While Cameras Roll…
7.All That Glitters Is Not Gold…
Are you choosing your daycare for all the right reasons?
We’ve all been there…You’re walking through the mall on a Sunday afternoon and you spot them – the perfect pair of shoes. You must have them! You don’t consider how much they cost or if they will be comfortable or even if you have anything in your closet to match them. You just need them based on their appearance so you quickly rush into the store where you blurt out your size to the first store clerk that grabs your attention. The next thing you know, you are on your way home with the perfect pair of shoes and the thought suddenly enters your mind: Did I make a good choice?
Oddly enough, the same principles apply to just about anything, including daycare. Many parents can be impressed by expensive play structures, fancy buildings or (for home daycares) the nicest homes on the block. First impressions could fool us by making us believe if something looks a certain way, then it must be a certain way. We believe we’ll get what we pay for in terms of quality, but the reality is: all that glitters is not gold. Choosing a daycare should never be a spur-of-the-moment decision or a decision based on appearance or convenience. The outside appearance may be very different from what’s actually happening on the inside, and your child may not actually be receiving the level of care you were promised upon enrollment.
The question then is, how can you determine the level of quality care being provided after just a brief visit of a provider’s home or daycare center? The answer can only come by thoroughly checking out the facility or home, asking the right questions, following up with surprise visits, and really trusting your instincts. You must learn to be the ultimate appraiser of your child’s daycare and choose someone you feel you can trust your child’s life with.
Culture Shock
A mom with two young boys had just moved to a quiet suburb in California from Spain. She had never needed to look for daycare before, but soon found herself with a new job and the need to find someone to care for her children, FAST! She asked some of the neighbors for good recommendations and was given one for a small daycare center that was close by. After driving by that center and noticing it looked quite run down, she dismissed that option. She soon noticed a home daycare that was on her way to work that looked beautiful, with a backyard full of playground equipment and toys, surrounded by a new chain-link fence. She called the daycare and was told they had openings and the boys could start the following week. The next day, after a brief interview, the mom was so impressed with the house, the yard and the activities that she enrolled her boys and felt good about her decision.
The following week, the boys started at the daycare and everything seemed to be going fine at first. The boys talked about the activities they did but they also complained about “Ken”. They explained that he was mean and he sometimes pulled their hair. The mom was not very concerned, knowing that boys were often rough with each other, so she didn’t give their story much thought, but they continued to complain about “Ken”.
One Friday afternoon, the mom had a cancellation in her schedule and decided to pick the boys up early as a surprise. When she got to the daycare, the kids were playing outside. Walking around to the back of the house, she couldn’t find her daycare provider anywhere but noticed a large man sitting under a tree smoking a cigarette! She walked over to him and asked who he was and why Judy, the provider, wasn’t watching the kids. He grumbled to her that he was Ken, Judy’s husband, and that Judy had gone to run errands while he was watching the kids.
Needless to say, the mom was completely shocked and horrified that something like this could ever happen. The daycare provider had never told her that someone else would ever be watching her kids, nor had she ever been introduced to the provider’s husband. She reported the incident to licensing and pulled the boys out immediately and placed them in a daycare center where they have all been very happy. The mom felt so much guilt and shame after this incident but admitted that she never even thought to ask these important questions.
Incidents like this probably happen a lot more than you’d think. Knowing what to look for and asking the right questions can keep them from happening to your child. When choosing a childcare center or home daycare for your child, the things you can see during your visit are important, but they don’t tell the whole story. When looking for childcare, ask your provider if anyone else will ever be interacting with your child and, if the answer is yes, insist on meeting them and on knowing when they will be watching your child. While a good referral from someone using the same daycare may set your mind at ease, make sure you stay involved and continue to form your own conclusion.
Tell-Tale Signs…
It makes sense to assume that a clean, well-kept daycare facility with smiling and attentive staff would be a safe place for a child. Parents tend to make choices based on what looks and feels right to them, but what happens when red flags appear that indicate otherwise? When unsettling events occur and things just don’t seem to add up, parents must begin asking questions… which is how the truth in this next story was revealed.
