Building Trust with your Child Care Provider

When your new caregiver begins watching your children, you probably won’t know much about them. You won’t know their favorite color, their hopes and dreams or their bad habits. More importantly, you won’t know their parenting style. It is crucial that you choose a provider that is like you in parenting style. If you are a sixty’s style crunchy parent who uses cloth diapers and wants organic food for your child and your provider is a militant structure buff/ germ freak, the two of you will get along about as well as two male beta fish (you know, the pretty ones that live in little cups and look friendly but kill each other when put together?) in one tank. In other words, bad choice!

No provider is going to do everything just the way you like it. There are however a list of things that you can do to make things go smoothly. In the beginning it is important to talk with your provider up front about things you feel strongly about. Here are a few of the things you need to discuss up front and be willing to negotiate. Along with each item are hints on ways to help your provider to accommodate your needs.

Talk #1: If you have religious beliefs that may enter into the daycare relationship or affect how your provider does her job, you have to let her know up front. The best example of this is a Muslim family going to daycare in a Christian home where bacon is served up every morning. Another example would be 7th day Adventists, who never accept blood products. The best way to handle these issues is simple. You handle them for your provider. If you are Muslim, provide your sitter with non-pork frozen or fresh meals to serve to your children on the days the other children eat pork. You can provide her with all beef hotdogs or sausage; you can give her bags of frozen chicken nuggets, anything easy for her to fix your child at the same time as she is making food for the other children. You will also need to provide her with a pan to fix your child’s food in if you are strict about cooking in pans that have never touched pork. Most of all, don’t forget to give her a list of all the things which have pork by-products in them, such as jelly beans, because she will probably not be educated about halal food. If you are 7th day, make sure you give your sitter a witnessed, notarized authorization for medical care with a special directive attached explaining your beliefs and the care you do and do not want given to your child in your absence. It would not be right to ask your daycare provider to ever have to decide whether or not to allow your child to be given blood in a life or death situation and it is your responsibility to protect your religious beliefs. In addition it is a good idea to make sure you have copies of your directive in your child’s file at their doctor’s office and the hospital you use. So think about any aspect of your religion that might need to be addressed during daycare and make a plan with your provider. If you don’t believe in God at all, choose a provider who will honor your atheism.

Talk #2: Dietary Restrictions: Are you a sugar phobic? Is your child Obese? Are you a crunchy mom who only wants organic? And let’s not forget about those zany vegans and vegetarians (and there is a big difference) who feel like they will be able to hear your arteries groaning if you eat a Big Mac (yum!) Once again be up front and be willing to buy the organic foods and sugar free, gluten free whatever free foods.

Talk # 3: Environmental: How much TV is too much? Are you for or against pac-n-plays? Do you want your provider to put your child in cloth diapers? What about napping? Just a hint . . . . Yes you do want your child to have a nap. Seriously.

Talk# 4: Family problems that may intrude: This talk is for couples who are in the middle of an ugly divorce. It is for single parents who have custody or foster parents who are bringing their foster children to daycare. It is also for couples who have family members that they do not want seeing their children. It is especially important whenever there are legal papers involved. Chapter 8 covers your provider’s legal responsibilities and is a chapter you have to read if this situation applies to your household.

Talk# 5: Medical Issues: It is absolutely your responsibility to educate yourself and your childcare provider about any physical, mental or emotional disability or illness your child may have. There are a couple of great ways to do this. First buy your provider books on the subject or print them information off the internet. If you bring your provider medications for your child, make sure you bring her the pamphlet that lists all of the possible side effects and reactions so that she can watch your child for them. If it is at all possible you should always be with your child when they take a new medicine for the first time, for at least an hour. Another great way to help your provider would be to find a local seminar or support group dealing with your child’s illness and offer to take her at your expense. The two of you can learn together and bond over an evening of education.

Talk #6: Your job: If you have a regular 9-5 bank job where you close on time and it takes 5 minutes to get out the door you don’t need to have this chat. If you are a sales rep who has to finish a sale even if it runs you over your hours by a ton—you need to talk to your provider. Ask how she feels knowing you may not be able to call her until right before you are due to show up and have a back-up plan for who will pick up your child. If you are a firefighter or police officer, give your provider a list of people to call and discuss how late you will be before she begins calling them. Things could go very wrong in your line of work, and your provider may be the first person to catch on. She needs to have a plan for your child.

Talk# 7: Your support system: If you are a single parent with no family or friends nearby, or a couple where one of you travels, talk to your provider. Ask her how she would handle an emergency if something happened to you and discuss with her how long she would be willing to keep your child if there was a problem and someone had to come from a long distance to get your child. You do not want your child turned over to DHS simply because you have a car accident and your sitter closes @ 6 with no exceptions.

