The Daycare Handbook

Margaret E. Kidd is a member of Toronto’s Child & Family Services
Review Board.

This book is a gold mine of information for parents who are anxious to
arrange appropriate alternative provision for their child while they
work or complete further education. Today’s society does not have the
ever-ready extended family to take over if and when the parent is not
there. Yet hospitals, shops, offices, banks, and industries cannot get
along without the time and energy of women employees, and the young
children of those women need daily care. With families having fewer
children, people are anxious that the few children they have be given
the best chance.

This book has a fine, well-organized mass of information regarding
daycare facilities across the country, but one must dig it out. Kaiser
and Rasminsky write very clearly and without condescension to parents
seeking care for their children. They not only point out the options,
they detail the important factors one should watch for to ensure the
child’s well-being. They emphasize licencing requirements, specifying
hygiene and safety rules as well as programming possibilities for groups
of infants, toddlers, and preschool children. For some time now we have
been training professionals in Early Childhood Education, so there are
knowledgeable, caring individuals able to provide the facilities so well
described in this book. They do exist, but they are not universal. With
the growth of research in psychology and child development, along with
the vast expansion of the need for women in the work force, we can
identify what is of vital importance for the daily lives of young
children in group care outside their own homes.

But it takes time, energy, dedication, and direction to find daycare
for your particular child accessible to your home that you can afford or
for which you can arrange subsidy. Small but important factors are not
always obvious to parents—who, of necessity, are concerned with their
own child and their own busy family life—but they make all the
difference in the “treatment” of different children and the
development of their confidence, ability, and adjustment. It is well
worth the time to read and study this work by two well-qualified
professionals who are also parents.

Here you will find checklists to use when talking to staff, and
comparisons of advantages and disadvantages for nanny care, private home
care, and group daycare. Differences in daycare arrangements in each
province are pointed out. The information is well indexed and there is
an excellent list of references. College and provincial staff in Early
Childhood Education would find this book a good resource. And, of
course, this handbook would be immensely useful to parents in clarifying
the difficult decisions of daycare choice.