A couple had enrolled their toddler at a highly recommended daycare center that looked clean and safe, and had a history of operating chains across the country for over 40 years. They liked the director and also felt a connection with the staff, all of whom seemed kind and trustworthy, including their child’s teacher. Everything seemed to be going fine for the first few weeks until one evening, while bathing their little boy, his parents noticed strange-looking tiny bumps on his back. When they asked their child about them, he said it was from his teacher. His parents became concerned and the next day, while dropping their child off in his classroom, they again asked him about the bumps and he quickly pointed to a container of thumb tacks sitting on a counter. Becoming increasingly alarmed, rather than drop their child off, they immediately went over to the director’s office. After hearing the parent’s concerns, the director seemed shocked but defended the teacher, claiming the teacher would never do such a thing. She concluded that the teacher was probably using the thumb tacks to do an art project and the young child was probably confused. This explanation did not satisfy the confused parents, who suspected the bumps were from daycare, so they decided to also question the teacher. Not surprisingly, the teacher denied having any knowledge of this situation and seemed insulted to have even been questioned. At this point, the parents no longer trusted the teacher and were convinced she was harming their child, so they immediately removed him from the center and contacted a lawyer, as well as licensing.
During the investigation, a former employee came forward and testified that the teacher had used corporal punishment to discipline some of the toddlers on several occasions. She also stated that the teacher would take some children into the closet, and spank their bottoms and pinch their cheeks. This former employee claimed to have brought these accusations to the director’s attention on more than one occasion but nothing was ever done about it, so she had quit her job shortly thereafter. These parents, along with several other families who had their children in that center, were saddened and in disbelief that this kind of thing could happen. Such incidents can leave parents questioning their judgment and wondering how they can trust again, especially when the reality of what they received was so different than their initial impression.
Unfortunately, this is not an isolated case of abuse or mistreatment of a child by someone who is later clearly shown to be unfit to serve as a childcare provider. When you turn your child over to another’s care, there is never a guarantee they will be loved and nurtured in the way that you would hope. The good news is, there are many things you can do to know more about what’s really going on in your child’s daycare. First, before enrolling your child at your chosen center or home, ask if you can come back to spend a few hours there with your child. We highly recommend staying away from anywhere that doesn’t allow you to do this. Second, once your child is enrolled, you should plan on popping in on your child unannounced at random times on different days, especially within the first few weeks of enrollment.
If you can, spend some extra time during drop-off and pick-up watching how the classroom operates, and what the other children’s demeanors are like—especially around the teachers. If you don’t see happy children, busy with activities, something is wrong. Most importantly, follow your intuition! If you feel like something is “off” in your child’s daycare environment, then it probably is. Don’t be afraid to ask questions and check things out. It’s your job as a parent to know what is happening to your child as much as possible. These tools may never give you 100% peace of mind about your child’s care and safety, but they will certainly give you a better idea of what is really going on at their daycare.
Not the Place for My Child!
Childcare providers typically have the unique advantage of either bringing their children to work with them if they work in a daycare center, or being at home with their children if they run a home daycare. As providers, with the inside knowledge that we have, we can be apprehensive about placing them in someone else’s daycare. The following illustrates a case of a seemingly great home daycare that I would have actually considered.
Several years ago, my children and I had been invited to the home of a friend who ran a home daycare, and had been doing so for 20 years. She had a big, beautiful house with an impressive playground and outside area, and she often did fun and creative activities with her daycare kids. That day, she had set up a gigantic water slide and sprinkler which the kids loved, and everyone was having a great time. We spent several hours watching the kids play, run, swing and slide. After a while, the kids all enjoyed a snack of fruit and popsicles together. I remember thinking to myself that if I had to put my kids in daycare, this would be a good one because it seemed that my friend truly loved and cared about the children in her care.
After we had been there for about 3 hours, a van pulled up her long driveway and she asked me to keep an eye on the kids as she quickly ran inside. I really didn’t think a thing about it until she returned a few minutes later holding a very young baby. With a big smile, she walked over to the mom who had just pulled in and started to talk about what a great day her baby had been having. The mom seemed pleased and was happy to see her baby. I suddenly thought to myself, Where has this baby been all this time?!
