Daycare: Family Based vs Centre Based
It was a bit bloody hot today wasn’t it? Assuming you live in Victoria, if not, just take my word for it: it was hot and humid and mighty unpleasant but then we got a nice tropical storm which whipped up a cool breeze and brightened up the mood.
In other news, our kids had their first day with their family day carer here today. As I might have previously mentioned, I reluctantly went and got myself employed part time which means the kids need someone to look after them. At first we put them in a local day care centre but they hated it so Steph asked around and found us a decent family day carer (being in child protection is sometimes handy because you know people who you can trust with your kids as well as the downside of knowing about all of the people who are a danger to your kids).
I used to think that once Sol was talking, he would be able to tell us all his problems and things like this would go so much smoother. I’m coming to realise that this is not the case. It turns out kids can’t always articulate or have the reflective capacity to give you an evaluation of their situation.
So in this case, Sol was saying that he didn’t like day care. “It goes for too long”, “I go to the door a lot to see if you’ve come to pick me up”.
But how do you know that this isn’t just his reaction to being in day care in general. Surely he would say this no matter what day care arrangement he had because what he wants is to be home with his parents. So while I felt sad that he didn’t like day care, I tended to just ignore the problem. He wasn’t able to specifically tell me why he didn’t like it or to really explain what the problem was.
However, Steph was a bit more critical and I suppose things came to a head when she was having to go into the centre to pick up other peoples kids in her child protection work. Hence the move to family day care today.
Well, what a difference it was today with both the drop-off and the pick-up. We walked into a house where it was relatively quiet and our day carer gave us her full attention while we were there. I chatted with one of the other kids there and helped Sol get to know him and by the time I left, one of the other kids had taken Sol and Flossy under his wing and they were actually happy for Steph and me to leave. Flossy cried for about ten seconds when we handed her over which was a big contrast to still being able to hear her as we left the building at the centre.
When I picked them up, Sol was pretty relaxed and watching a bit of TV while Felicity was chilling with a milk arrowroot and smiling happily. Contrast this with when I usually walk in to the centre and Sol is just standing at the door waiting for me while Felicity is rocking back and forth staring with red rimmed eyes.
On the way home from day care, Sol informed me that he liked that day care and that it wasn’t too long and neither did he wait at the door. He also volunteered that he liked how he and Felicity weren’t separated.
So there you have it, oils aint oils and day cares aint day cares. Unfortunately I can’t say that family day care is always superior to centre based. With family day care, you can have issues if your carer is sick or has a holiday and it is even harder to get one that has the days you need. You also have to be in the know a bit to get the top-notch carers. There are some pretty slack carers about and others who just don’t get it. The whole reason we didn’t get a family day carer as our first option was because we felt it was rare to find a good one but our lesson learned today was that at least with our kids, it’s worth making the effort to track down some good day care so you can have a little peace of mind while you’re off being a wage slave.
