Choosing the right daycare for children to start their brightened school life

Understanding child development is a must for parents since they play the most important role in maximizing a child’s potential and monitoring a child’s progress. If the child reaches a developmental milestone or they gain expected skills at their age, it means that the child has a normal pace of development. However, parents can’t always be with their children at all hours of the day due to work or other factors. Then, who will take responsibility for monitoring child development and improving their basic skills at this time? It will most likely be a professional caregiver or a teacher in a daycare center. That is why choosing a suitable daycare for kids is really important.

Daycare or a facility for infants and toddler is the most significant place to take care of children since the early stages of childhood are the foundation for their life. In fact, if children have a good development at the beginning, they will have the potential to enter into a higher level with relative ease. As shown in most research, children, especially from the ages of 6 months to 4 years, benefit greatly from learning in a daycare environment, due to its quality caregivers and teachers, effective instructions, social lessons, and school’s philosophy.

These are the most important factors that parents should consider when choosing a daycare for young kids;

1. Safety is the first priority.

Safety for children is the first factor that should be considered. Safety also involves a clean, tidy, organized, and healthy environment. Children should be physically and emotionally secure during school even in their nap time. Teachers should be able to see children every moment of every day and should be fully trained in CPR, first aid, and necessary safety guidelines. Thus, the ratio of teachers to children should not be too high. Ideally, there should be one teacher or caregiver per four infants, and one teacher or caregiver per six older toddlers. These ratios will ensure that children of all abilities, backgrounds, and experiences will be in safe, warm, friendly, and supportive classrooms.  

2. Quality teachers are also the key.

Almost every daycare can be safe enough for kids, but not every daycare will have quality teachers. Parents should be able to take the time to communicate with teachers whenever parents are concerned about their children's development. Whether that means face-to-face conversations at the front gate, daily or weekly handouts that provide the child’s progress and activities or all of the above, parents have to choose the school that offers the kind of communication that feels right. Moreover, the head of the school or director should have an understanding in early childhood education, while teachers should specialize in early childhood development.

3. School’s philosophy matters.

The method that the daycare is using to teach and take care of the kids and how well the teachers understand that method should be a factor as well. Once parents believe in the same philosophy as the daycare and understand how teachers teach a lesson to kids and raise the kids in an appropriate way, parents will need to work cooperatively with that philosophy at home in order to develop the child’s skills in the same way. Coordinating a unified teaching philosophy between home and school helps create a more cohesive learning environment for children to develop. That is why it is important for both teachers and parents to understand and implement the school’s teaching philosophy. 

More and more children are spending time each day in a daycare environment where they can thrive with teachers or caregivers who understand how to promote their growth and development appropriately. However, parents still need to be responsible for taking care of children at home so that they will flourish and grow into happy and healthy children.

By Fern Janrana B.Ed