Chris on Caring for Children

Articles
About the Nanny
Ask the Nanny
Poetry
Recipe of the Month

The Daycare
Community

We can make our minds so like still water that beings gather about us
that they may see, it may be, their own images,
and so live for a moment with a clearer, perhaps even with a fiercer life
because of our quiet. --William Butler Yeats

Question: How do I wade through all the overwhelming regulations and requirements to get a home daycare started?
Part One

Take a deep breath.   If you want to run a day care that's the first skill you'll need to perfect!   You're right, the duties are endless, especially when you're first starting out.   Get out a big piece of paper and start making a list of what you have to do; then just take it one at a time and pretty soon you'll find your whole list is all crossed off.   Believe me, almost everyone feels like you do when opening a business, and I still get jittery whenever I have anything come up for renewal.   I think the nervousness is compounded because our business is in our home, so it's especially invasive to have so many different inspections happening in our most private and personal spaces.   Since each state has its own regulating agency with different rules, I certainly can't advise you about the specific tasks on your big long list, but I can give you some general hints I've gleaned in my years of jumping through all the hoops of this complicated business.

First of all you need to work closely with your regulating agency.   In Michigan, that agency is currently the Department of Human Services.   Their requirements are the most important to fill, since operating a business without a license or registration is illegal.   A common mistake many providers make is in seeing their licensing worker as an enemy rather than a partner in business.   Honest, they really don't want to shut you down, they want to help you be the best daycare ever.   They hate having to follow up on complaints and testify in abuse cases, which unfortunately comprises the bulk of their time.   They just want to have to do routine inspections and find everything in compliance so that no one on their watch ever gets in trouble or has to lose a lawsuit.   And they really don't ever want any of their clients to end up getting in trouble because they missed some detail of an inspection.   So if it seems like they're picky, be grateful!   It's your neck they're saving with their pickiness.   And if there's ever anything you don't understand about the regulations, call them up and ask!   Believe me, these men and women would much rather have you calling and asking them picky little questions than to have you in non-compliance.   A lot of times you'll find out that some detail you are obsessing over isn't important to them at all.   For instance, some new providers think they have to have their whole house remodeled to resemble an ideal setting before their inspections.   While it's usually true that you have to have all areas up to code and safe, you surely are not expected to never work on any part of your house once you open your day care.   Most of us open up with just bare bones and then slowly improve as our business becomes more lucrative.

At the same time you're getting in touch with your licensing agency, find out if your city, township, county or whatever other governing district you fall under has any regulations of their own on child care.   For instance, within my city limits there are no restrictions on family day care homes serving up to six children, BUT for group day care homes with twelve children there are so many restrictions that very few people have gone through the trouble to start one up.   Try not to get discouraged if you run into this barrier.  Keep smiling and talking in a sweet tone of voice.   I found my city manager's office was staffed with patient, helpful souls who led me step by step through all the picky little details that they required.   If you just add those details to your list and then work at checking things off one by one, you'll get through them with hardly any scratches at all.   If you think the restrictions are so severe that they're impossible to comply with, why not talk to your local council person?   Maybe no one has looked at them in a long time and you can become the community activist who makes quality child care a little more accessible in your neighborhood!

The other legal issues you must deal with are taxes.   The very best tax advice you will find is from Redleaf Press.   Though this sounds like I'm getting a kick back from them, I'm not.   I'm just eternally grateful they have been there all these years to help me wade safely through all the legalities surrounding child care that are outside the knowledge of my licensing worker or child care referral agency.   Though these items seem pricey, you will find them priceless in the end, so order from Redleaf the Family Child Care Starter Kit and when tax time comes, get the current Tax Workbook and Organizer.   They have many other useful products but these are the essentials in my opinion.

