What benefits do daycare centers offer? Care while you're at work or school is a primary plus of child care. But it's not the only reason to choose an early learning environment for your toddler. Take a look at the daycare-related benefits that can help your child to learn, grow, and develop in new ways.

School Readiness

Even though your toddler won't start kindergarten for a few years, it's time to start preparing for this transition. Younger children are ready to build a foundation for future learning—and daycare can help. 

While different centers use different curriculum plans, most early learning programs include content areas such as early literacy (reading, writing, and language/communication), math, social studies, science, and the arts. The early childhood educator will create daily activities, lessons, and explorations that encourage toddlers to develop basic skills, improve abilities, and prepare for the next step in the educational process.

Create a Routine

Schedules do more than help you to organize your child's life. A regular routine provides the growing toddler with a sense of stability and predictability. This can help them to feel more comfortable during transitions. Along with the structure a schedule provides, the regular routine of the daycare day can also help young children to learn basic math concepts (such as sequencing) and build cognitive skills. 

Build Independence

Toddlers are ready to start acting independently in many ways. Even though your child can't make themselves lunch, fully dress themselves, or set up their own art projects yet, they can begin to build the skills that will lead to independence. 

The child care center environment provides a way for toddlers to start caring for themselves (without the help of mom or dad). While the teacher will still constantly supervise the toddlers in the classroom and assist them as needed, they will also allow and encourage the children to engage in basic self-care activities. These could include self-feeding, age-appropriate dressing activities, washing their hands, or other similarly easy tasks.

The early childhood program setting also provides toddlers with the chance to make choices. Whether the children need to choose between art and music, get to select their own markers/crayons, or have the choice to page through books or build with blocks, these decisions give young toddlers the opportunity to develop problem-solving, critical thinking, and independence-related skills. 

To learn more about how your toddler can benefit from a child care center, talk to the director or the early childhood educator about the benefits of each individual program.