Parent Resources
10 Things You Should Expect from Your Child Care Provider





Skills Children Learn In Family Daycare
Finding Toys or learning materials to work with by self or with others
Cognitive: Makes decisions about interests and abilities.
Self help: Finds toys by himself or sets up environment for play.
Social/Language: Learns to share, barter, manage conflict, and ask for help.
Emotional: Learns about acceptance and rejection. Expresses needs.

Block play
Physical: Learns to balance blocks and line them up (small motor coordination).
Cognitive: May count blocks, sees pattern and design.
Learns to build and plan structure. Matches blocks that look alike.
Social: Learns to share and cooperate.

Dramatic play
Social: Plays adult roles. Develops self-image and coordinates with others.
Language: Learns to express self in another role.
Cognitive: Decides appropriate dress and appearance for role; uses visual
perceptions to assist self, others, and play environment.
Learns and remembers behaviors to imitate. Develops abstract thinking abilities.
Self-help: Dresses self. Sets up play environment and finds props.

Setting the table
Cognitive: Counts silverware, glasses and napkins, or places one object by each
setting.
Follows pattern of place settings.
Social: Cooperates with other children. May teach younger children to help.
Physical: Picks up and places objects (small motor coordination).

Sitting down to eat
Physical: Pours milk, passes the dish (small motor coordination).
Cognitive: Measures to pour. Understands directions.
Social/Language: Learns appropriate table conversation and manners.

Story time or listening to music
Cognitive: Listens and retains information.
Follows story line (sequencing) with eyes and/or ears.
Recognizes words, pictures, instruments, and rhythms.

Fingerplays or songs
Cognitive/Language: Learns words, gestures, and melody
(sequencing, repetition, speech and listening skills). Follows directions.
Physical: Coordination (small and large motor) for gestures and fingerplays.

Dance
Cognitive/Language: Listens to music and rhythms.
Learns to understand simple movement directions and their relationship to the
music.
Physical: Coordinates movements (large motor).

Climbing/riding
Cognitive: May count the rungs to the top of a climbing structure; plans his climb.
Maps out direction and distance to ride: watches for others in path.
Physical: Large motor coordination, balance.
Social: Takes turns, interacts.

Sand play
Cognitive: Measures sand and maps out roads (spacial relationships).
Physical: Pours, dumps, pushes, gathers, scoops, packs (small and large motor).
Social: Shares, interacts, cooperates.

Putting away toys
Cognitive: Sorts toys, follows directions.
Physical: Places object on the shelf, replaces lids, opens and shuts doors.
Social: Takes turns, learns to handle toys carefully.



10 Things You Should Expect
from Your Child Care Provider
Whether your child is cared for by a baby-sitter in your home, a family day-care
provider in her home or a number of people in a child-care center, you should be
able to expect certain things.


Open communication. Providers should give you frequent and full updates on your
child’s progress and problems. They should welcome your questions and ask you
questions about how they can help your child. If they let you know what is
happening with your child during the day, you can develop ways to deal with
problems and to build on activities and accomplishments of the day.
Open access to their home or center. Parents must be welcome to drop in any
time, even without calling. Providers also should allow parents to make a
reasonable number of phone calls to check on their children’s well-being, in case
of illness or if there’s a special problem such as separation anxiety. You and the
provider should work out the best times for such phone calls and determine how
many calls are reasonable.
Safety for your child. Providers should take all possible precautions to keep
children safe. This includes plugging light sockets, putting away knives and other
sharp objects, closing off stairways and using only safe and well-maintained
equipment, among other basic safety measures. It also includes always using child-
safety seats and seat belts when transporting children in cars.
Honesty and confidence. Providers shouldn’t make commitments that they can’t or
don’t intend to keep. They shouldn’t cover up problems or accidents that occur.
They shouldn’t expect parents to help them avoid income taxes by slipping them
money on the side. They also shouldn’t gossip about your child or your family to
friends or coworkers.
Acceptance of parents’ wishes. Providers should abide by parents’ wishes on
matters such as discipline, TV watching, food, adult smoking and toilet training. If
parents do not want their children spanked, providers should not spank them. If
parents don’t want anyone smoking around their child, the provider needs to see
that no one smokes in the house when the child is present. If providers feel that
they can’t abide by parents’ wishes, they need to tell parents before agreeing to
care for the children and parents should look for other care.
Advance notice of any changes. Since it is often very difficult to find adequate
care, providers should tell parents well in advance if they are going to change their
hours or prices or if they are going to stop or limit the time of caring for a child.
Parents need at least a month or, better yet, six weeks’ notice if a provider is no
longer going to care for a child. Except in the case of an emergency, parents
should be given at least two weeks notice even if the provider won’t be available for
just one day.
No interference in the child’s family or family problems. Providers shouldn’t talk to
children about their families’ problems, lifestyle or values. Likewise, the provider
should be careful not to take sides in any family disputes such as custody battles.
Providers should not try to impose their religious or other beliefs on the children
they care for. This includes not taking children to religious services unless asked to
by the parents.
No advice offered unless asked for and no judging of parenting practices.
Providers shouldn’t criticize or advise parents on child rearing unless their advice is
asked for by the parents. They shouldn’t set themselves up as experts on
parenting. If parents ask for advice, providers should offer it in a noncritical way. Of
course, if providers see something that is seriously wrong with how parents are
raising their children, such as if they fear child abuse or see a child apparently
suffering from malnutrition, they should discuss the problem with the parents and, if
needed, contact legal authorities.
Assurance that everyone in contact with the child is trustworthy and properly
trained and supervised. Providers must be responsible for everyone who enters,
visits and works at their home or center. This includes screening custodial help, not
admitting strangers to the home, seeing that all transportation workers are properly
trained ant that all visitors, including friends or relatives of the provider, are
trustworthy and supervised and will not harm the child.
No surprises. This means that your family day-care provider won’t suddenly tell you
that since she has taken a part-time job, her teenage daughter will watch your child
three afternoons a week or that your child’s favorite teacher at the center just
disappears without warning or comment. Surprises are probably what parents fear
the most from their child-care providers.