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Chapter Eleven: Children's Experiences in the Family Child Care Environment

Up to this point, the description of family child care homes has focused on the interactions in the home from the perspective of the provider. Now it is time to look at family child care from the perspective of the children: What is a child’s day like? What activities do children get involved in? How much of the time are they monitored by an adult? Is the environment calm and psychologically safe for the child?

To describe the family child care homes from the child’s perspective, two kinds of measures were used. The first, called the Environment Snapshot, provides a time-sample of the range and types of activities going on in the home over a half day. Every twenty minutes, a record is made of: the activities; how many children and adults are involved in each activity; and critical events that signal stress or distress among children, such as hostile behavior among children, or conflict among adults who are present. The second, called the Child-Focused Observation, follows a single child at multiple points in the course of the day describing the child’s play, interactions with materials and with peers, and individual attention from the provider.

This chapter is based on data from the Snapshot, which provides information on the experiences of all children in the child care home. In Chapter 12, we examine the experiences of our focus child in the child care environment.

Children’s Activities

The Environment Snapshot was adapted and tested for use in family child care homes and across a range of ages as part of the current study. We used the data from the Environment Snapshot to answer the question, “What activities occur in family child care homes and which activities account for the greatest part of children’s experiences?”

Our analytic approach starts with the frequency of each activity in a home over 15 Snapshots. The frequency is a count of the number of times that activity was observed, multiplied by the number of children involved in it. (For example, if fine motor play occurred in four of the fifteen Snapshots, and each time one child was involved, the frequency of fine motor play would be 4 x 1 = 4.) Then, the frequency of each activity is expressed as a proportion of the total number of activity units possible in a home. (For example, if there are six children present for each of the fifteen Snapshots, the total number of child activity units is 6 x 15 = 90.) For this hypothetical child care home, fine motor play occurs in 4 of the 90 (4.4%) child-activity units.24 This approach means that the denominator depends on the number of children present in the home. Each child present in the home is counted as contributing one “activity-unit” to each Snapshot. For ease of reporting, results from these analyzes of the Snapshot data are described in terms of the proportion of activities.

The activities described on the Snapshot are assumed to represent the range of activities likely to be observed in an early childhood care setting. Some of the activities are more important than others, from the perspective of promoting children’s development. In some conceptualizations of children’s activities, learning and creative activities are defined as representing high-level activity, that is, activity that is likely to promote children’s development and learning.

Another conceptualization of children’s activities focuses on activities that are able to produce “rich play” (play that promotes learning) and that engage children fully. This conceptualization, based on work by Piaget and Vygotsky, groups activities as follows:

The richest activities [for children] in terms of complex activity evoked almost invariably have two characteristics. In the first place, they have a clear goal and some means (not always obvious) available for its attainment. And secondly they almost always have what for lack of a better name can be called “real-world feedback”—the child most often knows how he is doing, whether it is building, drawing, or doing puzzles without advice from another. He may seek praise or approval. But he knows his progress on his own. These are the “high yield” activities. Somewhat behind them are play involving pretending, play with small-scale toys, and manipulating sand or dough. And well behind these come informal and impromptu games, gross motor play, and unstructured social playing about and “horsing around.” These rarely lead to high–level elaboration of play. Much of the latter unelaborated play appears to be serving the function of release of tension –in physical activity or in sheer social contact and “chatting.” Bruner (1980, p 60)

In our analyses, we used a schema for grouping activities on the Snapshot that parallels Bruner’s definitions and was originally developed as part of our previous work on the preschool care environment.25,26 This schema for categorizing activities was adapted to be appropriate for the wider age range we would encounter in family child care.

The schema uses five composite categories used to describe children’s activities: These composites and their component activities are listed below, together with the composites and component activities used in the earlier study.

In the earlier observation study of preschool children in center-based care, children’s activities (described on a parallel Classroom Snapshot developed at that time for center-based care) were grouped into six categories, based in part on the work of Jerome Bruner.27 The categories represent differences in the extent to which the activities are planful, provide feedback on progress, and evoke elaborated play. Bruner named these activities “high-yield,” because they stimulate children’s cognitive development. A similar categorization of activities was developed for the activities described on the Environment Snapshot. As shown below, the groupings of activities are very similar. The exceptions are codes that are added to the Snapshot in family child care, such as codes that pertain only to very young children (child awake in crib) or codes that involve real-life chores that could occur only in homes.

