If you're a parent who needs to go back to work before your child is enrolled in school, or if you're simply trying to make the best choice for how to prepare your child for future schooling, you may need to decide on whether or not you should send that child to day care. While there is no concrete way of determining this for every single child and every single family, you might consider some simple tips that will help you to determine the best choice for your child, and for you as well.

Other children

If your child is shy, your first instinct might be to avoid sending him or her to day-care, so that they don't need to be around other children. However, note if this might be a mistake, as your child will eventually need to become comfortable with other children and with other adults. As they get older, they won't have a choice but to interact with other kids at school and will also need to eventually interact with other kids and adults when it's time to get a job!

Not only will your child eventually interact with others for school and for work, but learning to be comfortable with other children can allow them to enjoy team sports and other extracurricular activities when in school. To encourage them to learn to interact with others, you might consider a smaller day-care that would allow your child to get comfortable with a small group of children, and then he or she won't be as shy when they eventually enter school.

Early learning

If a child enters kindergarten without knowing certain basics, such as letters, numbers, shapes, and so on, they may lag behind other children in their schooling. Enrolling your child in an early learning centre can help; these day-care facilities will have specific instructional programs that will teach many of the basics to a child, so that he or she is better prepared for what they'll learn in school, and will also be more accustomed to the structured environment they'll experience in school.

Note that you may think you can teach a child the basics yourself, but an early learning centre will usually employ staff who are trained as teachers and instructors. The centre may follow certain coursework and structured programs that are offered by educators as well. This can allow them to be more effective in teaching children those basics, so your child may be more able to learn them quickly and easily.

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