I’m looking at daycare for my 2-year-old son. What type of questions should I ask when touring a daycare?
Here’s a long article from MeadJohnson
http://www.meadjohnson.com/professional/article28.html
Since Mrs. 45ACP (aka 38Super) ran a daycare for three years, the best advice is if you don’t get a good feeling about a particular place in the interview stage, leave immediately. When you do find a place you like, keep an eye out all the time, and if you ever do run into something you don’t like, make sure the director knows about it, and that something is done to address your problem. If you or your child is not happy, you need to find a better place as soon as you can. I can’t think of a state where daycares are not regulated, so get a copy of the regulations and make sure the place is doing all it can to comply.
45ACP
Go in and observe. Watch to see if they wash their hands after changing diapers or preparing food. This is very important. This is a question better suited to the “IMHO forum,” but I don’t feel like moving it right now. - Jill
I agree, how it “feels” is really important. Your gut instinct will seldom be wrong.
Look for a program that you like. At my house (licensed for 12) I ran a program that I hoped was like the kids would get at home. It was not educationally based. We made cookies and grew veggies, discussed what color things were and how many we had. It wasn’t for folks who wanted their toddler “educated”, but it was a warm, nurturing place that kids liked coming to and parents were comfortable with.
The board seems to be running a little better, so I’ll move this over to IMHO.
We have our 2 year old in a place very much like dragonlady’s, although there are only 5 kids right now. I third the opinion that gut instinct plays a big part. We really didn’t care much for the bigger “professional” places we toured. They washed their hands plenty, but they were just too big to give a lot of individual attention to the younger kids.
Things to ask about are security precautions, methods of discipline, nap routines, what food, if any, will be provided, what the maximum number of kids will be and what are their age ranges, will they help with potty training. That sort of thing.
Other good indicators are how long the person/place has been in business and what are the rates of turnover for caregivers, if applicable. Some places also have hotlines you can call to get a list of any complaints that have been filed, but this is only for bigger centers.
You should also ask for references from other parents, especially those with a child of the same age.
As far as finding a place goes, we found our first caregiver through the priest at our church and the second one came recommended by the preschool our 4-year-old attends. Preschools and kindergartens are great sources of info, since a lot of the kids are just leaving daycare.
Avoid the ones that are run by satanic cults and have extensive tunnel systems.
These questions are important if you are a working Mom:
[ul][li]What is the latest pick-up time?[/li][li]What is the penalty for late pick-ups?[/li][li]What is your policy on kids with colds? (some places won’t accept them and you miss work)[/li][li]Will you give medications if needed?[/li][li]What supplies do I have to schlepp over here every day? (diapers, wipes, formula, etc.)[/li][/ul]
I know it’s important to find a place that’s good for your child, but you want to avoid places that will torture you. Try to ascertain how flexible they are too.
I would ask to observe the class your child would potentially be in. Observe the way the teacher interacts with the children and the way the children interact with each other. Your child’s experience will be greatly shaped by the other children in the class. Ask who will watch the children after the regular teacher goes home. Ask if it is possible to speak to a parent of one of the other children in the same class.
I’ll repeat is because it can’t be stressed enough: You have to feel good about your kid being there. There isn’t necessarily one right way to provide daycare–some caregivers like to provide lots of structure, others like to provide freedom, for example. You have to feel comfortable enough with it that you feel good about dropping your child off every day.
Obviously hand-washing is a universally good thing. Providing good meals and snacks is another. Also, exercise and outdoor time. Other than that, it’s real variable. The things I love about the home-based daycare my son is in are the things that would drive my friends (whose daughter is in a center) crazy.
There are some good resources on the web for helping you figure out what sort of place might be right for you.
Here’s another funny thing I discovered: the kind of person who has the patience and love and temperament required to dedicate their lives to the strange and wonderful world of full-time child care may very well not be the kind of person you’d choose for a friend. So don’t let your adult-to-adult reaction to a caregiver color your evaluation of her (or him) as a potential caregiver. I mean, obviously if you loathe the person or find them creepy or get a bad vibe, that’s something important to listen to. But otherwise… let’s put it this way. If I were trapped in an elevator with the daycare provider we hired, I’d go completely ape within an hour and try to throw myself down the shaft. But I trust her with my son’s life and development 5 days a week without batting an eye. She’s just too damned [i[nice* for Cranky old me.
**The teacher in me begs to differ.
**Chemistry! Science! Home Ec!
**Science! Botany! Biology!
**Art! English!
**Math!
Sounds like a great place, dragonlady! Just because the kid weren’t strapped to desks doesn’t mean they weren’t learning. Playing is learning for young children.
As has been said before, go with your gut instinct. Seems like a fun and loving place? Go for it.
Something seems “not quite right”? Forget it and find another place.
I completely agree. But I was horrified to dicover that most parents wanted sit down lessons for their 2 YO! Workbooks and blackboards and structured lesson plans. They wanted tell their friends that little Bosco could read, or was learning math. Way too much pressure for the toddler set, IMHO.
We have our kids in a good center as opposed to a home daycare. I like this arrangement because:
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If daycare provider quits, I’m not stuck, and my kids don’t need to transistion to a new place.
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If daycare provider gets sick or goes on vacation, I don’t miss work.
But others perfer home daycare, which is fine.
Look for clean. Look for teachers busy supervising kids. Look for a good mix of structured play and free play (they shouldn’t be doing math, but they should be encouraged to sit quietly through a book, or color when everyone else does). Look for teachers who truly enjoy children. Look for decent security - a center shouldn’t be letting just anyone through the front door, and should be arranged in such a way that if someone does follow a parent through the door, they have to pass someone who will stop them, playgrounds should be fenced, etc.
I find it amazing at my center that the schoolage teachers know my kids names, and know that I’m their mom - my kids are two and three.