Why Parenting and Child Care are Not Tough Nuts to Crack in Sweden
Child care in Sweden is an important commitment that parents must carry out, even if both go to work in order to provide more than just basic household needs.Fortunately for Swedish parents, their government recognizes the difficulty of having to reconcile the demands of work with the need to provide quality family life.
How Does Sweden Support Swedish Parents in Their Parenting and Child Care Endeavours
Although Swedish citizens have to pay high taxes and social insurance, there are national policies in place to help family’s meet child care needs at the lowest cost possible. Sweden’s comprehensive support for parents include:
1. Monthly child allowance for children up to 16 years old’
2. Free healthcare for children, starting from the mother’s conception of a child, through prenatal checkups childbirth and infant care.
3. Free transportation for children, including parents who board buses with a pram in tow.
4. Paid parental leave of up to 480 days split evenly between parents. During the first 390 days, a couple receives as much as 80% of their regular salary. In the remaining 90 days, a commensurate flat rate will be given. However each parent has to take a parental leave, which means every Swedish father has to take time off from work so he can take part in raising the children starting from the infancy stage.
5. Parents can also arrange for reduced working hours if needing more time to look after young children.
6. There are alo policies that ensure high quality yet low cost out-of-home or out-school-day care facilities.
Responsibility of Parents to Their Children Grow up in a Safe and Nurturing Environment
In light of the extensive support being provided by the Swedish government, parents are obligated to make certain that their children are raised in a safe and nurturing physical environment. Part of their responsibility is to support their infants and toddlers with spaces in which their overall physical well-being is safeguarded against possible diseases and potential accidents.
However, child care experts give advice that while parents create physical spaces they must also see to it that such spaces also promote proper cognitive, social and emotional development. Mainly because we as parents, tend to be obsessed with our child’s safety we forget that part of their nature is to explore and unknowingly take risks.
In Sweden, it is common for parents to to place a babyvakt inside a child’s room, especially for newborns. Swedish parents take to heart their child care responsibilities, it’s important for them to place an electronic gadget that acts as a babysitter. The device, which in other countries is called a baby monitor. It communicates to parents, any sound or movement that could alert them that their baby is awake and would need their attention any moment.
Other types of baby guards or babysitter include HD cameras that many parents prefer as they can immediately have a visual view of their baby’s actual conditions.
