The early childhood field presents an endless variety of topics for an educator to research. After doing some soul-searching, I decided to look more into how participation in a family child care setting effects a child's performance throughout their educational career. Within this topic, I would like to explore possibly how having multiple siblings in the same family child care setting can affect a child's educational performance. I am curious to see if children who have siblings with them in the same "classroom" perform better in school because they were comforted by the fact that their siblings were learning along side them during their early childhood years. I would also like to examine if a child's attendance in a family child care particular program has an effect on their performance during their educational career. Maybe children who participate in family child care programs on a full-time basis perform better than their part-time peers because they are accustomed to the routine of the program and are comforted by the "home away from home" atmosphere. Another direction that I would like to take my studies is determining if the background of the administrator (owner) affects the overall performance of the child. I wonder if program administrators that have a strong background in early childhood education (college education focused in the field, along with years of experience working in the field) establish programs that promote a stronger educational growth in the children that participate in their programs compared to administrators with little or no previous early childhood training.
What led me to my research topic was the fact that I am a new owner of a family child care program in my community. I have a Bachelor's degree in Early Childhood Education and I am working on my Master's degree through the Walden program. I also have a few years working in various early childhood settings. After the birth of my second daughter, I decided that I wanted to be able to stay home with my children, but still provide an opportunity to help foster the educational development of the children in my community.
Through the participation in the simulation project for this course, I am hoping to further understand the research process so that I can proceed with conducting research about the effectiveness of family child care programs. I know that there is often a misconception that family child care providers are basically babysitters, but that is not true. Many family child care programs offer strong educational opportunities for the children participating in the programs while maintaining the loving, home-like environment that many parents find comforting. As I progress through the assignments, I am learning that a lot of the terminology sounds similar, forcing myself to look more closely at the terms so that I can apply the correct terms to the proper research concepts. I know that as the course progresses and we learn to apply more of the research methods, the terminology will become easier to understand. I am looking forward to developing this part of my professional training so that I can become a stronger participant and contributor to the early childhood field.
Hello Tiffany,
ReplyDeleteFirst of all I want to say congratulations on birthing your second daughter and being a new owner of a family child care program in your community. You have picked a good topic and I like the way you brought out some great points to focus on and explore. I agree with you about the misconception that family child care providers are basically babysitters.I see that you are going to be a busy person. I wish you the best with being a mother while accomplishing your educational goals along with having an effective family child care program.
I look forward to reading more about child care settings. I must admit that until I began to observe family child care programs in an earlier EDU class, my perception was that it was less effective than a centered program. I was pleasantly surprised that I was wrong. The programs that I visited were well organized, structured and dedicated to educating. I learned that the educator makes the difference and not the setting.
ReplyDeleteThank you LaCasa and Felicia for your comments! I will have to admit that if I did not have prior experience working in various child care settings that the quality of the program that I am operating now would probably not be very effective. I am pulling a lot of prior knowledge and activities into running my family child care business and it has helped me tremendously with connecting with the children and gaining the trust and respect of the parents. I know that there are several family child care programs in my community, so I am looking forward to possibly observing in those programs to gain some fresh ideas and evaluate the effectiveness of my own program compared to the others.
ReplyDeleteTiffany, you are exactly correct when you mentioned that early childcare has an endless amount of topics to choose from. I love early childhood development. There is nothing greater than learning about young children and educating them for their futures. Tiffany you have chose some great sub topics to research. I am sure that you will have fun while conducting your research. I have 2 sets of twin neighbors who are boys. Their parents too thought they the boys would do great learning and growing in the same classroom year after year but they were surprised that it did not work out for the boys. Eventually they separated the boys and placed them in their own classrooms. This was a better arraignment for my neighbors. Bothe sets of boys would get teased about being twins and often they goofed around in class instead of paying attention to their teachers. Again, you sub topics are great and have fun exploring them.
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