While the informal setting of family child care can feel much warmer than a typical business, at the end of the day it is a source of income and a profession. As the owner of a family child care home, you’ll learn about marketing, advertising, accounting, and so much more.
Nonviolent communication is “a language of compassion.” While we don’t often think of our words, or anyone else’s, as violent, the emotional harm that we do to others and have done to us is real. Once we can accept that all behavior from children is communication, we are ready to take on a bigger challenge: learning and internalizing that behavior in the form of spoken, written, and body language from adults is communication too.
Because of the close personal nature of our work, it’s almost inevitable that at some point we will have a disagreement with a family member. But these disagreements don’t have to cause long-term damage to relationships. When we are skilled in nonviolent communication, we can strengthen our relationships with families through compassionate and thoughtful conversations, even when the conversations themselves are uncomfortable.
Consider a common source of tension between families and providers: when a child is too ill to attend child care, or becomes ill during the day.
From the provider’s perspective, one ill child will lead to more ill children, and when the care is provided in your home, it can impact your whole family. That might mean your children are sick, or you have to spend even more time cleaning and sanitizing than usual. It makes group care difficult: a sick child won’t want to play, won’t be in a cooperative mood, and may throw off the group routine with heightened need for sleep.
From the family’s perspective, a sick child may mean missing work when they are out of paid leave or in a probationary period. It can be harder to see that a child is ill when they are at home; it’s easier to meet the child’s needs individually rather than in a group setting, and the child is more comfortable at home and may just be happier with their family then they were at child care. Families who are stressed financially might be upset that they are paying for time they can’t use.
Making the call can be anxiety-inducing. Some providers might prefer to avoid the conflict altogether, and not say anything, or passively suggest that the family “keep an eye on” the child for symptoms. Other providers might start on the attack “Why did you send your child here when they’re clearly sick?!” Using non-violent communication urges a different path: First, try to anticipate the other person’s needs. While you can’t make a difference in how the person’s employer will respond to them needing to leave early to pick up a sick child, you can start with empathy. Then state your own need clearly.
“Hi Johanna; I’m sorry to interrupt you at work, I know you just started your new job. I’m calling to let you know that Jamari is running a fever and will need to be picked up before nap time. After he’s been fever-free for 24 hours, we’ll be excited to welcome him back!”
When you begin by acknowledging the other party’s needs, it tells them that you’re aware of what you’re asking. Following by phrasing your own needs clearly and in a positive way (i.e. with a direction, not just “don’t bring him back until he’s better) allows the other person to understand what is expected of them and plan accordingly. Finishing with a personal message also helps to convey that this isn’t a decision you made because you don’t want the child there, but because he’s uncomfortable and you have the responsibility of reducing the risk of contagious illness for all children in your care.
Using the framework of nonviolent communication reduces the room for misunderstandings and for professional boundaries to become personal. You can even use these practices when writing policies– another way to proactively anticipate conflict with families and clarify each party’s responsibilities in the child care setting.
Town Square had the pleasure of sitting down with Jill Russell, family child care provider and owner of Russell Family Childcare, to discuss the importance of policies and how they protect her business and families in her care. Listen below.
It’s impossible to predict the future, you never know when a natural disaster or emergency can occur. While you can’t prevent all emergencies, you can protect the children in your care, your family, and your business by having adequate insurance protection. This resource by Child Care Aware and Tom Copeland summarizes four types of insurance policies and why they are necessary to have.
How Insurance Protects You in an Emergency
Sharing ideas on how to use social media – specifically Facebook groups to communicate with families
Explore our Learn, Share, and Grow series located in the Professional Development tab.
Learn, Share, and Grow series covers a particular topic spread across a number of short video segments. By breaking up the topic into multiple shorter videos, they are more digestible one at a time, while still being a part of a larger coherent segment.
Below is the second of three parts business series. Family Child Care Provider Laverne Head explains why policies are essential for the success of an FCC business.
We asked family child care professionals what types of things they thought were most important to include in their contract and put together this tip sheet:
Top 5 Things to Include in Your Contract
Clearly defining your policies and following through on them is helpful for parents, for you as a professional, and also for maintaining the standards needed for licensing and high quality care.
Take some time to review and revise your program’s contract today!
Are you interested in learning more about the BAS (Business Administration Scale) for family child care? The BAS is a tool that can be used for program self-improvement and is a required component for ExceleRate Illinois. The McCormick Center for Early Childhood Leadership offers resources and information to support providers in preparing for an ExceleRate BAS assessment. This checklist gives a list of categories for which providers are asked to collect documentation as part of a BAS visit. This might be a helpful starting point for learning more about what is included in BAS and for self-evaluating your business.