Doing Time: What It Really Means To Grow Up In Daycare

[cheerfuldom]

I got this book....will post a full review here in probably a week or so

[Unregistered]

Oh good. We can have a little book club discussion since I will be finishing it up then too. Have you gotten to the part about the cook and the fire drill?

[Checkinkids.com]

Review - non kindle version

This book is hogwash. I know (from experience) that MANY children get more of what they need at daycare - than if they were at home.

I'd like to hear your specific review of this book. If anyone knows where to get the non-kindle version, please post.

[SilverSabre25]

Bought it...hope it's a good read although I think it will be. Don't have a kindle (I'm a Nook gal ) But they have the cloud reader. I'll post a review in a few days when I finish the book. Yes, I read that fast. No, I don't ignore the kids while I do it. :P

[SilverSabre25]

Is this available in book form? I don't have a Kindle but would really like to read it!

You can read it "in the cloud". They have a free, downloadable program that will let you read it on your PC. It's not as good as a real book, or a real ebook, but it gets the job done.

[Cat Herder]

You can read it "in the cloud". They have a free, downloadable program that will let you read it on your PC. It's not as good as a real book, or a real ebook, but it gets the job done.

Can you link it? Windows Reader was canceled/closed/hijacked and I am nervous to download a program I have never heard of without SOMEONE I know having tried it...

WOT keeps telling me everything I googled has a "bad reputation"....

[nannyde]

My review on "Doing Time"

First, it's an easy read. It just takes a few hours to read but it's packed with some very interesting first hand accounts of life as a center staff assistant spanning a number of years with experience primarily in infant care but also in two to four year old care. She comes to the table with the academic creds and experience to have an opinion worth considering.

I've never worked in a center. My only experience with centers has been nearly a year of watching multiple cameras for two centers to supervise staff and as a health and safety consultant for both centers. The kind of experiences she wrote about are exactly what I watched in the infant and toddler rooms. I could easily relate to her analysis of "one of many" care as I had watched this unfold day after day in my consulting job.

The first thing I was digging was that she defined "teacher" and "school" and used this throughout the book. She made many references to the misconception that center care is school and the staff assistants are being called teachers. I wish she would have gone even further and advised that State's and regulating agencies REQUIRE centers to STOP using these words and to fully disclose what staff workers are indeed licensed teachers and which ones are not. They should also require some academic criteria with performance/testing statistics if they are going to refer to themselves as a school. In my state you can call yourself a preschool and BAM you are a preschool.

She talked about ratios and did a very nice comparison between states. She also explained how center workers turn over rate is extremely high and how between the different shifts of workers, a child can have multiple unskilled workers over a single day, week, months, and years. She described the staff assistants taken off the street and put into the most demanding areas of the center with absolutely no fundamental knowledge whatsoever of caring for infants.

I really liked how she was able to break down the "direct care" of the children into understandable parts to show parents what it actually takes to have multiple like aged children in one room with few adults. She hit the biggies which are feeding, sanitizing, diapering, outdoor (getting them ready, what is done with them outside, and them unloading them back into the building and rooms), and napping. She drew a pretty specific picture of how it is done and the "cheats" built into the system to make it easier for the adult and how these ultimately affect the kids.

I learned a lot about biting reading this. I don't have that in my child care at all so my experience is only with prevention of biting not the full cycle of biting. She broke down the developmental stage meets center life pretty darn well.

She devoted quite a bit of time on illness in child care and how it is allowed, spread, and even mentioned the "Tylenol" disguise. She did not, however, get as specific as she should have with explaining to parents that their baby/child has a very very high likelihood of sharing a worker, toys, and equipment with children who are knowingly sent to child care sick. She did not talk about parents getting their sick kids into care with words like "teething, allergies, and ear infection". She did not explain that there are many parents who care about the health of the other children in their child's room BEFORE their child gets sick but have no care whatsoever AFTER their child gets sick. IMO, she had an obligation to discuss this beyond just a warning to parents that their child will attend child care with kids who have parents who send them sick. I think she should have described EXACTLY how that is done with specific words and commonalities so parents know the right questions to ask before they enroll.

