Childcare

Maintaining a Good Relationship with Childcare ProvidersNo matter if you have outside or in-home childcare, one of the best things you can do for your child is to keep up a good association with the child­care provider. The most crucial element ...

Locating Nannies So, how does one begin a search for a nanny? There are generally two ways to go about it. You could go through a nanny agency or you could seek out nanny candidates on your own. The advantage to using an agency is that they do th...

Monitoring the Childcare SituationWhether or not your child seems comfortable with your childcare arrangement, it is necessary to keep tabs on the situation to ensure that it continues to be satisfactory. If your child is old enough to express hi...

In-Home Childcare Employment Issues A childcare provider who looks after your child in her home rather than yours is usually not considered to be your employee, but is instead known as an independent contractor. If you, rather than the nanny or t...

Hiring an In-Home Childcare ProviderBefore you leave your children with an in-home care provider, you first must go through the process of interviewing your applicant and checking her background. Once you find a provider you wish to hire, you wou...

Depending upon your family situation, your child may have no trouble at all getting used to a new childcare situation. On the other hand—particularly if he or she is a certain age and has been home with you as the primary caregiver for the past...

Using Relatives as Childcare GiversEven as recent as a couple of decades ago, members of extended families were likely to live in fairly close proximity to one another, making it easy to share the burden of caring for each other's children when n...

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Harmful or Abusive Childcare SituationsBecause you have done your homework before leaving your child with a caregiver for the first time, the chances of your child being placed in a dangerous childcare setting are minimal. At the same time, you d...

Family Day CareThose who choose family day care for their children are most likely to cite the homey atmosphere of the family day care setting as their main reason for doing so. With few others being supervised by the childcare provider, children...

Evaluating Out-of-Home ChildcareIn both day care centers and family day care, two processes serve to ensure quality in childcare-licensing and accreditation. Licensing is the means by which childcare providers are monitored by each state. All sta...

In-home care and commercial daycare centers are quite different in many aspects. ...

Day Care Centers and Preschools Day care centers, as well as preschools, typically are institutional settings similar to elementary schools. Often, children are grouped in classroom-type arrangements according to age, with one or more teachers or...

Backup ChildcareWhat if your child attends a family day care and the day care provider's own children develop a contagious illness? What if the day care provider becomes sick? Suppose your child is in a day care center, but comes down with a stom...

Au PairsAu pairs may be a more cost-effective option for families with two or more children than paying for each child to attend outside childcare. An au pair is a young person from another country who comes to the United States to absorb America...

Family Day CareThose who choose family day care for their children are most likely to cite the homey atmosphere of the family day care setting as their main reason for doing so. With few others being supervised by the childcare provider, children...

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Day Care Cuisine With more mothers working full or part time, childcare is a fact of life for most families. Nearly 13 million American preschoolers are enrolled in childcare programs, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. Th...