High Quality Child Care Makes A Difference

When it’s time to select child care for your children, it’s important to spend some time researching to find the best place possible. A child’s formative years will affect them for the rest of his or her lives. The first years of life are when trust is established, when children become open to learning and when their brains are expanding and absorbing every detail in the environment. It’s crucial that parents spend extra time selecting the place where their tots will spend hours a day while Mom and Dad are working. Here are some things to think about:

- License: Having a daycare center that has a license awarded by the state will ensure that the facility has met certain stipulations. The building and playground will have passed a safety inspection, the lesson plans will be checked over and the staff to child ratio will have to align with the laws in your region. Inspectors will come out to check out the place periodically in order to ensure that rules are being followed and kids are being well taken care of.

- Check for complaints: The licensing board will also have records of whether other parents have turned in complaints about the daycare you’re checking out. Look these complaints over. This information is public knowledge.

- Teacher qualification: Ask the director of the child care about their teachers’ qualifications. There is a wide range of rules regarding this aspect. Some of this will depend on the state and some will depend on the individual center. Ideally, the teachers should be high school graduates and have some college training in early childhood education. Even better, the head teachers should be graduates holding two or four year degrees in ECE.

- Observation: Nothing will tell you more than sitting for a while in the classroom while the kids and teachers are in action. Look at the materials on the shelves. Are they well kept and interesting? Watch how the staff and kids interact with each other. Is there a respectful and kind attitude? There will always be incidents that happen such as a child crying or a squabble between children. What you’ll want to watch is how it’s handled. Do the staff members step in a handle it in an effective and compassionate way or do they yell at the kids or ignore them? What is the general emotional atmosphere of the class? Is there a feeling of happiness and joy or is there one of angst and fear. Pay attention to these clues. Mothers and fathers have intuition for a reason.

- Cost: While cost shouldn’t be a number one deciding factor, it will have to be looked at to make sure the monthly or weekly tuition payment is affordable. If you have more than one child, ask about sibling discounts or whether there are discounts for paying in advance.

The nursery school, preschool or child care center where your youngsters spend their days must be high quality in order to give them a great start on the road to learning. Do some research and you’ll find the right place.