TKW Consulting

ONCE a year, formal time is given in April to thank professionals who care for and educate the youngest children in West Virginia. The event, the Week of the Young Child, is April 22 to 28. The annual celebration is sponsored by the National Association for the Education of Young Children, the world’s largest early childhood education association.

I have personal reasons — three to be exact — for taking time to thank the professional caregivers for the work they do. The three reasons are simple — Megan, Marcus and Max — my children. Since my children have been old enough to sit up, I have had them in child care.

As I watched my daughter, then 18 months old, walk into the classroom for the first
time, I knew I wasn’t going to be able to leave her. She immediately gave me a wave goodbye, but I was the one having separation issues. The tears shed were my own. I didn’t want to leave, but I also knew that I had to work. What was I going to do? I decided to fill out an application and began working full time at the center where my daughter attended. My daughter is now 18 years old and will soon be graduating from high school. Could I have taken another job making more money? Sure, but I would have missed out on being near my children. The payoff to me was simple.

Eighteen years ago, I thought it would be an easy job — play with children and clean up after them. Although I had a degree in early childhood education, I was in for a rude awakening. It took me time to fully grasp and understand the enormity and importance of providing quality care. It was “day care” after all. We were there to care for the children, not educate them. That job was left to the school system. Once I understood that it was up to me, I hungered for more information, more training and more education. I began to appreciate that child care was not a baby sitting job, but a career full of professionals who understood the importance of nurturing, providing a secure base and allowing children their autonomy.

People used to ask me what I did for a living. I would proudly say, “I am a child-care provider.” They’d smile and say, “How fun! It must be easy to be a baby sitter.”

I would then list everything I taught “my children” that day: problem solving, cooperation, science, math, creativity and self-help skills. I would tell them about the continuing education we child-care providers are expected to complete. I would tell them about training opportunities, such as the Apprenticeship for Child Development Specialist program and the ongoing trainings through local child-care resource and referral agencies. Most of all, I would share with them the effect I had on a child’s developing brain. I wasn’t going to be the caregiver that allowed a child’s brain not to be stimulated, not to have those neurons and synapses firing on all cylinders, not to make the child ready to learn.

“It is my personal mission,” I would say, “to make sure that each child I come in contact with is the best person he or she can be at that moment in time.”

“Besides,” I would say, “if you can’t buy in to the important groundwork child-care professionals do, look to the research. For $1 spent on quality early care and education, $7 is saved in juvenile detention programs.”

If you can’t buy in to developing a child’s brain, perhaps you can understand the financial ramifications of poor-quality early care and education experiences for children. Baby sitter? I think not.

My children have had wonderful child-care providers that have helped shape and nurture them. I have been fortunate to understand early care and education from both sides — as a provider and as a parent. Neither is easy, but because of the providers that came into the lives of my family, I became a better parent and, I hope, they became better child-care providers.

That is why I ask you to take the time to thank a child-care provider. The time spent in quality care today will reap benefits for years to come. But please don’t call them baby sitters anymore. Call them child-care professionals.

Ertl is a training supervisor at Connect Child Care Resource and Referral, an instructor for the Apprenticeship for Child Development Specialist program.

// posted by Tammy Wachter @ 5:14 PM