Browsing by Subject "päivähoito"

This study examines what kind of fears children have in day care (pre-school education) and how those fears are related to their age and sex. The study analyses the social interaction in a day-care centre and its relationship to children's fears. The theoretical framework of the study is based on children's fears, the factors causing fear as well as children's mental development. The theory part of the study evaluates how children behave while in day care and what kind of social interaction they have with each other. Previous studies on children's fears indicate that children regard day care as safe, and children's fears are part of their normal development. The research material of the study comprises a survey conducted among parents/carers whose children were in a public day-care centre in Keski-Uusimaa (Kuuma) region. The survey was carried out as part of the project Searching for Orientation, coordinated by the University of Helsinki as well as the municipalities of Kuuma region. The survey, to which parents/carers answered online after interviewing their children, was a structured feedback form including open questions regarding children's views on day care. According to the results of the study, children are seldom afraid in day care: 71 % of the children interviewed were not afraid in day care and 29 % of the children interviewed had sometimes been afraid in day care. Girls were more often afraid than boys. Younger children had more fears than older. Mostly, children's fears were related to social situations, such as relationships with friends and the fear of getting bullied. Day care itself can be frightening to a small child in terms of physical environment and new situations. Furthermore, meeting the staff in a day-care centre and longing for parents during the day may increase fear among children.

Attachment relationships to primary caregivers are one of the key aspects that make a difference when considering small children's overall emotional development. The effects of attachment have been studied widely and they have been acknowledged to have great influence in children's socio emotional development. Concurrently with the primary attachment relationships formed at home a child can have secondary attachment relationships with people who regularly take care of them. So children might also form secondary attachments to day care nurses. In Finland 63% of all under school aged children and 53% of all two year olds attend to day care. Full-time day care is physiologically stressful for most toddlers and early commenced long days in day care outside the home can predict anxious, unadapted and aggressive behaviour to rise in later years. All this taken into account it is obvious that the early care in day care and attachment relationships within are very meaningful to little toddlers. Based on scientific literature we know that by focusing on caregivers' sensitivity, homelike care environments and high quality of the overall care we can support the formation of secure attachment relationships and reduce the stressfulness of day care. In Helsinki University's Kenguru- project a primary nursing design was made to assist the actualization of these factors. This study is a part of that project. The aim of this study was to investigate if having a primary nurse design in day care will promote secure attachments towards the primary nurses. The hypothesis was that primary nursing design will increase attachment formation in day care. It was assumed that the children who got a primary nurse to look after them would make stronger bonds toward their caregiver than the children who didn't have a primary nurse to care for them. Attachment relationships were rated twice during the year with the Attachment Q-sort that has been found to be a reliable measure of attachment between a dyad. Study group consisted of 97 children in 14 different day care groups. The results showed that the primary nurse design did not have an attachment promoting effect throughout the whole group of children. When the subgroups were studied further one could see that it was the subgroup of the old children who had already been to day care that had a decrease in their attachment. All other subgroups had attachment relationship scores staying the same throughout the year. The results shown in this study are largely limited as there were only two groups where the primary nurse design could be executed as planned. Nevertheless this study gave some reference that small children under the age of three could really benefit a primary nurse design and being cared for in a smaller group. This supports the notion that children under the age of three could benefit homelike day care in smaller groups. Further studies are needed to really comprehend the influences of primary nurse design to children's socioemotional development in the long run.

The aim of this study is to investigate the stress levels of children who attend day care by examining the relations between the quality of the day care centre, child's individual characteristics and stress. This study is a part of a broader study concerning children's stress regulation and learning at the Department of Teacher Education in the University of Helsinki. The participants of the study were 33 day care centres in 5 towns in Southern Finland. The 340 children examined in the study were between the ages 3 and 7. The evaluation of stress levels was completed by stress hormone measurements. These measurements were obtained by saliva samples which were taken from the children (N=340) a total of five (N=5) times during a day. The measuring process was carried out both at home and at the day care centre. The samples were then frozen and analysed at the National Institute for Health and Welfare. The quality of the day care centres was explored from several aspects. However, the examination stayed on the micro level – i.e. the quality factors were evaluated empirically. In this process, the structural and process related quality factors in the day care group's learning environment were assessed. To do this, The Learning Environment Assessment Scale (Strain & Joseph 2004) was used as a medium of assessment. In this scale, the observed subjects are multifaceted. They include classroom arrangement, assessment of activity and transition situations, and the working methods of the pedagogues. A child's individual characteristics were assessed by exploring the child's temperament. The parents evaluated their child's temperament with the Children's Behaviour Questionnaire which has been created by Rothbart (2001). The results indicate that the children's stress hormone levels during the day followed the normal everyday cortisol cycle. On average, however, girls were more stressed than boys. High quality evaluations of the pedagogue team's functionality as well as consistency and clarity in the activity and transition situations reduced the children's stress levels. Children who had a tendency to react to the smallest of stimuli were most likely to have higher stress levels. Girls, whose temperament had been evaluated to not show anger and frustration, were more stressed on average. Also, boys whose activity level was evaluated to be high had stress levels above average.

Targets. Lately more emphasis than ever before has been given to bringing forth and taking into account children’s perspective in matters that concern them. It is also purpose of this study to give the voice to children and shed light on their perspective. This study is a part of extensive early childhood education development and research project, Orientaatioprojekti, operated by Helsinki University (Department of Teacher Education), ten municipalities in Keski-Uusimaa area and Hämeenlinna. The research is related to the day care quality evaluation (spring 2012). The main interest of the study was to examine things and situations children told they found unpleasant in day care center, also in relation to child’s gender and age. To better understand the results, the narrations and the consistency of the answers as well as children’s general satisfaction towards the day care were also examined. Methods. The research participants were 573 children, ages ranging from 1 to 8. Parents collected the data by interviewing. Two closed and one open-ended questions were analysed in this research and those questions dealt with children’s general satisfaction in day care center and what do they found unpleasant there. Parents recorded the answers to the web form and the data was then transferred to Excel software. Answers of the closed questions were examined through basic descriptive statistics. The unpleasant things and situations in the open-ended question were analysed through qualitative content analysis. Additionally, the appearance of the answers was also analysed. Used methods there were mostly outlined by researcher herself but some features of discourse analyse were also utilized. Results and conclusions. Most of the children stated that they feel mainly comfortable in day care center. The children mentioned different types of unpleasant things and situations and those were explained in various ways. Above all the challenges in peer relationships were on children’s mind. The peer group pointed out significant but the interaction was not always trouble-free. It seems to be important for children to practice and develop their social skills. Besides of these answers many children found the nap time as a single daily routine to be unpleasant. The number of nap time mentions varied a lot between different sexes and ages. There were also some other differences between the answers of children of different sexes and ages. For example, relatively many of the youngest ones did not answer to the open question at all.