How to Create a Timeline That Accurately Describes the History & Trends of Infant & Toddler Care

In ancient and medieval times, high infant mortality rates made the subject of child care one of survival. Today, with mortality rates low in developed nations, the focus has shifted to concentrating on a child's development. Creating a timeline that accurately reflects the history of child care requires researching the subject so you can describe how this transition occurred. By highlighting important child care breakthroughs, dates and people, you can create a timeline that illustrates the story of child care.

Instructions

• 1

  Determine what periods of history you want your timeline to illustrate. For longer timelines, break up history into segments such as antiquity, the Middle Ages, colonial and modern times. By breaking your timeline into segments, you can focus on the important developments in child care of each era.

• 2

  Research the topic of child care using primary sources, peer-reviewed articles and academic studies. When researching historical data, it's important that your information comes from reliable sources. The better your research, the more accurate and informative your timeline.

• 3

  Examine the effects a high infant-mortality rate had on societal views of child care. During the Middle Ages, 37.5 percent of all children would die before the age of 5, according to University of Exeter professor Nicholas Orme. Tell your readers what new child-care practices caused this number to decrease, and how parental attitudes changed when more children began surviving past infancy.

• 4

  Examine the breakthroughs in cognitive development that influence child care today. Outline the effect innovators such as Jean-Jacques Roussueau and Johann Pestalozzi had on changing the way parents raised their children.

• 5

  Outline the effect day care had on how parents treated the upbringing of their children. Day care began in Boston during the 1840s, and became sponsored by the U.S. government during the Great Depression. Discuss the social significance of parents entrusting their child's supervision to strangers.