We live in an age of working people. Most times your day starts at 5, at around 5:45 your having your morning coffee, and at 6:30 your on the road to work. Am I missing something? Kids! According to a 2014 census there are more than 16 million children living in the U.S. Yes, we live in an age of working PARENTS, even with the economy down parents try their best to find work, whether you are single parent working a double shift to keep food on the table. A two parent household, both who work a 9-5 job, or if your someone between the two, you most likely have kids of daycare age.These are some inside detail of Daycare centers you might want to know.
If your kid is 5 years old and younger, where are they during the day? Even if your child is school age, after school where do they go? Who are they with? The easy answer is, "Daycare" or some kind of "Academy". You march your son or daughter up to the front doors of these care centers trusting that your kids are in good hands. And you have a right to think that there promise of caring for your child is worth something! You cant help but wonder,though, what goes on at those centers outside of the scheduled activities? Is your kid is getting along with the other kids? Are they treated fairly by the other care givers? A few weeks ago, I was hired to work for a daycare in Houston TX., the women ended the interview by saying "you got the job, you start tomorrow". At that point i didn't realize that she never put me through a background check. I suppose I was just too distracted with the excitement of being hired. I was also very excited to work around people who shared the same love for kids that I had, and happy to be able to be apart of the growth of the kids. Unfortunately that was not the experience I received.
Lets first start off with lunch, since that was around the time that I clocked in. Without going into detail, they skimp on food, and cut out steps in preparation of these kids food to cut down on the centers time and money.I have to give it up to one of the kids parents that sent him with food.Of course this is a safer thing to do because then you know exactly what is going inside your child's belly. This may disgust a lot of you, but things got worst. During their free play time the kids will do what kids do and put toys in their mouth. During their nap time though, the "teachers" take the toys they saw the kids put in their mouths and noses and they would clean them off, which was good, except for the fact that they used the 409 cleaning spray! The same spray that says on the back that it is cautionary to children! So these people are taking dirty toys "cleaning" them and making them TOXIC. Imagine for a second that there is a 2 year old that comes to this daycare everyday, lets name this kid Jimmy. Now lets say Jimmy's favorite toy is this fake ice cream toy, and every time he gets this toy, he has it in his mouth. And every day during nap time these "caregivers" would spray this toy down with 409. This chemical has an ammonia compound that can trigger asthma attacks and cause kids that don't have asthma to have these attacks. Jimmy could get very sick from constant ingestion of this deadly chemical. This senseless act could be avoided if the care in caregiver was taken more seriously.
Next are the bathroom breaks. If you are a parent and you have a child in daycare, do you think about asking the director what the bathroom break protocol is for them? During potty breaks in this daycare, one "teacher" goes in to the restroom with 11 kids, boys and girls, an helps then use the rest room. I have 2 problems with that, number one being, why is there only one adult in the restroom with the kids. There have been too many incidences of child molestation for daycare's not to put into place the appropriate safe guards on this type of exposure. Secondly during these bathroom breaks, if the child has a bowel movement the "teacher" is required to wipe after the child, again a third party should be in these restrooms to insure the safety of your kids especially when it comes to contact with the kids privet areas. Now something that couples bathroom breaks, are when a child Pees on them selves. It is never okay to demean a child to the point of crying for peeing on themselves. On the second day of my working at this particular daycare I was doing paper work in the kitchen while the assistant director was lazily washing the dishes. A little girl walked in nervously biting her nails and says "I wet myself" very soft toned. The women looked at her and says "That just doesn't make any sense! Your too doggone old to be doing that mess! Go clean your self up! I don't even think you have extra clothes." the little girl replies still very quietly "yes my dad brought extra clothes with me". and the assist. director finishes by just telling the girl to "Go!" This is no exaggeration of the truth in any way, this hurt me and i wasn't even the person it was directed it. A few minutes later another "teacher" comes in and asks innocently "what did you said to the child because shes in the bathroom with the lights off crying" This was appalling to me for obvious reasons and also for 3 main reasons:
1. Full day childcare centers typically have kids 0-5 years old. Even at 5 years of age kids still have accidents. Its unavoidable!
2.Emotional stress is a frequent cause of daytime wetting. The incontinence may begin after a known stress, such as starting kindergarden or a new school, the death of a relative, or a family illness. -kidsgrowth.com
This is something embarrassing for a child, emotionally injuring a child more for that will only make it less likely to see positive results and will cause low self-esteem later on in life.
3. There could also be a urinary track problem that is typically seen in girls and if possible see a pediatrician to rule out serious problems
The last thing i want to address is something inexcusable! Parents can even be punished for doing this to there own kids, You probably guessed it, hitting kids.It is NEVER okay for this to happen to a child, especially in a daycare! I can not stress this enough. Three times I saw and heard a "teacher" hit a child, once with a shoe to the head because the child kept taking it off. On the second occasion i heard an adult hit a child and i was hopping it was just on the wrist (even though the wrist is not okay either, it was just so loud I had to hope it wasn't some where else). The last time was when a child ran out of the line to the restroom towards the "teacher" and she put her hand out and pushed him back to the floor.The sad part about this is that a lot of times kids tell there parents exactly what has happened. The problem that comes with this is that when kids are around 3 years old, they are just really formulating their words and full sentences plus they all have a very active and adventurous imagination unfortunately when parents hear "this teacher hit me" the parent chalks it up as just that, them not knowing what they are saying. In other occasions, like I was told on my 3rd and final day at the daycare is that, kids will tell their parents that they where hit and the parents will go up to the day care upset and the "teacher" will, in so many words say that, the child is lying, they may even say "I put them in time out so he\she may just be upset with me and wanted you to be upset with me to" Of coarse the parent will be more inclined to believe the Adult that supposedly knows better then a child with an overactive imagination. When this happens you may want to talk to your child and get more information and make sure they are not lying.
I press the need to remember that many other sites will try to portray all daycare, childcare, preschools, and academy's to be great and even a necessity, you as a parent need to make sure of the safety and well being of your child. If that means keeping them in the same daycare where you know and trust the care givers, moving them some where else, or taking them out completely and leaving them with a family member, home daycare, or baby sitter you have to make that decision.
in 1979 more than half of every child had a stay at home parent, now, just decades later less then 1 out of 3 parents are full-time caretakers for there kids.- according to center for progress of america website
There are 16 million kids from the age of 0-17 in the U.S
This means that several million kids are in these center and possibly exposed to these types of environments
Next week I will have another post up on what to look for when picking the right day care, what you should pack with your child and what questions you should ask the Director, your child, and yourself.
