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Frequently Asked Questions about home daycare? What is a home daycare?
the owner's home. Licensed home daycares are childcare professionals with years of experience, training by state approved resources, and/or college degrees in early childhood education/development. Is home daycare the right choice for my family?
numbers, personal attention, and consistency of having the same caregiver with their child all day. But home daycares are not the right choice for every family. Sometimes a center, private nanny, or mother's day out program can better meet the needs of a particular family. Things to consider when deciding if a home daycare is right for your family is that home daycares are usually a one person business and they have very limited enrollment. Why is it so hard to find part-time care? Limited enrollment can affect those families looking for part-time care. Small home daycares are allowed a maximum of 7 children by state law.
unless the family is willing to pay the full-time rate. I have never been able to fill the empty time from a part-time child with another family. So basically, a part-time child still takes up a full spot. Mother's day out programs or college students can be a better fit for families needing part-time care that only want to pay for the days and hours care is needed. If you have a friend that is willing to split the daycare time and cost, I am sure many home daycares would be open to the arrangement of two families sharing one full-time opening. I need care for more than one child?
are needing care for multiple children and want them all to attend the same daycare, you may discover it's difficult to find a home daycare that has 2 or more openings available that also matches your family's other needs (hours, ages, ect.). The advantage of finding a home daycare for siblings is that the children are actually together during the day. Where in a center, the children are separated into classes based on age and may never see each other during the day. Most small home daycares are a one person business. When the home daycare provider takes vacation, or is very sick; they must close the daycare. It can be hard for home daycares to find reliable substitutes that they trust alone with the children. The result is that many home daycares require each family to provide their own backup for childcare when the daycare is closed. For some families this can be a problem. Centers can be a better choice for these families. Centers have floaters available to fill in for absent employees and don't close except on major holidays. Why choose a licensed home over someone who isn't licensed? On June 20, 1964, Oklahoma passed a law that anyone watching a child or children for more than 15 hours a week is considered a daycare and must be licensed through the state. To be exempt from the licensing law you must be either related to the children, providing care in the child's home, or providing care for less than a total of 15 hours a week. Parents have the right to choose who cares for their child. There are plenty of legal choices for childcare including a nanny, mother's day out program, daycare centers, licensed home daycares, a relative, or teenage babysitter. When a parent chooses an unlicensed home daycare, they are choosing a daycare that receives no safety inspections, no daycare insurance, and no minimum requirements that must be followed (example: all animals on premises must be current on rabies vaccinations and verified during safety inspection). A parent also runs the risk of losing care if the unlicensed daycare is caught or turned in by a disgruntled ex-parent, or a neighbor who doesn't like the extra traffic. |
