability and language ability are ahead of those taken care of by their mothers, while those taken care of by inferior nurseries are behind those taken care of by their mothers. Among the ways of care other than parents, nursery is more conducive to promoting children's cognitive and language development, while daytime home care and nanny are worse.
Foreign domestic helpers pay close attention 24 hours a day.
Crocus thinks that foreign domestic helpers are the most unsuitable caregivers among all kinds of caregivers. The advantages of foreign domestic helpers are
The salary is much lower than that of the nanny, and with 24-hour care, it is very convenient for mommy to adjust the parenting style of the foreign domestic helper at any time. However, Associate Professor Huang believes that because foreign domestic helpers usually have long-term and close contact with children (unlike nannies who have fixed commuting time), they have a far-reaching impact on children's development and learning in many aspects. For example, children's language learning is greatly influenced by foreign domestic workers. Even children who can't talk will be influenced by foreign domestic helpers under the long-term interaction every day. Just like all caregivers can influence children, the foreign domestic helpers' language pronunciation, the number of words used, the diversity and richness of discourse connotation, and the relationship between the number of interactive languages and their emotional expression. Will have a far-reaching impact on children's language and cross-disciplinary development. If foreign domestic helpers can't interact with their children in rich Chinese (which will easily lead to language * * *) or communicate in a mixed way of Chinese and English due to their own language limitations, children's language learning will be more complicated. For better or worse, there are many factors that must be considered. But the most important thing is that parents should interact with their children more when they are free to make up for their children's lack of language.
Huang, an associate professor, reminded that looking for foreign domestic helpers is like looking for a nanny. If possible, it is necessary to find a more suitable and better caregiver through word of mouth. Parents still have to bear certain responsibilities, pay more attention to their children and confirm whether their development is on the normal track.
Crocus believes that, as her new book says, "it's far away." She thinks that children who are taken care of by foreign domestic helpers can't see their mothers' services at home, and their memories of their mothers will be less. In addition, the attitudes of parents and foreign domestic workers (laborers) will also affect children's attitudes towards people. In addition, foreign domestic helpers usually take good care of their children in an all-round way, so children naturally lose many opportunities to do it themselves and become incompetent.
The choice of caregivers must take into account the situation of each family. Associate Professor Huang believes that age and economic factors should be two major considerations for parents to choose caregivers; Generally speaking, children need to give priority to institutions with good family atmosphere; As for the financial situation, most parents will think about what kind of childhood they want to give their children, and carefully choosing the best caregivers is the best way. Associate Professor Huang also reminded that when children are taken care of by others, we must observe and pay attention to the daily changes of children before taking them home to see if there is a big difference between the children's performance and their usual performance, so as to find out the places that caregivers may neglect earlier.
Crocus said that although children are always taken care of by others when they are young, she will always think about how to make them stronger and better. Because of this belief, although the sixth day is a hard week's holiday for mommy, she won't stay in bed, thinking that this time won't let her children study. When I go to work on Thursday, I will find some information online and discuss with my husband where to take my children to play during the holidays through email, so as not to waste precious holidays.
Paramedics second stop: how many people take care of it? Not good?
Associate Professor Huang believes that if many people are taking care of transformation, the first consideration is the characteristics of children; Some temperament children are more casual, and it seems that it doesn't matter who they bring, and it doesn't matter if they often change their environment. Parents of such children don't have to worry so much. Another kind of children may be more anxious and slightly changed. For example, if the bed is different and the lighting or color is different, they will easily feel nervous and emotional. When their adaptability is not good like this, they will have a lot of anxiety. At this time, the baby's caregiver must be relatively stable and do not change frequently. When a child is young, parents can't let him know why he has to change caregivers all the time. Every change is a great challenge for the child, and it will be very painful and difficult for his parents.
Influence of caregiver change on children.
Associate Professor Huang believes that it is best to switch caregivers in a fixed mode, so that children will get used to it more easily; But this transformation model is more suitable for older children, because older children will develop their own adaptive energy, and he will know who he will contact next and will not be easily influenced.
The adaptability of young children is related to their own temperament habits. As mentioned above, it takes a long time for younger children with poor adaptability to adapt to the environment. A common example of maladjustment is that children take care of grandparents when they are young and take them home directly from kindergarten; In this case, children actually have to adapt to two kinds of life at once: school life and family life that they were not adapted to when they were young. During the day, we should adapt to the interaction with teachers and classmates, and at night, we should adapt to the interaction with parents. It's changed so much. Usually in this case, children often have more problems. When this kind of problem is found in kindergarten, teachers will hope that parents will take their children home for a period of time before school starts to adapt to the life of interacting with parents at home and then adapt to school life; That is to say, adopt a phased adaptation method to avoid adapting to difficult situations.
Change nurses step by step.
Associate Professor Huang said that changing caregivers, as long as handled properly, will not have much impact on children's development in the long run, but parents need to spend more time adapting to the emotional part; Attachment is cultivated mainly when children are 1 ~ 3 years old. At this time, the child should be given a fixed caregiver to form a sense of security, and the follow-up problems will be relatively small. Extreme examples are that children do not have a main caregiver in infancy, or caregivers are constantly changing in the nursery center (not the same person every day), which will have a greater impact on children. When children face different caregivers every day and disappear, children with poor adaptability will have extreme emotional problems. Maybe he doesn't respond when others interact with him, or he cries loudly and sensitively when others try to calm his mood.
For more details, please refer to 1 1 Monthly Parenting Life Magazine.