Day Care Centers – A Parent's Concern

Although day care centers and child care providers seem to be as needed today as parents themselves, there is still a lot of hesitation in the parents’ part to let their kids go to these establishments. For one, there is growing concern over recent studies that children who attend day care centers seem to develop an aggressive attitude. Also, children, researches say, seem to get more easily distressed when they have attended child care centers.

Now, what’s a parent to do under these circumstances? It is highly improbable that the mother or the father will quit her/his job and be a stay at home parent. This would pose a greater risk, not only to the child but the whole family and its finances as well. It is also rare to find a willing and available relative for the much needed family care and most nanny services are way too expensive to even consider. A baby sitter might do but most homeowners are not too comfortable with someone else in their own private abode.

Your job then, as a child care provider, is to assuage parental concerns on the physical and psychological well being of their child. How do you do this?

1. Make sure that parents can clearly see your license and permits to operate displayed in your offices. Legalities are very assuring and for a parent to know that you have complied with the law is an unspoken rule.

2. Image is very important when persuading parents to enroll their kids in your center. Image is seen in a lot of things; how your center looks is one. A facility that is clean (organized is not too expected since you d have children running around) and free of dangerous equipment, colorful, and light and airy would definitely be a plus.

3. Another important factor in the image department is you, together with all your other staff. Of course, parents would not expect you to be in business attires, but appropriate clothing is a must for you to look like children’s caregivers and not just ones who pretend to know how to care for children. Make your staff wear light to pastel colored shirts that are uniform with each other, jeans, and rubber-soled shoes. You, as the owner, may want to wear something more differentiated.

4. Have everyone working in your facility wear identification cards. Aside from telling the parents that your staff knows how important it is to be recognized, you also would be less worried that unwanted people may come in your facility undetected.

5. The ratio of enrolled children to the caregiver is a very crucial factor. Having too many kids per care provider would mean less time spent and fewer arms held out for each kid. If for example, 3 kids are crying, how many can one care provider hug and comfort? Signs of distress are now being traced back to not being given attention promptly. Aside from that, one care provider can only focus on one pair of fighting children, she will need help when another argument breaks loose on the other side of the room.

See: How to start a day care