Odin Says ...

Daycare Benefits & Headaches

Jan 20, 2009

'Daycare Kids' by Paul Schultz, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License

So the summer is here, and everything is all right with the world, right?  For some, summer is the time when crucial decisions need to be made.  For working couples with a child nearing a couple years of age, summer may bring about a period of stress and headaches!

These couples are just about to start looking for a daycare for their child.  The task can be daunting, inasmuch as the parents have never left their child out of their presence yet.  They desperately want to pick the best daycare for their child, without disrupting their daily routines too much, for example by picking a center way out of their paths.

But are daycares the best option?  Are they even the only option?  Whatever happened to stay-at-home moms (or dads)?  Or even in-home caregivers or babysitters?  The question has been discussed and dissected over and over.  We are not here to reinvent the wheel.  This article simply provides some food for thought to parents considering a daycare center for their child for the first time.

In their defense, daycares offer a child the chance to mingle and interact with other children of its age range.  In a society that mixes less and less, where the atomic family keeps closing in on itself, a child that stays at home until primary school may have issues integrating and socializing.  Let alone the fact that most children waste a lot of time watching television nowadays, killing their brain cells, whenever the stay-at-home parent has something else to do.  Some daycare centers, on the other hand, organize weekly field trips or just simple outings, which prove very beneficial for a child's development.

In addition, for parents that only speak either English or French, many daycares are bilingual and can expose the child at an early age to both languages, thus preparing it for the future.

Another problem facing in-home caregivers is excessive attachment.  A child can become very fond of its caregiver, to the point of becoming dependent or even develop a parent-child relation.  This can turn traumatic for the child if the said caregiver decided to quit or change jobs, which can happen without warning.  In this aspect, a daycare can offer more stability while rotating its personnel, so the child does not get too attached to one person in particular.

Once the decision is made to enroll the child in a daycare, the battle really begins.  To start with, the Quebec system is understaffed, and the demand is high.  Most daycares start placing child applicants on waiting lists at the beginning of the summer, so starting the search early is key.

To close up, we wish every couple good luck with their search, and we only hope that SeekOdin can help out a bit in the search, exposing centers with bad reputations, and promoting those that do a good job.  From you parents out there, we ask you to help each other out by reviewing a daycare you have utilized in the past, so that future parents can learn from your mistakes, or benefit from good experiences you have had.

Keep posting!