THE EFFECTS ON CHILD CARE ARRANGEMENTS ON THE SOCIAL BEHAVIOUR OF CHILDREN

Abstract

With the growing affluence of the Singapore Society, more mothers are encouraged to join the labor force. This increasing rate of maternal employment, has resulted in more families are turning to alternative child care arrangements, namely, child care centres and foreign maids. Studies have reported that these alternative forms of care will have varying effects on the social behavior of the child. Hence, this study focused on the diversity in the role of caregivers and the quality of the interaction between the child and caregiver and its effects on the social behavior of the children. This study focused on two theories on the topic of social development of children. The first, Erickson's psychosocial theory, traces the developmental tasks of children and their ability to adapt to the environment in the three of the eight psychosocial stages. The second theory, was Bandura's social learning theory, where learning of behavior occurs through the process of direct experiences and observing behavior of significant others or of symbolic models. The interplay of the evelopmental stages coupled with the environmental influences within a child's child care experience, will in turn influence the child's ability to acqmre social skills. The diversity in the two forms of child care arrangement in terms of the roles of caregivers and the differences in the physical setting in the care arrangement and documentation of past studies led to the premise that the The quasi-experimental research design for this study was set out to establish the effects of the care arrangements in the social behavior of the children. The results saw no significant results in the level of social skills in the children despite the diversity in the care arrangement. However, the results on the quality of caregiver -child interaction found that higher the quality of caregiver-child interaction, the more socially competent the children are. This findings led the researcher to discuss the implications at two level. The first level focused on the implications of the results on direct practice in the child care field in the context of Singapore. While the second level of discussion focused on the implications to Social Work practice in Singapore. Social policy issues were discussed and the approaches on preventive and developmental social work was also explored. In conclusion, this study have attempted to explore the effects of child care arrangements on the social behavior of children in Singapore. Although, the study yield little significant results, but one important factor which was in line with past studies on child care arrangements was the stress on providing quality care. Therefore, despite the differences in child care forms, the provision of quality child care services is of primary importance to development of the child's social behavior.