Ontario Providers - What would you Think About Mandated Age Restrictions?

[Sandbox Sally]

I am a little sad about a situation I heard about last night. I interviewed a mom who has been shopping around for a daycare, and she told me that the woman down the street from her has four of her own children, all toddlers/preschoolers, plus she has five daycare kids under 3. So...she has NINE kids under her care, the oldest two being 3 yo twins. The mom I interviewed says she sees her at the playground all the time, and it's a scene of total chaos.

Unfortunately, this woman is operating under the parameters set by the government. What do you all think about an amendment to the Day Nurseries Act that governed the ages of the kids at unlicensed home daycares? I kinda think this should happen.

[kidlove]

In the U.S. we are controlled under licensing rules on how many kids of specific ages. we are limited to only two infants and the next age allowed in care at the same time must be over 18 mo. and after that I believe it is 24 mo. Its too crazy with anything over 2 infants IMO, I honestly prefer none to one. at a time!

[Toregone]

At what point does the responsibility fall on the parent? A parent interviewing a dayhome should ask appropriate questions regarding how many other children in care and what are the ages of those children. The onus should be on the parent to determine if a situation is safe. I do not agree with this provider operating with this many children in this age group but... you have to think of the parents that have placed thier children into this womans care. What proirities are the parents placing ahead of saftey, because it is obvisious that saftey can not be the primary concern.

[Inspired by Reggio]

Personally I think the rules should be the 'same' regardless if you choose to go with a licensing agency because you want your clients to have access to subsidy or you want the support or if you choose to self regulate yourself because you do not feel you 'need' the support of an agency or do not want to deal with 'subsidy'.

IMO 'best practice' regulations for the minimum standard of health and safety of children should be the same regardless of what model of care is being offered .... private self regulated providers and clients who choose to use them should still be making sure they have done due diligence to ensure the program has fire extinguishers, carbon monoxide detectors, locked medicine cabinets, safe environments and all the other things that 'regulated' programs are required to do to protect children in their care ... the rules should be the SAME regardless because these are common sense safety concerns.

I also feel that the governments inconsistent expectations of allowing an unregulated provider to have 5 children plus her own is what allows 'illegal' programs to thrive in our Province .... after all from a clients perspective if this women is 'legal' because she is allowed to have 5 plus her 4 own wee ones than what is the difference with someone like me having 9 children none of whom are my own .... in fact I would argue that statistically speaking based on networking with peers who have their own children in their daycare that the 'non daycare children' tend to be the better behaved out of the group on average because children always tend to give their OWN parents the hardest time with behaviors and well you cannot 'terminate' your own children ... so I would likely be able to manage 9 children better BECAUSE none of them are mine and A) I am able to sleep through the night as a result so am better rested and have access to more 'down time' because I am not caring for children 24/7 and most importantly I have control of 'terminating' any that make it hard for me to manage

However based on the 'rules' it is illegal for me to have more than 5 children and the 'logic' behind it is well beyond me?

I honestly do not get why they ever allowed it to be the 5 children plus your own in the one setting but in others you have to count your own children ~ it has never made sense to me and opens up all sorts of 'confusion' in the industry.

So my short answer is YES I am honestly hoping that when they finally DO announce the new changes to the Day Nursery Act as part of the 'Modernizing Ontario Childcare' that this is one of the areas that is addressed .... I do not want them to make it that we are all required to be with an agency but I do think we should all be working from the same basic 'rule book' when it comes to health and safety, ratios and so forth specially since they are just MINIMUM STANDARDS anyway that most people choose to exceed anyway

[Sandbox Sally]

I agree with EVERYTHING you said, Reggio. Everything.

[Inspired by Reggio]

At what point does the responsibility fall on the parent? A parent interviewing a dayhome should ask appropriate questions regarding how many other children in care and what are the ages of those children. The onus should be on the parent to determine if a situation is safe. I do not agree with this provider operating with this many children in this age group but... you have to think of the parents that have placed their children into this woman's care. What priorities are the parents placing ahead of safety, because it is obvious that safety can not be the primary concern.