Activities Construct	Observational Study of Center-Based Care for Low-Income Preschoolers	Current Study of Family Child Care Homes
Learning activities	Language arts	Numeracy, literacy, homework
	Reading	Reading
	Math activities
	Science activities	Science, nature
	Sewing, cooking, woodwork	Fine motor play (including puzzles)
	Table games, puzzles	[coded as part of pretend play in FCCH measure]
Creative activities	Art	Arts, crafts
	Music, dance	Music, dance
Exploration activities	Sand, water	NA
	Dramatic play	Dramatic play
Group activities	Circle time, planning, discussion	Group time
	Lunch, snack	Meal/snack
	Television, videos, computer	Television, videos, computer
Informal activities	Active play	Gross motor play
	Socializing	Socializing
	Field trip	Walk, field trip
	NA	Real-life chores
	NA	Child awake in swing, crib
		Non-constructive behavior
Routines	Physical care	Physical care
	Arrival, departure	Arrival, departure
	Transition between activities	Transition between activities
	Nap	Sleep, nap

Distribution of Activities

More than a third (34%) of children’s activities involved daily routines, including naps, toileting, hand washing, mealtimes, etc. Creative activities constituted 22 percent of the activities and was dominated by fine motor play. By contrast, learning activities constituted a small proportion (9%) of all the activities (Exhibit 11-1).

The distribution of activities was related to both the type of home and the ages of children present. In homes with all related children, there were more routine activities and more television-watching (Exhibit 11-1). In homes with more infants, routine activities were more frequent, while increased frequency of television-watching was observed in homes with more school-age children (Exhibit 11-2). These are linked rather than separate findings: homes with related children were more likely to serve infants and school-age children.

Occurrence of Critical Activities

There is increasing awareness of the importance of early learning activities and opportunities for children’s development and school readiness. We were sensitive to the fact that these activities could occur more informally in homes than in centers and the coding directions reflected that understanding. For this analysis, we focus on a subset of activities considered to be supportive of children’s cognitive and language development. The analysis asks about whether these activities ever occurred in a home (instead of the frequency of the activity).

We observed at least one of the four learning activities in 64 percent of homes (Exhibit 11-3). This means that in a third of homes, no learning activity was observed on the half-day of observation. Reading—either the provider reading aloud or children reading on their own—was observed in only 37 percent of homes. Math or other literacy activities (in addition to reading) were observed in only 38 percent of homes. Creative activities were more common—at least one creative activity was observed in 86 percent of homes. The most frequent creative activity was fine motor play such as playing with toy cars or small figures.

Learning activities occurred in fewer of the homes in which all children were related to the provider. Fifty-seven percent of these homes had some learning activities, compared with 69 percent of the homes in which no children were related to the provider (Exhibit 11-3).

Exhibit 11.1:

CHILDREN'S ACTIVITIES IN THE FAMILY CHILD CARE HOME

Average Percentage of Children's Activitiesa by Type of the Home

		All Children Related to Provider %	Some Children Related to Provider %	No Children Related to Provider %	All Family Child Care Homes %
Routine Activities		35.8	35.5	27.4	33.5
	Arriving, departing	1.7	1.6	1.4	1.6
	Meals, snacks	12.7	13.1	11.1	12.4
	Sleeping, resting	10.1	11.5	7.2	9.7
	Physical care, toileting	5.9	5.1	5.7	5.6
	Transition between activities	5.5	4.3	2.1	4.2
Learning Activities		8.7	7.8	8.7	8.5
	Science, nature	0.4	0.4	1.2	0.8
	Math, literacy	5.0	4.1	3.1	3.9
	Group time	0.5	1.2	1.3	1.0
	Reading	2.8	2.1	3.2	2.8
Creative Activities		21.3	21.1	22.5	21.8
	Pretend play, dramatic play	5.2	6.2	6.6	6.1
	Music, dance	1.0	2.7	1.9	1.9
	Arts, crafts	4.0	3.8	4.3	4.1
	Fine motor play	11.2	8.4	9.6	9.7
Television		21.4	17.5	14.0	16.9
	Television, videos, computers	21.4	17.5	14.0	16.9
Other Informal Activities		21.2	18.1	19.0	19.2
	Gross motor play	9.2	9.5	11.0	10.1
	Walk, field trip	0.6	0.5	0.9	0.7
	Informal conversations (not in activity)	4.5	1.9	1.9	2.6
	Real-life chores	2.5	1.1	1.0	1.4
	Child awake in crib, swing	1.1	2.5	1.9	1.8
	Non-constructive behavior	3.3	2.6	2.3	2.6
Sample size		147	144	262	553

a Percentage = A percentage of all child activities observed across all Snapshots for each home. Source: Family Child Care Home Observation: Environment Snapshot

