Top Reasons to Be a Childcare Provider

The oth­er day our team was dis­cussing the chal­lenges of work­ing in child­care (the low pay! the stress! the par­ents!) and also the many rea­sons to be a child­care provider. 

We start­ed to list all the won­der­ful, mag­i­cal rea­sons to spend days with chil­dren and began review­ing mes­sages from our stu­dents. We found more and more pos­i­tive respons­es and rea­sons to be a child­care pro­fes­sion­al, and our list turned into this blog.

Providers share reasons to be a childcare provider.

“I enjoy their smiles”

“My stu­dents real­ly love get­ting out­side, so we often take walks. They range from 16 months — 3 years. Often we bring chalk so we can stop and scrib­ble. We also col­lect items to add to our nature bas­ket. Acorns, leaves, rocks, sticks, etc. They like hav­ing time to explore, ask ques­tions, and see things they may not see with their fam­i­lies. I enjoy their smiles, their ques­tions, and how much room I have to explore.”

“I enjoy their smiles, their ques­tions, and how much room I have to explore.”

“I enjoy it because I feel like I have an oppor­tu­ni­ty to share some­thing I love with the chil­dren and teach them about nature.”

- Ear­ly child­hood professionals

“An opportunity to share something I love”

“We were talk­ing about plants and seeds, and we went on a field trip around our area. I took the chil­dren to see dif­fer­ent plants and what seeds they pro­duced. We saw seeds pods, “heli­copters” from trees, and oth­ers. We saw some seeds grow­ing into new plants and had a chance to talk about how the seeds might move from one place to grow in anoth­er. It was very mem­o­rable for the chil­dren. I enjoyed it because I felt I could share some­thing I love with the chil­dren and teach them about nature.”

“Modeling positive behavior is so rewarding”

“I encour­age and mod­el pos­i­tive behav­ior. By doing that myself, I ‘catch’ the chil­dren doing the same with their friends. I’ll hear one say to anoth­er, ‘it makes me hap­py when you play with me,’ and the oth­er child replies, ‘me too…want to play with me?’ I have observed this same action many times with chil­dren with dif­fer­ent activ­i­ties we do through­out the day. Mod­el­ing pos­i­tive behav­ior is so reward­ing for everyone.”

“I love knowing they are cared for”

“When a child feels secure, I’ve noticed they will explore and then glance back almost say­ing ‘I’m over here’ or ‘I’m doing this.’ They come to be com­fort­ed when they fall down or get hurt. When a child is dropped off but cries for their par­ent, I see the secure attach­ment in the fam­i­ly unit. I love know­ing they are cared for. Smil­ing and hold­ing a child or help­ing them fig­ure out a sit­u­a­tion that may be dif­fi­cult. Secure attach­ments can be seen in a lot of sit­u­a­tions. Look­ing for them is excit­ing. I also have a tod­dler who likes to be near me a lot. They feel safe, and I like that.”

“Mod­el­ing pos­i­tive behav­ior is so reward­ing for every­one.”

“They feel safe and I like that.”

“I strive to be like my teacher and use a pos­i­tive guid­ance approach every day.”

- Ear­ly child­hood professionals

“I want the children I work with to have this same feeling”

“When I was in school, I had a teacher whose approach was pos­i­tive guid­ance. She pulled chil­dren aside indi­vid­u­al­ly when there was a prob­lem. She would talk about how the stu­dent was feel­ing and how the sit­u­a­tion could be han­dled dif­fer­ent­ly next time. This approach made me feel good about myself, and I knew I was in a safe envi­ron­ment with peo­ple who pushed me to be my best. I knew I want­ed the chil­dren I work with to have this feel­ing. I strive to be like my teacher and use a pos­i­tive guid­ance approach every day.”

So many won­der­ful rea­sons to spend your days with chil­dren! And now … we have com­piled a list some of the top rea­sons to be a child­care provider. Please add your own rea­sons in the com­ments at the end of this post!

Top reasons to be a childcare provider

1. Make a dif­fer­ence in children’s lives. The ear­ly years are sig­nif­i­cant for their development. 
2. Make a dif­fer­ence for par­ents. Par­ents of young chil­dren, espe­cial­ly new par­ents, tend to lean on child­care providers’ support.
3. Make a dif­fer­ence for chil­dren with spe­cial needs. Help their par­ents rec­og­nize the impor­tance of ear­ly inter­ven­tion, and advo­cate for them.
4. Enjoy emo­tion­al­ly reward­ing bonds with young chil­dren: infants, tod­dlers, and preschool­ers respond to sen­si­tive care­giv­ing with heart-warm­ing love and affection.
5. Gain a deep under­stand­ing of child development. 
6. Apply the under­stand­ing of child devel­op­ment to rais­ing your own children.
7. Grow and gain respect in the field of ear­ly child­hood edu­ca­tion by fol­low­ing a defined career path. There are many resources avail­able to child­care providers to earn cre­den­tials while working.

As a family childcare provider, in addition to all of the above

• Be home with your own young chil­dren (or old­er ones when they come home from school) while earn­ing a living.
• Cre­ate a nur­tur­ing, home-away-from-home envi­ron­ment for young chil­dren and their families.
• Enjoy the inde­pen­dence of run­ning your own business. 

Professional Development Training

Inter­est­ed in learn­ing more about being a child­care provider? Read our blog about activ­i­ties from our course, A Joy­ful Life of Care­giv­ing.

Or, take the course itself! A Joy­ful Life of Care­giv­ing We have great intro­duc­to­ry cours­es, First Steps in Child Care and Great Begin­nings: An Intro­duc­tion to Child Care. Inter­est­ed in learn­ing more about being a pro­fes­sion­al child­care provider? Take our course, The Ear­ly Child­hood Pro­fes­sion­al.

While you’re learn­ing, we also rec­om­mend our free child­care train­ing course Play­ing Out­doors!

Care Courses Support 

Please con­tact us and let us know how we can be of addi­tion­al assis­tance! Call us: 1–800–685‑7610, Mon­day through Fri­day, 9–5 ET, or email us days, evenings, and week­ends: info@CareCourses.com. We’re here to help!