He discussion of SIDS wasn't specific enough but she did include some current research on the risk of children dying in care within the first day or first week of care. There's enough research out there for her to draw from so I was a little disappointed that she didn't talk specifically about non belly sleepers and babies who have not had belly time at home... being put to lay down on their belly to get them to stop crying and how the first day... week of this is when the infant is in most danger for succumbing to sids. She also didn't devote enough to positional asphyxia and motion equipment and confinement equipment. I would have liked to have seen her be more specific about positional asphyxia and how deaths from this have, in the past, been attributed to SIDs when in reality it was caused by position. Before using the statistics to back up her position, she would have been wise to question how these statistics were difficult to compile due to "sids" being a catch all diagnosis for unexplained infant death.. with direct emphasis on how important it is for medical and state examiners to separate positional asphyxia from SIDS.

There is an overwhelming aura that it is marketed to sell to parents so parents are given a soft place to fall on nearly every really important issue. There is the easy "go to" parental placators that explain WHY parents have it so hard with their children when they have to work, prepare meals, care for the home and the children. Her fundamental position is that children are ALWAYS better off with their parents than in care. She describes the care children receive at home with their parents as being idyllic in contrast to the care they have in group care. I was left to feel she was intimating that the "worst kind of riding beats the best kind of walking" when it came to parental care compared to group care.

I think that is something that will sell her book but it rings empty to me. There are other options out there and we are that option.

Finally I was none too thrilled about her two sentence pass at home child care (at the very end of the book) as a viable alternative to doing time in a center. Her consulation advice was that if you must do home child care you are wise to hire a SAHM who is a good friend and only has a couple of kids because you can't really trust someone you don't know who is not monitored. The "safety in numbers" a center provides with multiple staff is the greatest asset a center has. You won't have that with a home provider so make sure you are friends with the home provider and she doesn't have many kids. This suggestion shows very clearly she doesn't understand a successful home provider. Being bff's with my clients and only running a couple of kids while my kid is little wasn't a business plan that would benefit anyone.. specially me.

The issues that pain her in child care don't exist in my care. My kids are in a multi-level aged group group, they have awesome food, exercise, and toys. My staff assistant changes every three years not every three months, we don't pretend to be teachers, we have the HISTORY with each child from birth to kindy, we have very little illness, and we LOVE them very very much. We aren't the same as parental care but we give good care. It is possible to have a child care where the children receive excellent care and have a substantial amount of awake time under their parents care. I do it every day.


In the end, she did her job. She tackled the two biggies that get a parent to choose a center: Safety in numbers and school. Dismissing the safety and explaining why most centers are not schools and the staff are NOT teachers is a job well done to me. It was a great read and I give her four stars of five. It was awesome for me to read child care material that's new to my brain. Likey that

[cheerfuldom]

I absolutely enjoyed the book but agree that she spends next to no time addressing home daycares. There is a third option out there....perhaps you should write a book nan

[MyAngels]

I read this book as well, and for the most part I agree with what Nannyde said above.

I was slightly put off by the fact that the author wrote this based on two years of part time work during high school, one summer during college, and an unspecified amount of time as an adult. That short amount of experience should not justify an indictment of all daycare centers nationwide. I don't, however, doubt that she is very sincere in everything that she is saying.

I also found her strong bias off-putting, but that could very well be because I work in the field that she is criticizing.

I also did not like the swipe she took at home daycare providers at the end of the book.

This book reinforces for me that I am providing a high quality service to my families, which has always been my goal.

[nannyde]

I absolutely enjoyed the book but agree that she spends next to no time addressing home daycares. There is a third option out there....perhaps you should write a book nan

She dismisses home child care for the same reason parents choose centers: Safety in numbers

She is saying home day care is unmonitored (no one to watch you) so it's not a good option.

Well the truth is that center workers are not monitored either. Even if there is a video camera system they are most likely not supervised via the system. It's expensive to hire someone to watch rooms. The video surveillance is usually used AFTER the fact to see what happened after something has gone wrong.