Exhibit 11-2:

CHILDREN'S ACTIVITIES IN THE FAMILY CHILD CARE HOME

Percentage of Children's Activities a by Age Mix of Children in the Home

		Infant/ Toddler %	Infant/ Toddler/ Preschl %	Infant/ School-Age %	Preschl/ School-Age %	School-Age Only %	All Age Groups %	All Homes %
Routine Activities		32.1	36.5	34.5	23.2	21.8	36.1	33.5
	Arriving, departing	0.8	0.8	2.2	1.8	1.7	1.8	1.6
	Meals, snacks	12.4	13.3	12.0	11.5	10.9	12.5	12.4
	Sleeping, resting	8.4	11.1	10.4	3.5	3.4	11.3	9.7
	Physical care, toileting	7.8	6.8	6.7	2.5	3.0	5.5	5.6
	Transition between activities	2.7	4.6	3.2	4.0	2.8	4.9	4.2
Learning Activities		5.2	5.8	8.2	12.5	14.1	8.5	8.5
	Science, nature	0.7	0.7	0.5	0.8	0.6	.09	0.8
	Numeracy, literacy	1.8	1.8	3.1	8.4	9.8	3.4	3.9
	Group time	1.3	1.0	0.3	0.9	0.4	1.3	1.0
	Reading	1.4	2.3	4.2	2.5	3.3	2.8	2.8
Creative Activities		25.4	23.7	15.5	24.3	16.8	22.8	21.8
	Pretend play, dramatic play	4.2	6.3	3.9	8.3	3.6	7.1	6.1
	Music, dance	0.5	2.2	1.4	3.2	1.2	2.0	1.9
	Arts, crafts	2.7	3.8	2.5	4.8	5.7	4.4	4.1
	Fine motor play	18.0	11.3	7.7	7.9	6.5	9.3	9.7
Television		14.2	15.0	22.9	20.1	27.0	3.4	16.9
	Television, videos, computers	14.2	15.0	22.9	20.1	27.0	3.4	16.9
Other Informal Activities		23.1	19.0	18.8	20.0	20.2	28.4	19.2
	Gross motor play	10.1	9.4	8.6	11.2	11.0	10.2	10.1
	Walk, field trip	1.2	0.1	0.6	2.5	1.2	0.6	0.7
	Socializing (not in activity)	2.0	3.5	1.8	1.9	4.3	2.3	2.6
	Real-life chores	1.0	1.0	2.4	2.1	2.4	1.0	1.4
	Child awake in crib, swing	2.0	2.6	1.6	0.2	0.0	2.1	1.8
	Non-constructive behavior	6.8	2.4	3.8	2.1	1.3	2.2	2.6
Sample size		37	106	69	40	49	252	553

a Percentage = A percentage of all children's activities observed across all Snapshots for each home. Source: Family Child Care Home Observation: Environment Snapshot

Exhibit 11-3:

CRITICAL ACTIVITIES IN THE FAMILY CHILD CARE HOME

Occurence of Critical Activitiesa by Type of Home

		All Children Related to Provider %	Some Children Related to Provider %	No Children Related to Provider %	All Family Child Care Homes %
Learning Activities		57.1	63.2	69.1	64.4
	Science, nature	4.8	8.3	17.6	11.7
	Numeracy, literacy	35.4	44.4	35.1	37.6
	Group time	6.1	14.6	12.2	11.2
	Reading	31.3	30.6	44.7	37.4
Creative Activities		82.3	86.8	87.4	85.9
	Pretend play, dramatic play	43.5	53.5	57.6	52.8
	Music, dance	14.3	30.6	24.4	23.3
	Arts, crafts	30.6	36.1	42.4	37.6
	Fine motor play	59.9	71.5	70.2	67.8
Television		83.0	77.1	69.1	74.9
	Television, videos, computers	83.0	77.1	69.1	74.9
Sample size		147	144	262	553

a Percentage = proportion of homes in which activity observed at least one Snapshot. Source: Family Child Care Home Observation: Environment Snapshot

For many of the activities, the likelihood of their occurring was related to the ages of children in the family-care child home. For example, 38 percent of homes that served only infants and toddlers had some learning activity compared with two-thirds or more of homes that served some school-age children (Exhibit 11-4).

Children were observed watching television or videos in three-quarters of the homes, and in a greater proportion of homes with only related children. In almost all observations, at least one child was watching television.

