Every parent wants the safest and most reliable child care center available for their kids. It is very important to do your research and learn as much as you can about the place where you will be dropping your kid off for the entire day. Not only are there the traditional dangers that lurk behind the scenes of daycares, such as abuse, but there are other dangers such as improper socializing and wasting crucial developmental skills.
Although many parents will be picky about where they trust to leave their children, if they all consider these key factors when they are looking for a great place to look after their kids, they can’t go wrong:
Table of Contents
1 Operational Hours
Probably one of the most important factors is whether or not they operate during the hours of your schedule. It is crucial that the hours of operation of your chosen daycare are compatible with your scheduled hours. Regardless of whether you are holding a position with specific hours, or you are tied up with other commitments during that time of day that that child will be in the childcare facility.
Some child care facilities will be open and operational as early as 5:00 AM and as late as 7:00 PM in order to be able to accommodate parents with crazy, untraditional work hours. Other facilities will only be available for the hours that are convenient for them. If a facility is only willing to take care of their own convenience, how much do you think they would be willing to care for your kids?
If the facility is only open for regular business hours, and you work different hours, you might want to look for another place that has the flexibility to accommodate you and your schedule. You would never want to risk the possibility of putting your child at risk because of mix-matched hours and an unyielding schedule.
2 Schedule of Activities
It is extremely important for children that are developing mentally to have adequate positive mentally stimulating activities. It is a good idea to ask what the children will be doing all day when they are in the center.
Children of different age levels will benefit from different activities. It is important to get a clear understanding of what the children will be doing, what kinds of learning activities they will be engaged in, and whether or not they will be participating in any of these activities with children that are not in the same age group.
If the curriculum for the day shows that your child will be participating in activities that will not only challenge them intellectually but will also help them to interact and socialize properly with other children you may have found yourself an acceptable child care center. If there are no activities, or there is no plan to teach the child anything but how to sit and wait for parents to show back up, you might want to look for a better daycare center. You want to find one that supports your child’s growth as opposed to supporting their own financial gain.
3 The Number of Other Children
Nobody, including your child, wants to be stuffed into a cramped building that is overly filled with other people. Any respectable child care facility will not try to fill their premises with more kids than they can handle.
Too many other children will mean less attention for your child. If you send your child to a daycare center that does not have the capacity to properly care for them, you will be doing that kid a huge disservice.
However, if the establishment is big enough to accommodate a large number of children and has at least one staff person for every 5 children it is a different story. The ratio of children to workers is often an elemental factor that can be regarded as appropriate if the numbers are in an even fashion.
In other words, if there are 10 or more children for every one staff member, you can bet that that place is going to be somewhat of a madhouse. If there are only 5 children for every one staff member there will be much more attention to go around for the children and the whole place might be a little calmer and better controlled. If there are 20 children to every staff member with a total of 100 children you can safely assume that the place is an accident waiting to happen.
Find a childcare center that has a fair number of workers compared to the number of children and you will find a well-balanced facility that has the needs of the children in high regard.
4 Cleanliness
The last thing that you would want to do is leave your child in a disgusting facility that is filled with dirt and litter. Take a look around the facility and look for signs of uncleanliness and filth.
Of course, you cant expect an overly clean facility that is filled with children all day long. Kids are messy. The regular disarray and disorganization will be present in just about any facility that you visit, especially if there are children there at the time. However, there are certain degrees of filth that you must find unacceptable.
Litter of food and other biological substances around the floors and eating areas where the children congregate and eat meals is fowl. Food and scraps of food will attract pests such as cockroaches, flies, mice, and even rats.
Children that are among the participants in the facility should be clean and well kept too. Other children that are filthy and not well cared for can carry parasites such as bedbugs and lice. They can also carry other, more scary diseases that they contract from living in filthy environments such as Impetigo and other ailments.
If an establishment that claims to be attentive to the needs of your child does not have enough attention to keep themselves clean and safe, it might not be a viable solution to entrust your child’s safety.
5 Credentials and References
Of course, you don’t want to leave your kids with just anybody. Why not merely invite a stranger in your own home to watch them all day while you work without screening them first? It is critically important to thoroughly check out any place that might even consider leaving your child or children.
First of all, it is highly recommended that the daycare you choose is permitted by law by the county and state that you live in. If there are no posted credentials, ask for them and make sure that the place can legally operate.
Seek out references and referrals to the childcare facility that you are considering. Any establishment that has been in operation for a while will have some sort of reputation, either good or bad. In most cases, online platforms such as Yelp or Google my Business will have an assortment of ratings that you look over.
Conclusion
If you want what’s best for your children, you will go the extra mile to put them into care that will be the most beneficial to them. Of course, many people only need a decent place to keep an eye on their kids while they work, however, it is important to keep in mind that young children need a certain level of attention to keep them out of trouble and to help them learn how to be human beings.