Gadgets

Today women are almost 50% of the American workforce and childcare needs have to be taken into consideration more than ever. If you are lucky, your employer may offer you a workplace daycare center for your child. Some companies even allow babies up to 6 months to be in the office, next to the mother’s desk. Even fathers have been known to bring a baby to work, and of course any workplace nursery or baby at work scheme should be equally available to both men and women.

Babies At Work

One advantage of a ‘baby at work’ scheme to the company is that it increases employee loyalty. Wearing your baby in a carry sling on your front or back, or having your baby in a bassinet by the side of your desk, means you can go back to work earlier. And by having your baby at work you can continue breast feeding without having to pump breast milk.

However, while having a baby alongside your desk may work in the short term, or in an emergency situation, it is usually too distracting for both parents and their co-workers in the long term unless special provisions are made. Care must be also be taken not to contravene the company’s health and safety regulations. The Parenting In The Workplace Institute has helped companies all over the country to set up to set up suitable Babies At Work Programs.

On-site Day Care

Often a better long-term solution for both the company and the employee is to have an on-site daycare center. This is something that is promoted by many organizations worldwide and in the United States, for example, the Department of Labor offers onsite day-care centers for many of its employees.

For most companies the advantages of offering on-site childcare as an employee benefit more than outweigh the costs involved. A company is able to recruit and retain well trained staff and there is better employee morale overall. There are also lower rates of absenteeism as parents don’t need to take time off work if a child has a slight touch of the sniffles. And if your child is in a daycare center on the premises you can easily pop in and check up during your coffee or lunch break.

And it doesn’t have to be just white collar workers that benefit. Some 24 hour businesses like factories or health care providers even offer 24 hour workplace care for their employees’ children so that shift workers can bring their children to sleep at the workplace nursery. However, having on-site day care isn’t a solution for everybody’s childcare needs, especially if you have a long commute.

Corporate Benefit

In 2009 First Lady Michelle Obama urged employers at the “Corporate Voices For Working Families” annual meeting in Washington, D.C “…to discuss quality on-site childcare… This isn’t just about family balance. This is about making workplaces stronger and more effective and keeping and attracting the most qualified people.” So for employers who want to recruit and retain valuable staff, offering workplace daycare facilities can be an ideal way to improve employee benefit packages in this economic climate.

A new report by Bright Horizons in conjunction with Dr. Jamie Ladge of Northeastern University “Healthy Employees, Healthy Organizations” illustrates the benefits of having employer sponsored on-site childcare and other family care supports.

So draw your manager’s attention to this report if your company doesn’t yet have an on-site daycare center.

In today’s difficult economic climate, families are finding themselves pinching pennies. Mothers who never had to work before are trying to enter the work force, but it almost doesn’t pay when they begin to figure in childcare costs. The search for reliable, safe, and affordable childcare seems like mission impossible. Meantime, a national study found that the cost of childcare continues to rise.

In spite of the difficulties, 11 million U.S. children under the age of 5 are in childcare of one kind of another. Childcare options abound, but not many are affordable. Consider this: if you need to place two children in daycare, the costs can be higher than what you’re paying out for rent, mortgage, or even food expenses.

More Complicated

In the summer, the problem of what to do with the children becomes even more complicated. One solution is Kids Campus, a summer program for elementary-school aged children. Kids Campus offers all kinds of summer fun and games. The campus is open from 6:30 AM until 6:00 PM so moms and dads can work as caregivers supervise their kids: some 150 children every day.

The staff at Kids Campus understands that the key to making the long summer pass is to keep the kids busy and engaged with new activities, all day and every day. Different activities are offered throughout the day so that the children never feel the kind of boredom that comes with repetition.

But for some parents, Kids Campus is just a dream. For one couple working fulltime, Arlene and Bob Crane, the costs of Kids Campus are prohibitive at around $100 per child, per week. Instead, the couple chose a home day care for their son. Arlene is expecting a second child, a girl in November. “It’s just not worth it to put him in Kids Campus, much as I’d love to. I might as well stay home instead,” says Arlene.

A Resource

A spokeswoman for Omaha, Nebraska’s Child Saving Institute (CSI) says that parents are struggling to find quality, affordable care for their children. CSI asks as a resource to help parents find what they need and to offer support to the better childcare providers.

Deenie Carpenter says she’d love to send her kids to a summer program but there just isn’t enough money to go around. “The truth is I’d rather do nice activities with my family instead of sending my kids to a kids’ program. It’s much better to do family activities than for me to stay home and fund my kids’ attendance at a fancy place like Kids Campus. It just makes sense.”