One very important detail that you cannot ignore is your homeowners insurance.   Sad but true, many companies will not cover you at all if you're running a child care business in your home.   The ones who will agree to carry you still need to know and be forewarned, they may require you to add a rider to your current policy at an additional charge.   If your company won't carry you, don't panic.   (Remember about breathing deeply?)   Get on the phone and start calling your licensing agency, your local resource and referral agency (more about them in a minute), or other providers to find out who IS insuring providers in your area.   But still, know that someone else's company who may have 'grandfathered' them in has every right to deny coverage to a new client.   Persevere and just start calling every agency in the book; someone out there will be covering people.   In Michigan, insurance is very difficult to get, especially if you have a group day care home like mine, licensed for twelve children.   I've had several companies drop me over the years as liability becomes more of a hot potato, but there's always another one who will pick me up again, sometimes for less money than the old company.   Whatever you do, don't lose faith but keep dialing the phone til you get some answers.   If you're renting, it's extremely important to have permission from your landlord and that you advise your landlord to check with their insurance company.   When there's an accident or a lawsuit is no time to find out that these details were ignored.

Another alliance you'll want to form as soon as possible is with a sponsor of the Child And Adult Care Food Program (CACFP.)   Your licensing agency will hopefully give you the names of sponsors in your area.   This government program is constantly being threatened by reduction or extinction and the funding for it is often shuffled around, but so far it's still alive and kicking and worth the extra paperwork.   The intention of these funds is to make sure young children are provided with sound nutrition in these all important first years of life.   You are required to keep records of who you serve meals to and when.   You are also required to serve meals and snacks that comply with the nutrition guidelines set down by the program, so you have to fill out forms reporting the foods you serve to the children.   At first it seems like a pain and a lot of providers I've talked to don't enroll in the program because of the extra work.   But as reward for your trouble you're sent a check every month reimbursing you for part of your food costs, and in this day of ever rising food prices I say any help we can get we should sign on for.   In the end it helps keep your fees down so you can be competitive and affordable because as prices rise, since we are limited as to how many clients we can have, all we can do is raise our rates to pass the cost on to the consumer.   Since, in northern Michigan anyway, the consumer is hardly making enough to stay above the poverty level, we owe it to them to keep child care as affordable as possible.

Now, that resource and referral agency I talked about is your new best friend.   In our area it's the 4C's which stands for Community Coordinated Child Care.   They also go by Child Care Connections in my area and if you can't find the one closest to you try calling the people at mine.   They often have lists of the offices nationwide and are so friendly and helpful.   This type of agency is a clearinghouse for everything you need to run a day care home including putting you on their referral list so when parents call looking for child care they will get your name.   Though every office in every area is different, our local office not only offers training to providers but a lending library, a toy library and is a sponsor for the food program.   Find the one nearest you, see what they have to offer you and then see what you can help make them better!

I think I've given you enough to work on for now.   Getting all of these details under control will boost your confidence somewhat and as you get to know the agencies involved with child care you'll also get to know the tenderhearted people who work in them.   They'll have lots of good advice for you and helpful resources to give you courage.   My Grandmother told me once that mine was a noble profession.   Remember that.


back to top


Part Two

Until you actually try it, watching children in your home may seem like a relatively easy job.   After all, caring for our young is such a natural activity that even the lowest of life forms can accomplish it, right?   Well, sure, only humans always have to complicate things.

  • We expect our young to not only
    • still be alive at the end of the day,
    but that whoever is caring for them will
    • feed them nourishing food,
    • keep them clean,
    • warm and
    • dry,
    • provide a stimulating environment,
    • comfort them in their sadness and
    • notice and rejoice with them at their every little accomplishment.
    Not only that, when we arrive to collect them we expect to get
    • a fairly detailed report of their activities, including
    • all bodily secretions, from a
    • cheerful,
    • motherly (even if he's a man,) but
    • businesslike professional.
    We expect that professional to
    • take care of her or himself so that they are
    • physically fit,
    • emotionally stable,
    • philosophically moral and
    • socially interesting or at least
    • adept.
    They must be able to
    • stay economically afloat enough to not only
    • pay all the bills,
    • keep food on the table and
    • attend necessary trainings, but
    • be able to make wise purchases of appropriate playthings
    • for our child in particular as well as the group in general.
    Oh yeah, and they must keep current on all aspects of childcare, especially the ones that we deem important.   Now why in the world would a newbie start to get cold feet when all of her paperwork was done and the inspections over with?

