Changing Views

This is my final post about daycare. I thought I would share how my heart, views and other things have changed since working at the daycare.

1. Before working at the daycare, I wanted 6 children. Now, I am down to 3 probably. This is partially due to age, but mostly due to seeing how much work goes into children.
2. God has definitely worked on my patience with children. I have learned that it isn't all about discipline, but about relationship. Discipline is part of that relationship, but so is a tender heart, loving words, guidance and affection. Children look for someone to put their foot down, but they are also looking for someone who goes the extra mile in caring for them as individuals.
3. I have learned that there are other forms of discipline outside of spanking, but I do believe a parent's hands should not be tied and spanking be out of the question. Time outs do work with some children, some times. Other times, just letting them throw their fits and not giving in is enough. However, there are times for more drastic measures that can be used on my own children that can not be used on toddlers at the daycare. Timeouts for toddlers at the daycare consist of them getting a book to read, teether to chew on, etc., which in my book is not a timeout. We aren't allowed to give timeouts until they are 2 years old.
   
4. My experience at the daycare has given me 100 ways to entertain children. I believe children do need to learn to play on their own for imagination and creativeness, but relationships are also built by playing with the children. Both are just as important. Flannel/magnetic stories, songs, poems, reading, and just playing with toys build relationships with children.
   
5. This goes along with the entertaining of children. In the daycare, most of our children are at the daycare 5 days a week for around 9-10 hours. As you can suspect, they get bored with the same toys. Just as children need to learn to be creative, so do their caretakers. Break out the cold, cooked spaghetti for the child to have something new and different to play with. Toddlers do better with paint, when supervised, then most would think. Cook hard-boiled eggs for them to play with. Cereal is a great toy. Paper towel tubes are fun, along with marbles in a sealed container. The list is endless.

Well, that is all I can think of right now. However, I sometimes do wonder if my parenting skills would be different if I had children before the daycare as opposed to after working at the daycare. It is something I may never know.