In-Home Daycare vs. Center

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My son is in a center and my infant daughter is at a home daycare. I definitely prefer the center. One day the home provider overslept and didn't answer the door. Plus the take home report has a lot of misspellings of simple words (poop) that I worry what she's teaching the toddlers.

Oh please -- half of the assistants in our daycare barely speak any English. Trust me, our daily sheets have TONS of spelling errors and I guarantee my kid isn't being taught proper grammar. But honestly, at 3 years old, does it really matter? I doubt your daycare provider is teaching anyone how to spell poop.

PP here. At my son's center, they speak English and send handwritten notes home everyday on what he did. No misspellings so far. And they are teaching him letters and words. He's three yrs old and comes home with his "homework". It could be a picture of a bee with B-E-E spelled out for him to trace and color. I'm not trying to make you feel bad, but yes at three years old, they should be trying to teach him something.

That's really not in line with current thinking on early childhood education.

Wow, homework for a 3 year old is awful. I would say that is NOT a good day care.

[Anonymous]

You can generalize between centers and inhome but it really depends.
I put my infant in an in home care, 12 kids. The provider went through 4 assistants in 6 months, then another 2 new the next year, then another new person the next 2 months. Usually the assistants spoke no English when they started and left after their English got better. When I first toured, I liked they had no tv. But I was FOOLED. When my child got old enough, he told me about disney characters and songs when we had never showed them at home. It turns out they used the ipad. I caught them using it one day. We changed to a center when we got a spot.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
If you take your child to a home, they will have visitors whether it's family or the repair man. That's a given, a home is not a center.

And your center will have visitors (other parents, who vetted them?) and repairmen, too. What is your point?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For the home daycare fans, how do you deal with the lack of oversight?

That's the thing...I wouldn't really consider there to be a lack of oversight. We did a background check, talked to 5 references (2 of which were from our listserv and not provided directly by the care-provider), and have years of clean state and county inspection records to look through. We have relationships with the other parents with children there and they're also happy with the care provided.

Ultimately, you place trust with the person you leave your child with regardless of whether that's at an in-home or at a center. Honestly, I feel very good about doing the vetting of our care provider myself rather than relying on a center to do it with the person they've employed.

But if there's one person working there....

Maybe I am missing something.

You are missing the fact that home daycares are licensed by the county and state and have to undergo multiple inspections (most surprises) a year.

We left DC before having our baby, but I can tell you that 90% of the home daycares in my current area are not licensed and only have one person working there. And one of those providers is currently in jail for murdering a toddler.

What you have to say is totally irrelevant to this conversation (you're no longer in DC, you're talking about unregulated childcare, etc…). Shut up and take your fear mongering elsewhere.