As if the responsibilities weren't daunting enough, before you even have any clients who will hold these great expectations of you, a would-be provider must take on the uncomfortable task of marketing themselves to the public.   For most of us this is one of the most unnatural parts of the whole business and where I suspect your actual cold feet are originating.

Remember to take a deep breath.   Then remember two things about your new business: it's your business and it's your home.   This may not seem too profound but it's the tightrope that you have to balance on as you walk this path.   The idea of marketing your business in this job means marketing your self.   Though it's necessary, it may also at times feel very intrusive and you'll need to constantly be rethinking how much of your life is private and how much needs to be public.   Your family also, because of your choice, is subject to scrutiny and therefore deserves protection and privacy whenever possible.   So step one in calming your jitters is to establish your boundaries.

First look at your home and decide which areas are off-limits to daycare children.   In my house that means our basement (full of sharp things and poisonous things) and our upstairs (private bedroom and office; full of things that break easily.)   I strongly recommend ensuring your other family members have off-limits rooms to keep them from resenting your new job.   When my own children lived with me their bedrooms were off-limits so they had some place to escape to and so they could choose which of their toys they wanted to share.   If the size or lay-out of your house makes that impossible, then get creative and figure out how to make it work.   For example, if you need the bedrooms for naptime, then make sure that they're only for nap time and not play time too.   If your spouse has no place to get some peace before or after work, then try to at least plan to read a book or do puzzles or something quiet during some of that time so they can collect themselves a bit.

Likewise, for your self you need to create boundaries.   Though parents are entitled to know almost everything about you in order to determine if your daycare is a good fit, there are some tidbits that can remain optional.  Just for an example, these may include some of your spiritual beliefs, your current reading list or how your spend your evenings or weekends (assuming that it's all perfectly legal.)   As well as deciding ahead of time how much information you're willing to share about yourself, decide how you'll arrange your workspace and work day to give yourself the amount of privacy that you need.   I like to have my office right in the middle of the play area so I don't have to leave the children unattended when I'm searching for paperwork, but you may need a private office so you can maintain a certain amount of creative clutter.   I always have my interviews during my work hours in order to keep sacred my evenings and weekends, but some people like to have interviews during the evenings or weekends so they aren't distracted by the children.

I suggest you advertise every free or cheap way possible, especially taking advantage of bulletin boards and word of mouth.   Have some inexpensive business cards made up and spread them all over the place.   Screen people initially over the phone or by email.  During this screening I answer all their questions and determine:

  1. am I open during the hours that they need?
  2. are they willing to drive to my location?
  3. if their child has a special need can I fill it?
  4. are my rates in their price range? (Don't be afraid to talk about money.   This is your job.   What it will cost to hire you shouldn't be a secret.)
  5. are they allergic to any of my pets?

If we get through with the phone interview and still like each other, then it's time to invite them to visit the day care.   I send them (or invite them to stop by and pick up) any information I have ahead of time ( tri-fold, parent handbook, contract agreement,) to answer some questions and raise others.   You'll make the actual interview more efficient that way.

During the interview, welcome them as guests to your home and try to put them at ease as much as you are able. Even though it is serious business, or maybe because it is such serious business, keep your sense of humor and be down-to-earth.   Show your most genuine self, so if you are new and a bit nervous, don't be afraid to admit that.   But hold in your mind that not only are your prospective clients interviewing you, but you are also interviewing them.   Have a list of questions that you want answered and try not to make any decisions on the spur of the moment about who you will strike up this intimate relationship with.   Caring for children is a huge responsibility and cannot be taken too lightly on either side.   I tell my clients that if they think their job is more important than mine, then they need to look elsewhere for care.

Jittery nerves sometimes stem from wondering whether or not we'll be able to make ends meet with this new undertaking.   Any kind of self-employment takes time to get off the ground.   Hopefully you're not counting on it to be a steady, full-time income from the day you get your license.   Successful child care depends a lot on a desirable location coupled with reasonable rates and high quality service.   I suggest you do your research; find out who your competition is and where your market lies so you can advertise in the right places and be ready to be competitive.   There are very strict rules about price fixing in some states, so be careful how you find out what the providers near you are charging.   Often other parents or your resource and referral agency can be of some help here.   If you live in a very rural area you may have a harder time making a go of this than if you're closer to businesses and main highways.   I've seen some rural child care providers advertise every kind of service imaginable like a one-man-band in order to get folks to beat a path to their door.   Or parents may be willing to drive a little further if you offer a bargain.   Take all of this into consideration to adjust your rates and expectations accordingly.

