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. This social improvement was greater in those spending 5 hours per week than those spending just 2 days, which is more evidence to back up the statement. Furthermore Clark-Stewart et al in 1994 studies 150 children attending school for the first time.
They had all experienced different forms of day care. The results of the study were that children who had attended nurseries before could cope better in social situations, and were able to interact better with peers. This is compared with the children that were cared for at home rather than in daycare. This study showed that among 2-3 year old children in day care, peer relationships were more advanced compared with those cared for at home. Clark-Stewart suggested that day care could have a positive impact on peer relations in the future. However not all children benefit from day care.
Those shy and difficult infants may find the day care experience stressful with consequent negative effects on their social development. So there is evidence, which suggest different conclusions with the link between day care and peer relations. In evaluation there are many problems and strengths with the studies, which have been carried out researching the peer relations link with daycare. Firstly the study carried out by Shea in 1981 was a well-structured observation, looking at the measurable behavior of the interaction of the children.
Also other studies, which were conducted, also came to the same conclusion, which shows it was a reliable study, and can be used to compare results with other psychologists. The study carried out by Clark-Steward et al in 1994 was a relatively small study of only 150 infants which means we can generalize the findings but with great caution because its not a large study. There is no direct evidence suggesting that day care harms peer relations. However Sroufe et al in2005 in their Minnesota longitudinal study did find support for Bowlby’s continuity hypothesis.
This would suggest that children forming secure attachments with parents were more likely to form close relations with others later in life. Since day care may increase the likelihood of insecure attachments it seems logical to assume that day care may have a negative impact on relations with peers later in life. The main weakness of all the studies is the fact that you can’t say that one is causing the other because there are more extraneous factors, which affect this such as the quality of care and the age that started the day care.