Talk #8: The contract terms: Any good childcare provider will have a handbook outlining both of your responsibilities. If there is no paperwork you should be very skeptical. The handbook should cover a lot of different items. In fact it is so complex there is an entire chapter dedicated to it. But this is your reminder that you need to ask any questions you have right up front. The number one cause of problems between providers and their clients is miscommunication.

OK—those are the basic discussions that should be gotten out of the way during the final meeting before your child starts. If you can, try to make it a pleasant meeting over coffee or sodas and do not bring your child along for two reasons. First, you don’t want to have to deal with caring for your child while discussing crucial points and secondly your child should not be privy to you talking about them in a frank and honest manner.

It is always a good idea to talk honestly about your family. Your child will tell your provider things you probably would never share on your own. They will repeat things you talk about at home, and they will confide in their daycare provider when you and the hubby are squaring off over the dinner table. Here’s a prime example:

Marcus can’t keep anything at home. Every morning he fills us in on what mom and dad have to say about us, about each other and about the price of tea in China. Mom is not a very positive person and sometimes the things she says about us are not so complementary. “My mom says you should clean me up better at the end of the day because I can’t go out in public looking gross” he chirps, “and my dad told my mom she better get another job because she likes shoes”. The funniest ever was a day dad showed up to pick Marcus up early. In front of 4 other parents and 7 kids, Marcus patted his dad on the back and asked in a very loud tone “Daddy, does your penis still hurt?”

Dad immediately answered “No Marcus I’m fine”.

Even louder Marcus shrills “I know . . . if your balls are all better then we can go for a bike ride!”

Dad was red clear up to his hairline. He muttered quietly “I had a procedure yesterday to ensure that Marcus is the last blessing in our household. His mother doesn’t think sometimes what he might repeat when she says it.” He grabbed Marcus’s hand and backpack and hauled Marcus out the door.

It was weeks before we saw dad again, but the minute I saw him I could hear that little voice in the back of my head wondering if he was as embarrassed as he looked. I didn’t have the heart to tell him we were way past hearing about his penis and were now hearing about him cutting up the credit cards and throwing out mom’s shoes.

The moral of the story is that if you are going to talk about things you don’t want us to know (like how derelict you think we are) don’t discuss it in front of your child.

Once you have sat down with your new provider and covered all of your needs, make sure you are listening to their response. Watch their body language. If it becomes clear they are uncomfortable be ready to make some decisions. A provider may want a new client very badly, and be willing to agree to things she might not if she had more money coming in. Remember that to you this is a life changing event and to them it is just a job interview.

Last of all, make it clear that you will always be honest with your provider even when the topic is unpleasant and that you hope they will do the same. Make sure you tell them the good and bad points about your child and your family, but no excuses please. Here is a chart for what your excuses sound like to us.

“She is spoiled, but I was older when I had her and she is my miracle baby”: This means your little angel will pull hair, scream and throw huge fits for attention and instant gratification.

“Our last provider claimed he was being mean, but we never have that problem at home”

Loosely translated this is an only child with no-one to be mean to at home.

You say active-we hear the prefix hyper.

You say inquisitive—we run to check the cabinet locks and safety gates.

You say perfect little angel—all of a sudden we have no openings.

Providers want to know the honest deal. Tell us if your child has violent crying spells and what you do to calm him. Tell us if your daughter likes to eat off the floor, we need to know.

Be sure to tell us the good things about your child. If there are things you are working on at home, such as toilet training or ABC’s we can continue the learning at school if we are aware. If your child loves certain music or is an avid builder with wooden blocks this knowledge can help us build a relationship with them.

Being honest and communicating during the interview is only the first step. Trust is a long term feeling and is not given right away. Most parents will tell you they completely trust their childcare provider, and that they know the person watching their child always tells them the truth. Most providers will tell you exactly the opposite. Because no matter how much we want to believe our parents are trustworthy, experience has shown that even the very best of parents will bend the truth and even outright lie to preserve their own wants and needs.

Once you breach your provider’s trust you will never get it back. If you lie to us for your own gain even once we will watch for you to lie all the time. Where we once upon a time would give you the benefit of the doubt, you lose the benefit of our generosity. We will stop going out of our way to help you, because you will have shown a lack of regard and caring for us. It’s like finding out your husband lied to you so that he could do something for himself knowing it would cause problems for you.

We all know everyone tells white lies to save someone’s feelings. That is not the kind of thing I am talking about here. So let’s talk about some of the ways parents lie that cause providers to send them packing.

• Never tell your provider you are going to work when you aren’t. We are here so that when you are working your child has a safe loving place to go. We aren’t here for trips to the store, massage appointments, haircuts or shopping with the girls. We don’t dump our children on others for these things. We not only take our children with us sometimes we have to take yours. If you want to pay us extra and ask us to cover these things we will be happy to, but we don’t want to feel like a foundling hospital. You are not paying for all the hours we are open; you are paying for the hours you have to be at work and can’t be your child’s caregiver. Dad can parent during your hair appointment. Aunt Suzy can babysit while you go to the gym. Better yet take your child with you. They cannot learn how to behave in public if you never take them anywhere with you. For health and safety reasons we have to know where you are. Yes we get you have a cell phone, but if you are in the gym and can’t hear it, we don’t know to call the gym and have you paged.