Do not make the mistake of seeing your competition as the enemy!   This is bad conditioning which often starts in childhood with organized sports.   Overcome it!   Other providers are going to be your biggest allies.   They're the only ones who really understand what you're going through.   They'll offer advice, solace, equipment, and even the clients who aren't a good fit for them, if you can become friendly.   Conferences, trainings and support groups are a good way to do your research and find these alliances.

While thorough preparation is key to confidence, in the end it is perfectly natural to have a little stage fright going into a new venture.   In fact, given the enormity of this task, I would be pretty worried if you told me you were all calm and collected and not worried about a thing!   Courage is not the absence of fear.   Courage is getting up in the morning, picking up your fear and getting on with the task that's been put in front of you.   Be prepared, work hard, take one thing at a time, ask for help when you need it.   You'll gain new confidence with every step and before you know it you will be the one helping out some nervous newbie.   What you're attempting to do is hard, but not impossible.   After twenty-some years I still get antsy jitters before an interview or when my license is up for renewal or when a day or week or month doesn't seem to be going as smoothly as I wish.   Working on these inner challenges will make you a fitting role model for the children in your care who daily are struggling with daunting tasks like defying gravity, learning a new language and getting to know life on a new planet.   Let their determination be your guide and struggle together.   Good luck and blessed be.


back to top


Question: What spiritual practices do you incorporate into your day care and what can you recommend in the way of spiritual support for parents?

Answer:   The word spiritual means something different to each of us.   For me, spirituality means the philosophy which guides my life, so everything I do with children is spiritual when I act in a mindful manner.   As we grow and mature, our philosophy also grows and matures.   Practices I embrace today aren't the same as those I would have recommended ten years ago, and ten years from now when I look back at how I've answered this question it may look very naive to me.   But I'm happy to risk looking naive to expound on spirituality in child care because I feel the two are inseparable. This is the marrow of raising a wholly healthy human being!

My own personal philosophies have had innumerable influences, the largest being my own parents.   They have been and will always be a torch to guide my path and inspiration as I care for children.   They are an example of one of the most important spiritual practices Steiner charges us with: to be a person worthy of imitation.   This is not to say we must be a perfect, unattainable Barbie or Ken doll for our children.   In fact, more the opposite; we need to be fully human, with all our human smells, noises, struggles, joys and sorrows.   We must be the best, richest, most real humans we can be, striving to grow, to learn, atoning for our mistakes, helping each other along the way, falling, crying, laughing and getting back up again.

Steiner tells us that it's not what we do, it's who we are and this may go contrary to what we've learned in other places.   We judge people by their actions and words and we expect to be judged the same way, even if as we do good deeds and mouth kind words we grumble to ourselves or harden our hearts.   Our judgments tend to be materialistic, surface and social, but Steiner's admonition goes straight to our intentions, in the same sense as the zen saying, "intention is karma."   Only within our own heart do we know "who we are."   To stay in touch with that self, to make that self worthy of imitation is a lifetime challenge!   But around children, this is key.   They have an uncanny ability to see right into us and are little sponges to soak up whatever they find there.

Steiner has pages and pages of spiritual exercises to strengthen minds and hearts, but primarily he encourages us to find our own path by being mindful human beings.   Even of his own teachings he cautions us to only adopt those we can fully embrace with our hearts, which involves first becoming familiar with those hearts!   So one of the most vital spiritual practices I can recommend for parents is mindfulness.   To be mindful means to be as aware as we can of our intentions and to act intentionally, as opposed to thoughtlessly, impulsively or rashly.   Often, when we take the time to truly examine our hearts with painful honesty about our intentions, they are nothing to be proud of.   We sometimes act from selfishness, greed, materialism or even hate and envy.   To be mindful often means we are horribly aware of what flawed humans we are and how we will always be a work in progress.   Still, to me, it's more desirable than being unaware!   As children see us striving to know our hearts, to change and to improve, we give them an example of how to struggle, which is essential.   It is a poor child indeed who has no strong model of how to battle the dragons of their heart and soul, even if that battle seems endless.