I agree that we need to do a much better job of educating new parents of what to look for in a quality early learning experience for their children .... however sadly many parents do not realize this is not 'normal' because in their community ALL the providers operate this way and what not . Or depending on your culture / upbringing it was common practice once upon a time for a family to have 6,8,9 or a dozen children in the home ~ and they come from the mindset of 'we survived that many children so will mine' .... which is true once upon a time 'siblings raised siblings' because parents were busy working long hours on farms and what not

It goes back to that value of is it just enough to strive for our children to 'survive' or should we be striving for them to THRIVE because more and more research shows that while children can 'survive' with very little support from an adult it often comes laden with childhoods filled with bullying/abuse/neglect/emotional baggage verses children who 'thrive' in smaller ratios with the 'guidance' of a caring responsive adult there to fall back on as needed so they not only survive childhood with their social emotional self in tact but they thrive as early learners and so forth.

[playfelt]

We had a discussion on the numbers at a workshop I attended back about 2001. What they were proposing was a total of 5 kids per house rather than 5 daycare with all of the providers kids counting. While it sounds right the counter arguement was that it was not logical to think that a mom with 4 kids of her own who presumably had a large enough house/yard to accomodate that many and experience having gone through all of the ages and stages could only handle one more child while a mom home with her six month old baby could suddenly handly 4 extra children in a home where she had never considered childproofing or had toys or resources for. Obviously the notion was defeated and the push was to leave things the way they were.

On the other side of the coin I would be ok with the agency ratios if they were adjusted to be 2 under 18 months not age 2. That was the ratio that annoyed me more than any of them.

[Momof4]

I have a really good friend who is a really amazing daycare provider in Ontario. She has 4 children of her ownranging from newborn to JK aged 5 and I would send my child to her in a heartbeat. She's amazing. I wouldn't do it, but she does it extremely well. I don't know how she manages but she is usually full with 5 daycare children.

[playfelt]

I am mom to 4. I started care when my first two were almost 2 yrs and the other 4 months. I always had my quota of 5 others. Nine was normal to me and never considered it a problem. I rarely had more than 2 under a year be it mine or others but the rest were whatever was available and I tried to have one for each age that mine were so they had a buddy. Anyone who has seen shows such as 19 kids and counting sees the difference in running a tight but loving ship vice the out of control Jon and Kate gang. It isn't so much the kids that is the issue as much as it is the caregiver and not taking on more than they can handle. Just because you can have 5 extra or have 5 toddlers doesn't mean you should. Then again it was so much easier back when my kids were little because the kids I had in care from homes where rules were enforced and expectations and respect expected and that made a huge difference in my ability to get cooperation at daycare.

[Inspired by Reggio]

Yes I agree that there are those who can manage 9 or more children safely for sure there is definitely 'skill' involved .... in centre care when we were allowed to have 2/3 ratio during arrival and departure we would have up to 12 two-three year olds on our own ... I managed fine because I am organized, thrive with multi tasking and have good group control of my crew ... but I had peers who while 'allowed' to do this as well under those rules it was so not ideal because anytime they were on the shift where this was allowed children ended up injured or 'wandering off' on them and being 'unsupervised' or aka technically 'lost' from the group but thankfully still contained within the centre .... these staff due to liability of the centre than just not allowed to be on the open or closing shift and put on a middle shift where they were never 'alone' with children .... but had they not had someone overseeing them they would have just continued on with their practice because they did not see anything 'wrong' with what they were doing and consider it 'normal' for children to be hurt daily cause 'kids are kids' and they did not see anything wrong with the kid having wondered away cause they would have' noticed eventually' and so forth ... it is people like that who 'scare me' working in unregulated settings that would allow the 'provider' to choose how many children they could safely manage

I also can reflect back and realize that while I 'managed' with up to 12 children during those two hours of open or close in centre care it was not ideal early learning going on in the time frame ~ it was assembly line care with limited individual exploration because I just could not supervise ... basically children were 'engaged' at table activities or group activities in order to keep that controlled safe environment there was not a lot of true 'free play' going on and so forth.