Indications of Stress

On each Snapshot, indications of stress or unhappiness among the children were noted. These include children crying, listless or withdrawn children, children fighting, and children teasing or bullying other children. In addition, conflict among adults is noted, as a potential stress on children in the home. In general, distress was rare in the family child care homes (Exhibit 11-5). Even the most commonly-observed type of distress—children crying—occurred less than 10 percent of the time.

Crying was observed much less often in homes with all related children although listless children were observed more often in these same homes (Exhibit 11-5). Homes with infants tended to have more crying children, as might be expected (Exhibit 11-6).

Exhibit 11-4:

CRITICAL ACTIVITIES IN THE FAMILY CHILD CARE HOME

Occurence of Critical Activitiesa by Age Mix of Children in the Home

		Infant/ Toddler %	Infant/ Toddler/ Preschl %	Infant/ School-Age %	Preschl/ School-Age %	School-Age Only %	All Age Groups %	All Homes %
Learning Activities		37.8	50.0	65.2	67.5	71.4	72.2	64.4
	Science, nature	5.4	11.3	7.2	17.5	6.1	14.3	11.7
	Numeracy, literacy	13.5	18.9	37.7	45.0	57.1	44.0	37.6
	Group time	10.8	10.4	2.9	5.0	8.2	15.5	11.2
	Reading	10.8	33.0	47.8	35.0	36.7	40.9	37.4
Creative Activities		83.8	89.6	75.4	92.5	67.4	90.1	85.9
	Pretend play, dramatic play	40.5	50.9	36.2	57.5	32.7	63.1	52.8
	Music, dance	5.4	22.6	18.8	32.5	18.4	27.0	23.3
	Arts, crafts	24.3	32.1	24.6	45.0	32.6	45.2	37.6
	Fine motor play	67.6	70.8	50.7	60.0	51.0	75.8	67.8
Television		70.3	68.8	88.4	75.0	85.7	72.2	74.9
	Television, videos, computers	70.3	68.8	88.4	75.0	85.7	72.2	74.9
Sample size		37	106	69	40	49	252	553

a Percentage = proportion of homes in which activity observed at least one Snapshot. Source: Family Child Care Home Observation: Environment Snapshot

Exhibit 11-5:

STRESS IN THE FAMILY CHILD CARE HOME

Occurrence of Indicators of Stressa by Type of Home

	All Children Related to Provider %	Some Children Related to Provider %	No Children Related to Provider %	All Family Child Care Homes %
Any child crying	2.9	10.5	10.9	8.6
2 or more children crying	0.1	1.1	0.7	0.6
Any listless child	10.9	3.8	4.6	3.4
2 or more listless children	0.1	0.5	0.4	0.3
Any children fighting	2.4	4.4	5.1	4.3
Any children teasing other children	0.8	0.6	1.6	1.6
Any conflict among adults	0.2	0	0.1	0.1
Sample size	147	144	262	553

a Percentage = percent of Snapshots in which evidence of stress observed. Source: Family Child Care Home Observation. Environment Snapshot

Exhibit 11-6:

STRESS IN THE FAMILY CHILD CARE HOME

Occurence of Indicators of Stressa by Age Mix of Children in the Home

	Infant/ Toddler %	Infant/ Toddler/ Preschl %	Infant/ School-Age %	Preschl/ School-Age %	School-Age Only %	All Age Groups %	All Homes %
All child crying	7.1	10.3	4.7	3.0	1.4	11.6	8.7
2 or more children crying	0.6	0.7	0.3	2.1	0	10.3	0.6
Any listless child	1.3	1.9	3.2	3.5	2.1	4.6	3.4
2 or more listless children	0.6	0.2	0.2	0.6	0	0.5	0.3
All children fighting	5.2	4.3	1.7	2.7	2.0	5.6	4.3
All children teasing others	0.3	1.0	0.4	0.4	0.2	2.5	1.6
All conflict among adults	0	0	0.2	0.5	0	0.1	0.1
Sample size	37	106	69	40	49	252	553

a Percentage = percent of Snapshots in which evidence of stress observed. Source: Family Child Care Home Observation. Environment Snapshot

Provider Involvement

One way to think about the care environment is the extent to which providers are involved with the children in contrast to being engaged in activities not involving children, such as doing chores away from the children, talking on the phone, etc. The Snapshot offered two perspectives on provider involvement. First, if a provider was not involved with children at the time the Snapshot was recorded, this was noted as a “non-child” activity. If the provider was with children, her activity was coded either as involved or monitoring. (In the Snapshot, “involvement” did not necessarily imply interactive participation. A provider would be coded as involved if, for instance, she were sitting at a table with children while they painted.)