The zen community has many useful exercises to strengthen our mindfulness muscles but I will give you two most valuable to me.   They are deceptively simple to learn and dauntingly difficult to actually put into practice.   The first is to simply be completely aware of what you are doing when you are doing it.   The zen saying is when you eat, just eat, when you read just read. The story goes of the zen student who came upon his master as he was eating his lunch while reading a book.   The student said "Master, what of the teaching, when you eat, just eat, when you read just read?"   The master looked at him and said, "When you eat and read, just eat and read."   In other words, don't obsessively give up multitasking, especially if this is all new to you.   But do pay attention.   When you are driving, fully drive.   When you are reading to your child, be fully present in the activity; the smells, the sounds, the touch.   When you're washing the dishes, think about the dishes and all the feelings you have about this chore and the heart you bring to it.

The second exercise is even harder than the first, and it is to sit still and pay attention to your breathing.   Every time your mind wanders, just gently guide it back to your breath.   I don't mean deep breathing or slow breathing or some kind of fancy yoga breathing.   Simply pay attention to your breathing as it is.   Do this as long as you can, even if it's only for one minute.   If you think about it, you have many opportunities to practice this with children, for how often do you find yourself waiting?   Waiting for them to get their shoes on, waiting for them to get out of ballet or soccer, waiting for them in the bathtub?   Remember, when you're waiting, breathing is highly recommended!   Every minute you can exercise yourself in this way will strengthen your ability to be more mindful in your daily life and your actions with your child.   When asked to describe the secret of enlightenment in three words a zen master responded, "Attention, attention, attention."

Two more exercises from Steiner in my daily practice are the review of the day and holding the children in the light.   The review of the day is the practice of going through the day in your mind, reliving each event and the feelings it evoked in you.   The trick is, you do it backwards!   So, in the evening before bed, think of the last thing you did, then what you did before that, and what you did before that, until you arrive at getting out of bed in the morning.   The purpose of this exercise is to literally 'unwind' you from your day; to release you from it as you go to sleep.   It also gives you some perspective; you'll find things that seemed so important at the time are trivial at day's end, and you'll also see how things that seemed small were quite important.   You'll also discover your own insights from this practice which I can't even begin to know.   It's recommended if you need a little refresher half way through the day to stop and just review the day so far, and see if that doesn't help perk you up a bit.

Holding the children in the light is also done at night, while drifting off to sleep.   I bring a picture of each child in my care to mind and call forth their true essence until I can see that child fully happy, healthy and shining with a beautiful golden light.   I feel how my heart loves this child and how we each have something to give each other.   For teachers, who have many children in their care, they may visualize only a few of their children each night so in the course of a week they will hold all the children up as they go into their dreams.   For parents, of course you'll bring your own children to mind first, but if you have more time then you can also bring up other people in your life.   Often you'll drift off to sleep before you're finished but we are taught that whatever we start before sleep our mind will finish in our sleep, and I like that thought!   This exercise keeps our hearts open and soft toward the children and helps create a deep connection with them.   Often if there's a problem with a child, taking them into our dreams like this will bring some inspiration or strength the next day after we've 'slept on it.'   Anthroposophy teaches that this practice also charges the children's angels with their responsibility to work on the children in their sleep and to help us in our care for them.   But I'll save the subject of angels for another time.

There are many more practices I consider spiritual in my personal daily life and with the children; having to do with honoring nature, the seasons, cultivating an inner life and our citizenship in the world.   I hope to share more of these in a regular spot on the website soon.   If we cultivate our hearts with a practical, common sense attitude, they'll yield a rich spiritual life to sustain us and give us the stamina to uphold our children in this challenging world.

It is impossible for man to look straight at the present, because he is too terrified by it.   We stand on the stern of the ship looking at the wake and saying, 'We're in very troubled waters.'
--Marshall McLuhan
© 2009 Christine Bazzett   back to top