I can tell you that even when they KNOW they are being watched they quickly forget. If they know there is any chance that you won't be focusing on them right at the moment they do as they please. What they please is the easiest possible thing for them to do right now. That's the hill you climb with center workers.

The other thing she fails to discuss is the chance of a child being severely injured or killed in someone's care is higher with parents than child care providers. The parents or parental designee (boyfriends of moms being a very common one) are more likely to intentionally harm their child then a day care worker is.

She also had a platform to discuss hours in care. We need to start looking at State and Federal regulations and accreditation standards and stop accrediting centers and homes that allow more than a 45 hour week in care. It's not developmentally appropriate for any kid to be in care longer than that. We need to stop pretending we can give great service to kids who are spending the majority of their awake time in our care.

We need to require centers to stop fooling parents on their staffs education. Quit counting child care training hours as part of their education. They need to be honest and disclose exactly where the staff are in their education. Do they have a degree or do they not? "Working" on a degree means no degree.

I can't tell you the number of times I have heard center parents say the staff are either ece or they are "working" on it. Working on it is where the money is with staff assistants. Once they have a degree they find out the center doesn't want to pay them for it unless they are willing to have 15 kids per adult in the room. It's a continuous circle of "the lowest educated and lowest paid" person is REALLY the one providing direct care to your kid. They may be supervised in a loose way by someone with an education but the hands on direct care falls to uneducated staff state after state after state. Even crazy arse Georgia has the same provision and they are leading the way.

[Unregistered]

Love NannyDe!

Nannyde - I have been reading your many posts on this daycare.com and I love your opinions and your experience! Every parent should be so lucky to find home day care such as yours. I finished Doing Time too. I have been a home day care provider and I have worked in centers. I thought it was a really accurate portrayal of center based care.

Perhaps the author did not dig further into home care because she was trying to write about what she saw. First hand experience only. Since she has not worked in home based care she could only mention it and move on. Unfortunately, I believe you would be disappointed to see how some family care options are not as good as your own establishment. Not everyone gets into the business for the right reasons. For example, there is a woman who started a post on this site about keeping "the terds" off of her furniture because of their snot. She could use Nannyde to stop by and offer constructive suggestions for sure!!!

I plan on posting a longer review of Doing Time when I get a minute.
Bridget

[Michelle]

I don't have a kindle but I just have one question, you mentioned "shortcuts "
What exactly did she mean by that?
Sometimes when I change diapers, I only snap the two outside snaps on onsies and not the middle one. ( feeling guilty for this) I just get busy and have a lot of diapers to change.. Is it this kind of shortcut?

[Blackcat31]

Nannyde - I have been reading your many posts on this daycare.com and I love your opinions and your experience! Every parent should be so lucky to find home day care such as yours. I finished Doing Time too. I have been a home day care provider and I have worked in centers. I thought it was a really accurate portrayal of center based care.

Perhaps the author did not dig further into home care because she was trying to write about what she saw. First hand experience only. Since she has not worked in home based care she could only mention it and move on. Unfortunately, I believe you would be disappointed to see how some family care options are not as good as your own establishment. Not everyone gets into the business for the right reasons. For example, there is a woman who started a post on this site about keeping "the terds" off of her furniture because of their snot. She could use Nannyde to stop by and offer constructive suggestions for sure!!!

I plan on posting a longer review of Doing Time when I get a minute.
Bridget

Bridget,

I invite you to become a registered user. I know it makes no difference on whether you are or aren't registered if you are offering good advice or input, which I have noticed you have been doing.

There are, however, some perks to being a registered member, such as not having to wait for your posts to be moderated and having access to the off topic section where many discussions are daycare related just on a more personal level among friends so to speak.

Registering also provides this forum with the credibility of being able to say that there are xx amount of registered users, which in my opinion gives the forum a bit more weight and a good reputation. Having a user name and/or avatar doesn't change any of the content of what you say but for some reason does add a bit of weight to your posts as we have an identity to relate it to.

So on that note, I invite you consider registering.

