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Day Care Providers, Infant/toddler or Preschool Teachers, Baby-sitters, Au Pairs, Nannies, Early Childhood Educators are all people who do the same kind of job within a wide range of experience and training. To an untrained eye they may all seem the same. You may consider the young sixteen-year-old girl who watches the children for you on a weekend night a baby-sitter and also consider the teacher you see daily as you drop your child off at daycare as a baby-sitter. You may see the person at your child's preschool as a professional educator or someone whose job it is to "play" all day. It is difficult to sort out.
It used to be, before both parents had to work to keep up, that mothers were with their children 24 hours a day, seven days a week and during that time their values and ethics were ingrained into their children. If a family did not agree with customs of someone else they simply did not bring those customs into their home. Unfortunately, that is not the way our children are now being brought up. Please, do not misunderstand me, I am not against learning about and understanding others. There are wonderful cultures that make up this world and we should take time to be able to appreciate differences. This is different, however, from being expected to accept and agree with different cultural values and mores. I am wondering how many parents realize while their children are in day care centers under the care of professionals and semi-professionals that their children are forming deep attachments to these individuals. How many times a day does a child call his or her teacher "mommy" - yes, it just slips out, they KNOW that this person is not their mommy, but often there is a very close connection to the love and trust that children feel for their parents to the feelings of love and trust that they also have for non-family care givers. How important to us is it then that the individuals to whom we entrust our children each day ARE truly professionals? Trained and treated as professionals, held accountable, and - yes - as professionals. The responsibility held by the person who cares for our children day in and day out is tremendous. They have be to constantly vigilant to safety hazards in and around school areas. This means a playground which is being constantly observed by trained eyes for not only broken glass or rusty nails but to the possibility of a child falling from a height which may not seem like much to adults but could seriously injure the child. The professional must also be aware of hazards in the classroom - broken toys and objects meant for play that end up in ears and noses. Maintaining order in a classroom of small children is no easy feat either! Imagine one unruly child throwing a temper tantrum which could result in other children being injured and the teacher injured. Teachers are often in charge of tracking and training children for fire drills and storm drills, being sure outlets are kept covered and buildings are up to code for both health and fire inspections!
The copyright of the article Concerns for Day Care and Preschool Children in Children's Health is owned by Karen Cabiac. Permission to republish Concerns for Day Care and Preschool Children in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
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