A recent study looked at childcare costs throughout the country. At the lowest end of the scale the costs for one child in daycare run $4000, while in Massachusetts, costs for a single child can rise to more than $13,000 a year.

Allegations of sexual abuse by daycare providers created a climate of hysteria during the 80’s and early 90’s. Universal panic ensued as parents heard horror stories of children abused through satanic rituals and other severe types of child abuse perpetrated by providers against the children in their charge.

Kern County

The uproar began with an abuse case in Kern County, California. Once this case came to light, daycare sexual abuse was brought to the fore of the public consciousness where it remained the focus of media coverage for close to ten years. Other abuse cases began to pop up throughout the United States and then in Canada, New Zealand, Brazil, and several European countries.

The background for the numerous allegations of abuse began in the late 70’s and early 80’s as more and more women began to work outside of their homes, creating a demand for daycare centers. The daycare market enjoyed a huge boom while working mothers struggled over feelings of guilt and anxiety for leaving their young ones with strangers. These events and the subsequent maternal emotions generated by them are believed to have contributed to a pervasive sense of fear and a willingness to believe accusations of abuse without proof.

One of the issues that arose from the public panic was the difficulties of obtaining reliable testimony from children. Child testimony is vulnerable to wide variety of outside influences. An article written by Maggie Bruck and published by the American Psychological Association stated that children will weave parts of an interviewer’s query into their responses so as to provide the interviewer with answers he believes are sought.

Nonsensical Questions

According to one study, when adults ask children nonsensical questions, for instance, “Is water bigger than milk?” or, “Is yellow heavier than yellow?” most children will provide a response. They think that an answer is what is called for rather than an understanding of the question. If the same question is repeated, a child will change his response because he takes the repetition of the question to mean that his former response was incorrect. Research has also borne out the fact that children are more vulnerable than adults when asked leading or suggestive questions.

In counterbalance to these findings, other studies have suggested that only a small number of reports on child sexual abuse will be found to be untrue. Still other studies emphasize that children tend to be understated when reporting instances of abuse.

There is no doubt that the bias of the interviewer plays an important part in molding a child’s testimony. Preconceived notions on the part of the interviewer tend to result in questions that would elicit responses supporting these assumptions. An interviewer may not even look for evidence to disprove these ideas. He may offer positive reinforcement (nodding, smiling) to the child for providing the answers he prefers, eliciting further responses along the same lines. Research has discovered that when interviewers offer statements of reassurance, children have a greater tendency to fabricate tales of fictional events in the past.

Even when parents choose a more affordable option for child care such as family dayhome care, whether licensed or unlicensed, there is still the concern that they are paying too much. So just where does the money go and how can the caregiver justify her charges?

A Breakdown Of Expenses

Private child care providers operating a dayhome are small business owners with daily, monthly, and yearly expenses. Unlike their larger counterpart, the daycare centre, they do not have have a large intake of children, and are, by law, whether or not they are licensed, only allowed a certain number of children in their home at any given time. Hence their income is limited by this number, as well as the availability of children in their area. As a business owner, a caregiver is hoping to earn a decent income from her business once the expenses are deducted.

Taking all things into account, a dayhome operator’s expenses fall into such categories as:

Accounting
Advertising and Promotion
Association Dues
Auto Expenses
Bank Charges
Equipment
Field Trip Expenses
Food
Household Supplies
Insurance
Office Supplies
Building and Equipment Repairs and Maintenance
Research and Development
Salaries
Supplies: Toys, Craft Supplies, Teaching Supplies, Books
Telephone
Training
Other Items – Birthday Gifts, Party Supplies
Business Use of Home Expenses

Even More Expenses

To break it down even further they’ve got: accountant’s fees, flyer and advertising costs, professional dues, car, house, and liability insurance, crayons, glue, markers, paper, art paper, meals and snacks, admission to children’s events, games, puzzles, books, movies, sand, upkeep of indoor and outdoor play equipment, tricycles, strollers, cribs, bedding, changing tables, CPR rectification, child care training, seasonal parties, gifts and treats, theme supplies, sanitation products for toys and all play surfaces, electricity, Kleenex by the truckload, paper towels, heat, air conditioning, water, garbage, gas, cleaning supplies for mopping the floor, vacuuming, and so on. Finally, when all the bills are paid, the caregiver can actually pay herself with what little may be left at the end of the month.

When a child leaves care, that leaves a giant hole in a caregiver’s earnings, particularly if the child held a full time position. Hence the need for ongoing marketing expenses in order to maintain capacity. Many small business owners
are now protecting their business with contracts and policy manuals to ensure
they receive their hard earned pay on schedule. Which also means expenses for receipt books, attendance payment schedules, printing costs………and the expenses continue.

Resources

Business Forms, childcare.net