• When you bring your child to daycare knowing they are sick and lie to us about it you make us furiously angry. It is the ultimate act of cruelty and carelessness to expose your provider, her family and the other children in her care to an illness. You don’t get to justify it by telling yourself your child got the virus from daycare. You can’t make the excuse everyone else has already been exposed. And a cold for your child might mean hospitalization for a small infant or a child with Asthma. When your child tells us in circle time that they threw up at home, or that they had medicine for a fever, it is all we can do not to say very inappropriate things. And contrary to popular belief we are not stupid, and when your baby gets a high fever 3 ½ hours after arriving we know the Tylenol just wore off.

• Don’t wait until the day your bill is due to tell us you can’t pay us. Chances are you know well ahead of time that you are going to have a problem making your daycare payment. You would not want to go to work on payday and find out that your boss wasn’t going to pay you, and that he had known all week. Tell us honestly if you are going to be late with our paycheck.

• If you find out your check has been returned we need to know the moment you do. We may have savings we can transfer so that we don’t have bank fees or checks being returned. Since you will know the day it happens, waiting for us to call you is unacceptable.

• Imagine you are just waking up in the morning and having your first cup of coffee. Then imagine all of a sudden you are teleported to work still in your pajamas. You haven’t gotten your kids up for school yet and suddenly you are tied to your desk. That is exactly what you do to your provider when you show up an hour early unannounced. We live at our office, but this does not mean we are open 24/7. Stick to the schedule you hired us for.

• Don’t ever tell us your child has a medical condition in order to get something you want. Over the years I have watched a parent lie about her child having asthma in order to force us to provide nebulizer treatments every time he got a cold. I have seen a mother claim her children were allergic to fish simply because she did not like the smell, and one mom informed us her child was lactose intolerant in order to try and convince us to give her child soy milk because she herself was vegan, and did not want to get a doctor’s note. Don’t claim ADHD to excuse bad behavior, unless you have an actual diagnosis.

• Don’t make your pediatrician write a doctor’s note for something that is not medically necessary. Your child does not have a medical need for a blanket in their crib. They do not need triple portions of food and they don’t need Tylenol for teething for weeks on end.

• Never give your child medicine without telling us. We get scared when a child is groggy and confused, and if we knew they had allergy medicine before coming we would be less concerned. All medicines can have serious side effects or allergic reactions.

• Passive-Aggressive tactics are not conducive to trust. If something is upsetting you the best way to handle it is with honesty and an open mind. Sly and underhanded comments are not the way to let us know you don’t feel your child is being cared for.

• Negative comments about your provider to the other families in care are the best way to get yourself booted. Address your issues with us. The other families can’t make changes in care for you and we won’t appreciate being badmouthed before even being asked about an issue.

You might think that I am being melodramatic. There is no joke here. You and your children are in our lives in a major way. You are in our home where we live. You overhear private conversations and see us argue with our children and our spouse. If we have process servers or bill collectors contacting us you will know, and you may even be the one who finds the disconnect notice on the door when our water bill is late. We don’t get the same kind of personal view into your business, so we are extending a trust that is huge. We trust you not to judge, not to gossip and not to assume. We have no way of knowing when you hire us if you will look for new daycare the first time we don’t live up to your expectation when it comes to the cleanliness of our house or the behavior of our children. We have faith that the only thing that matters is the care we give your child, and not the fact you don’t care for our teenager’s mouth.

We also extend trust to you in other ways. We trust you not to place our children in harm’s way. We trust that you will support our decisions when it comes to discipline. We trust that you will come and tell us honestly when there is an issue, and not let it fester and grow until you fire us. If you decide to find new care, we trust you will give us notice so that we can replace the pay and that you will be honest about why you are leaving.

Last of all, we trust you will pay us for our time. We trust you will understand that we are the bill that should be paid above all others. Without childcare you cannot go to work.

As your provider we owe you certain commitments as well. We need to be honest if there is an issue. We need to tell you if our child is ill, because we cannot keep our child home without them being in the same home with yours. We should never give your child medicine without telling you first. We should never take your child anywhere without your knowledge or consent and we should never leave your child in the care of someone else without your permission.

You should treat your provider with the same honesty and respect you would expect from your spouse. This is a very close and long term relationship. The goal should be to have your child with the same caregivers until kindergarten and even longer if you need before and after school care. Children do the best when they have long term relationships with loving adults. Children who are bounced from childcare to childcare lose trust, and are less likely to bond and have strong ties with caregivers because they don’t see them as long term.

If ever you have a question about whether or not to do something, ask yourself a simple question. If someone handled the situation this way and I was the provider, how would I feel and why? If you would not be happy about it then it is a bad idea.