2 Mistakes To Avoid Making When Your Child Goes To Day Care

Here are a couple of mistakes to avoid making when your child begins going to daycare.

Don't panic if your child initially reacts badly when they're dropped off at the daycare centre

It's important not to panic if your child reacts badly when you drop them off at daycare. Avoid making rash decisions, such as transferring them to a different daycare facility or hiring a nanny, as a result of their initial behaviour. It's very common for children to take a bit of time to adjust to going to daycare, and their tantrums don't necessarily mean that the daycare centre you've selected isn't the best place for them.

If your child gets upset several days in a row when you're dropping them off at the centre, you should not immediately remove them from the centre. Instead, you should talk to the daycare staff. Because they'll have spent time with your child and observed their behaviour throughout their first week or so at the daycare centre, they may be able to help you get to the root of why your child is having a difficult time. For example, if a staff member has noticed that your child is a bit shy and has not yet made friends, and this seems to be making their time at the centre less fun for them, you might want to then contact one of the other parents and arrange for them and their child to go out on a playdate with your child. This could then lead to them forming at least one friendship with another child, which could then make them happier and more excited about going to daycare each day.

Don't put expensive items in your child's daycare backpack

Another important mistake to avoid making is putting overly-expensive items (such as high-end spare clothes, expensive brands of stationery and etc.) in their backpack for daycare. Whilst it's understandable to want to provide your child with the best supplies when sending them to daycare,  it is not a great idea. The reason for this is that in a busy daycare environment where your child will be interacting with many other children and doing lots of activities, the chances of these expensive supplies either getting broken or going missing will be high.

Your child, or another child they're playing with might, for example, spill their juice on your child's backpack that contains their spare high-end t-shirt, or your child might accidentally drop their costly colouring markers on the floor, in which case the other children might trample on them and break them. Likewise, if your child does any art activities at the daycare centre, there's a chance that they'll get paint on their clothing. As such, if you don't want to have to repeatedly repurchase their costly belongings, it's best to give put only affordable supplies in their backpack.