After the mom drove away, I questioned my friend about who had been watching the baby. She very casually responded that the baby had been napping, yet she hadn’t gone into the house the entire time I was there. Since she didn’t have a baby monitor outside with us, I was rather confused… how did she know that this baby was OK when no one seemed to be watching him for several hours? I continued to ask her if anyone else was in the house with the baby and, becoming annoyed, she mentioned that her teen age son was at home playing video games. At this point I dropped the subject and we left shortly thereafter.
This experience left me thinking that if I, as a provider, was thinking this was a great daycare, surely many parents would think that as well. The truth was that even though she was kind and loving around the kids, did a wonderful job of entertaining them, and seemed to have all the right equipment, a great act of negligence was committed here: a very young baby was left alone for several hours in a crib with little to no supervision. His mom picked him up and never even thought to ask the provider about her child’s day.
As the old saying goes, if something seems too good to be true, it often is. We really want parents to think outside the box when analyzing their own daycare situations and to ask questions when things are not making sense. Have you ever asked your home daycare provider how the older kids can go outside if the younger ones are sleeping? Does she use baby monitors when kids are asleep? Does she ever send the older kids outside to play unattended? These are important questions to ask because events such as this happen all too often. When it comes to your childcare services, you are paying for a certain level of care and should demand it; if you’re not receiving it, it’s time to start looking elsewhere because it does exist.
Some daycare centers look very top-notch and elite with fancy camera equipment and high-tech security cards required to enter the building. These centers generally come with a huge price tag for tuition as well. In some cases, you are certainly getting what you pay for, but at times is high quality care simply assumed based on expensive objects and elaborate surroundings? When it comes down to it, what really matters above and beyond anything else is the care and the love your child receives. Don’t be fooled into thinking staff can always be trusted just because cameras exist in a classroom. I personally know this isn’t true since I used cameras when I first opened my daycare center and definitely didn’t get the results I expected. I not only thought the cameras would be a great selling point to families that toured, but they would also be an easy way to keep teachers focused on their jobs. Although the cameras did impress the parents that toured, they simply did not impress me…
I had a teacher in the Infant room that had her own baby in the class with her. (I try to avoid hiring teachers to work in the same classrooms as their children, but it can’t always be avoided.) During orientation, she was specifically informed about our policy regarding staff children which states that when a teacher is working in the same classroom as her child, the other staff members are required to care for that child as much as possible. I began noticing whenever I passed through her room that she would be caring for her own child more often than not, and ignoring the others. Whenever I questioned her, she would either say she had just picked up her own baby a minute ago, or that the other teachers were busy so she had no choice but to tend to her own baby’s needs. I didn’t believe this could be a coincidence each time it happened, but I respected this teacher and wanted to believe her, so I gave her the benefit of the doubt.
A few weeks later, my suspicions were confirmed when other teachers, as well as two parents that had babies in the infant room, came to me with more complaints. At this point, I decided I would watch the camera in the infant room more diligently to see what was actually happening. I had assumed that since the staff knew there were cameras in the classrooms, they would naturally behave more conscientiously and follow policies at all times. I was wrong. The more time I spent watching that specific camera, the more I saw this teacher carrying, feeding and mainly playing with just her baby. I was truly surprised and realized that the presence of a camera didn’t matter to her one bit. When confronted again, she tried to deny it and make more excuses despite my telling her what the cameras revealed. She was let go immediately and I eventually got rid of the cameras. Instead, I preferred to monitor classrooms by walking through them more frequently throughout the day, instead of sitting in my office watching monitors. This also gave me the chance to experience more special little moments with all the children in the center. Between myself, the assistant director and the office assistant, we walk through the various classrooms a lot, and I feel in this way we truly get to see an accurate picture!
There are many shocking cases of nannies and childcare providers performing abusive or neglectful acts, right in front of cameras knowing they were being videotaped! This leads me to believe that a provider, or anyone for that matter, will show their true colors eventually, whether cameras are present or not. If a childcare provider is not cut out for the demands of the job, a camera isn’t going to change that. Ultimately, we, as parents, are the best eyes, ears and advocates for our children, so rely on your intuition more than the false comfort you think a security camera will provide.
• • • • •
Once while watching the cameras, I noticed a staff member not moving for a while, so I got up to go check on her in the classroom… She was asleep!
• • • • •