We observed a high level of provider involvement in children’s activities. Almost 70 percent of the time, providers were engaged with children in some activity (Exhibit 11-7). By comparison, in an earlier study of center-based programs, staff were actively engaged with children about two-thirds of the time.28 Provider involvement in children’s activities was higher in homes with no related children (Exhibit 11-7). Also, homes in which there were infants and toddlers had the highest level of provider involvement with children (Exhibit 11-8), perhaps because children this age require more physical care and more adult attention.

Exhibit 11-7:

PROVIDER INVOLVEMENT IN THE FAMILY CHILD CARE HOME

Provider Involvement in Children Activitiesa by Type of Home

	All Children Related to Provider %	Some Children Related to Provider %	No Children Related to Provider %	All Family Child Care Homes %
Provider is involved in activities with childrena	63.1	69.7	72.4	69.2
Sample size	147	144	262	553

a Proportion = average proportion of Snapshots in which provider is involved with children. Source: Family Child Care Home Observation. Environment Snapshot

Exhibit 11-8:

PROVIDER INVOLVEMENT IN ACTIVITIES IN THE FAMILY CHILD CARE HOME

Provider Involvement in Children's Activities by Age Mix of Children in the Home

	Infant/ Toddler %	Infant/ Toddler/ Preschl %	Infant/ School-Age %	Preschl/ School-Age %	School-Age Only %	All Age Groups %	All Homes %
Provider is involved in activities with childrena	74.0	68.3	70.1	68.2	65.1	69.6	69.2
Sample size	37	106	69	40	49	252	553

a Proportion = average proportion of Snapshots in which provider not involved in non-child activity. Source: Family Child Care Home Observation. Environment Snapshot

Comparison with Child Care Centers

Similar observations were conducted in a sample of child care centers that served low-income four-year-olds as part of a previous study.29 These data provide a point of comparison for the child care environment in our sample of family child care homes. In the discussion below, for purposes of comparability, we considered only the 398 family child care homes that served preschool-age children (either solely or in combination with other age groups). Homes serving only infants, toddlers and/or school-age children were not included in the analyses, since these homes might be quite different from classrooms in child care centers that have only preschool children.

One way of comparing homes and centers is in terms of the percentage of time that activities occur.30 As Figure 1 shows, the largest difference between family child care homes and center classrooms is in the frequency of the “goal-directed” activities, which include learning activities and fine motor activities. Preschool children in centers spent 31 percent of their time in these activities, compared with 18 percent of time for children in homes with preschoolers. Compared with children in centers, children in the family child care homes spent less time in goal-directed, art and music and exploration activities, and more time in routine and informal activities.

A second comparison can be made in terms of the proportion of settings in which an activity occurs at least once (Figure 2). Family child care homes and centers look quite different in terms of the proportion of settings with any learning activities (science, numeracy, reading, group time) and any exploration activities: With the exception of fine motor activity, more than twice as many centers as homes had at least one instance of these learning and exploration activities. Conversely, more than three times as many family child care homes as centers had some television-watching. Gross motor activity occurred in relatively equal proportions of homes and centers.

[D]

[D]

Summary of Findings The most common type of activities in these family child care homes involved routines such as naps, meals and snacks and physical care. These accounted for more than a third of activities. Another third of the activities involved play – creative activities such as pretend or dramatic play, working with puzzles or playing games, as well as active physical play. A small portion (less than 10%) of the children’s experience involved learning activities such as reading or being read to, math, science or nature activities. More than 60 percent of homes had no learning activities across the morning. Reading was observed in only 37 percent of homes. In the majority of homes, at least one child was watching television at each observation point. Children’s activities were monitored nearly all of the time, and providers were actively involved with children in their activities almost 70 percent of the time. There was little stress or conflict in the homes. Crying, listless or withdrawn children were rarely observed. The distribution of activities was related to the age mix of children in the home, which in turn is related to the type of home. Homes with younger children had more physical care activities, while homes with school-age children had both more learning activities and more television-watching. These type of activities were more frequent in homes with related children probably because they were more likely to contain both infants and school-age children. Homes with all related children had few learning activities but more activities in which the provider was directly involved in the activity with the children. Compared with caregivers in programs for preschool children, family child care providers spent less time in activities that promote cognitive and language development. Family child care homes had more television watching and more routine activities.

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