So back to my regular life
We went and checked out a preschool for Madison yesterday. It was kind of spur of the moment. When we were walking to the doctor’s last week (was it last week?) we passed this daycare center and I noticed they had “preschool” on the sign, too. It’s a huge campus, part of a church, so I wondered if they had both programs there. Noah’s old awesome preschool had both preschool and daycare (housed in different buildings) so I went home and looked them up on the handy internets.
Looking at the web site, the program was definitely worth considering. It looked a little more structured than I prefer (although that was for the pre-k kids and who knows where we’d be by pre-k time) but they are working for NAEYC accreditation and I wrote the director to hear more about that. Also it was a tad more expensive than I’d like but for great preschool, I’m willing to work with that. The two biggies for me were (and are):
- walkability (if our van dies — and it will — we’re not replacing it so we’d like to be less car-centric);
- diversity (there were actual black children and black teachers on the playground! Awesome!)
So we made an appointment to check it out, what the heck, right? I had one pretty major concern going in, however, which is that they actually have a religious curriculum in place. Now lots of daycares and preschools attached to churches don’t but this one does (”Non-denominational!” the director assured me but non-denominational does  not mean Jewish). Still the diversity factor is really high on my charts so I figured I’d check it out and at least make the decision with all the info instead of knee-jerking myself (and my kid) out of a potentially great preschool because I’m freaked by the Jesus stuff.
Well, we went there yesterday and I was impressed by the facilities. Clean, well-stocked, open and encouraging. The assistant director was friendly and forthcoming. The halls were filled with fingerpainting and other art work. Good so far. But then we walked into the (clean, well-stocked, open and encouraging) toddler room and I took one look at the teachers and knew this wasn’t a preschool program. I knew it was a daycare with a preschool program, which is totally different. How did I know just by looking at the teachers? Because I am myself a former daycare teacher and I know the look. It’s a look that says, “It’s only 9:30am. I have eight more hours to go. My god, I’m tired.”
We visited all the rooms and the teachers in the 3-year old room had more of a long-timer daycare look to them. They were older, clearly career-committed to the kids. The toddler teachers (both assistants — the head teacher was running an errand), well, I’d be surprised to hear that they’re still there next year. They just had that look.
The kids were great. They looked happy and confident. The ratios were small enough that nobody seemed overwhelmed. For a daycare, it was pretty good. I mean, if you can get behind their curriculum, which was quit a bit more academic than the web site or the director had me thinking before-hand. (I attribute this to my own assumptions — I think they’re way less academic than a lot of daycares and I think that they were doing their academics in a pretty developmentally appropriate way. It’s just not my cup of tea.) In short, a great place for full-time care IF their values are your values but I really don’t like it when part-time daycare gets called preschool; it’s not the same thing.
Kids in full-time non-parental care (at a home or at a center) are really enjoying the company of another family. When that care is loving, consistent and supportive it can truly be a home-away-from-home. It’s not school; it’s family. This isn’t just semantics either. If a child spends 8+ hours a day with an adult and that adult is caring for that child — for her body and for her mind — that person is to all intents and purposes part of that child’s family. Now with a preschool program, there’s not quite the same intimacy. A child doesn’t invest quite as much emotionally, (which is not to say that there’s no attachment in preschool — there is but it’s not as intense because it doesn’t need to be).
In my experience as a former daycare teacher, the part-time kids just aren’t as much in the family as the full-time kids. This isn’t to say that they’re left-out, exactly, just that there are important parts of the family’s experience that the part-timer isn’t privvy to.
I think that directors (my director and perhaps this center’s director) think that since the children are getting the bulk of the day’s activites, which tend to happen before lunch/nap, that they’re getting the “best” parts of the daycare care. Maybe. I guess you could argue that. But there’s a culture to the classroom and the part-timers tend to be sort of out of it. The more outgoing a child is (and I want to say “proactive” but that implies more intent on a child’s part than there tends to be but you know, if the kid is a natural joiner) the more likely they’ll be part of things but it takes a lot of effort.
In my own daycare class, we had inside jokes and a frame of reference that came from spending so much time together. Even though the afternoon was more down-time (we did art in the morning, for example, and field trips and visitors) we were still doing things together. Maybe it doesn’t seem like a big deal to miss the second story time of the day but if we’re discussing it the next day, the child who missed that story time isn’t going to know what we’re talking about. You add enough of those kinds of missed events together and you’ve got a kid who’s chronically out of the loop.
This is worse (again, my experience) when the child is there only two or three mornings a week, missing not only afternoons but entire days.
I think the way around this — for parents who need part-time care — is to find a smaller care situation. A small homecare group is going to have more flexibility (if the homecare provider values flexibility) and it’s more like, you know, visiting. A larger daycare setting is usually necessarily more scheduled and is usally necessarily more invested in the schedule. So my gut feeling is that homecare can be a more successful placement for a part-timer but truthfully I have no experience with home daycares so I guess I don’t really know what I’m talking about. That’s also not to say that a child who is part-time at a center daycare is going to be miserable. I don’t think that’s true but I do think it’s more stressful and in my experience, the kids who were with us part-time had a much longer adjustment period than the children who were there full-days, every day.
Meanwhile I’ve got two more local places on my list but am in no rush. The kid is only two. Oh and Noah was unimpressed by the place because they didn’t have a loft in any of the rooms like they did at his old preschool and Madison was most intrigued by the small potties.
Wow, I’ve never thought about some of this stuff so explicity. My daughter was in daycare for two days a week,
and now is in for three (whole days). I noticed she was more comfortable and happy at three, in some ways,
although she missed our special day together. I figured she felt less left out. At first,when we knew she
would be going in to parttime care, we put her in a homecare situation, and it exploded horribly. She was at
the neighbors and they not only quit, but they’ve built huge fences so they don’t have to look at us
(they’re next door). You can imagine how awful this is for our daugher. We chose a “school” situation after that so that if someone seemed lovely but turned out to be somewhat mentally ill, there would be
accountability. I think parttime care, or any care, in a home daycare is a nice idea, but the
lack of accountability and oversight scares me.
I have always felt that a good home care situation was best. But after our experiences last year with Mason’s care giver, I ‘m more comfortable with a center. I think the potential for depression is so much bigger in a home care situation. One person (usually) with no other adults to talk to, and a lot child care that can be drudgery if it’s for children you don’t love. I think it can get even the best of people. In Mason’s situation now, he still has the same ratio, and his schedule is more regimented but I see 4 women who support each other, have days off, vacations, holidays, etc. I think a better working environment leads to better workers. Even in this situation I know daycare workers are undervalued, underpaid and often frustrated. Mason loves “school.” Something that completely relieves my guilt. I stayed home for 12 years, none of my daughters were ever cared for by daycare (okay Mallory was for 2 days until I quit my job because I couldn’t bear being away from her). Now I am at a point in my life where I have to work for my sanity, and the tiny bit of money I bring home. I used to think SAHM or Dad was the only good solution for any family that could afford it. Now I’m more contextual. Like so much stuff in parenting, I’ve come to realize there is no right answer. We all seem to just do the best we can.
I have to warn you Dawn–and maybe Brett knows this anyway, but often when Christians claim to be “nondenominational” they mean a very specific, very evengelical and possibly fundamentalist brand of Christianity.