[Country Kids]

She dismisses home child care for the same reason parents choose centers: Safety in numbers

She is saying home day care is unmonitored (no one to watch you) so it's not a good option.

Well the truth is that center workers are not monitored either. Even if there is a video camera system they are most likely not supervised via the system. It's expensive to hire someone to watch rooms. The video surveillance is usually used AFTER the fact to see what happened after something has gone wrong.

I can tell you that even when they KNOW they are being watched they quickly forget. If they know there is any chance that you won't be focusing on them right at the moment they do as they please. What they please is the easiest possible thing for them to do right now. That's the hill you climb with center workers.

The other thing she fails to discuss is the chance of a child being severely injured or killed in someone's care is higher with parents than child care providers. The parents or parental designee (boyfriends of moms being a very common one) are more likely to intentionally harm their child then a day care worker is.

She also had a platform to discuss hours in care. We need to start looking at State and Federal regulations and accreditation standards and stop accrediting centers and homes that allow more than a 45 hour week in care. It's not developmentally appropriate for any kid to be in care longer than that. We need to stop pretending we can give great service to kids who are spending the majority of their awake time in our care.

We need to require centers to stop fooling parents on their staffs education. Quit counting child care training hours as part of their education. They need to be honest and disclose exactly where the staff are in their education. Do they have a degree or do they not? "Working" on a degree means no degree.

I can't tell you the number of times I have heard center parents say the staff are either ece or they are "working" on it. Working on it is where the money is with staff assistants. Once they have a degree they find out the center doesn't want to pay them for it unless they are willing to have 15 kids per adult in the room. It's a continuous circle of "the lowest educated and lowest paid" person is REALLY the one providing direct care to your kid. They may be supervised in a loose way by someone with an education but the hands on direct care falls to uneducated staff state after state after state. Even crazy arse Georgia has the same provision and they are leading the way.

Read all this a couple of times and hope I understand what you are saying. Correct me if I'm wrong.

What do you do with the parents that do work more than 45 hours a week? Would you just not take their child? I know of one family (I don't have them) but the commute is an hour each way. Then they are at work 9 hours. Right there you have an 11 hour day 5 days a week. I don't think there would be much you could do but not take them. At least they are working and not sitting home collecting off the state and still putting them in childcare.

Training hours count here even for in home childcare providers. I have to have so many hours a year to keep my liscense. Also, I can actually do a program through certain trainings to earn my early childhhood education. Our CCR&R guide you through the trainings for this. You never have to go to college to obtain the degree is my understanding. So really you can be working on it and it take quite a few years. I do know of someone who took 8 years to receive a business degree doing it on line but they were honestly working on it those 8 years.

Also, another post you were saying I think is that they shouldn't be able to call themselves teachers if they aren't one. In my state you can work in a private school as a teacher and not have to have a teaching degree. Alot of the centers here are "private schools" and go up to 8th grade. So legally they can hire them and call them teachers. What is funny is most of the children that go to this one here-most go pre-k and kindergarten then go to public schools. The ones I have known and my neice who is a teacher has told me quite a few from this center have been her students are very, very smart! They score exceedingly high on all state testing, usually in the tag program, and just blow your mind! So maybe they don't have degree's but they are doing something right!

Just a few points I know from personal experience. I think like the food program, childcare is so vast from state to state that there is no way to make it come under one umbrella.

[Sunchimes]

I ask the same question as Country Kids. I have a mom that works 48 hours a week, plus commute time, so, over 50 hours a week. Dad lives out of town, so its basically dcm and me raising this baby. I can't be her mom, but I can be a stable force in her life, love her and provide some consistency for her. I know she's better off with more mom-time, but jobs are scarce around here, and sometimes, the choices are difficult.

I don't feel guilty about providing a space for this mom, I subscribe to the "it takes a village" theory. The more people who love a child, the better their chances of a happy, successful life. I'm just part of the baby's village.

Of course mom and I both wish it were different, and maybe someday, it will be, but for now, it is what it is. Always open to ideas and suggestions for making things better around here, for moms, kids, and myself!