Working With A Spouse In Day Care
Many providers have the opportunity to work with their spouses. My husband and I have always worked part time as a team and for a three-year period we worked full time together. In our profession, having the support and understanding of our spouses and family is important to our success and I know of more than one provider that gave up their profession because that support wasn’t always there.
I’ve seen a lot of positive influence and reaction to a male’s presence, especially in little boys, and I wholeheartedly endorse having a male role model around and I encourage providers to consider it.
After deciding to work together you may find the need to sit down and set up a few ground rules. Knowing who is charge and deciding what is important to each of you will be very important. We had to figure out what each of us wanted to do, what our talents were, and what we didn’t want to do. I think the hardest thing for me was to correct him on how to do something my way over his way (never in front of the children though). I also had to learn to let go (which was very hard) and let him try his ideas. When you are accustomed to doing everything your own way, which has evolved to be the fastest or easiest way, it’s difficult to sit back and let someone else learn what you already know. But, the upside is you may learn some techniques from him that work well too.
It worked well for us by splitting up the duties. I did all the potty training and bathroom deeds. He did most of the cooking and I did the business paper work and most art activities while we shared the food serving and clean up. I would put everyone down for their naps and he was my baby feeder, rocker, and lap holder for the infants and toddlers. I would greet parents in the morning and by afternoon my student helper was there and he was off to his other job.
My spouse enjoyed playing at their level, on the floor, and being the funny guy while my job was to enforce the rules. The children knew how this worked and enjoyed having a guy help build sets and he even joins the girls when they play with their dollhouse. He eats the pretend food they cook form him, teaches them Spanish, and coaches the boys to hold doors open for the little ladies when they go out to do errands. There is no rough housing in day care and they knew that NO means NO. The children would remind him of the rules too, like no burping in day care.
We also needed to inform day care parents of the changes that were going to happen. My spouse had met all the training that was required of him so the transition of him helping me full time fell right into place. When parents come for an interview I always tell them that my husband is a big part of my day care even though he isn’t full time anymore. They should know up front that he is involved and if they aren’t comfortable with that they should look for other arrangements.
Not all spouses enjoy helping with childcare but if you are lucky to have their support it means the world. Through working with other providers I’ve met some that have spouses and family that weren’t very supportive and even though they were very good providers, without that support they soon left this profession. Kids are the real losers when a good provider moves on to something else. I’m not saying it will always be easy working with a spouse, especially because they don’t leave at the end of the day like a normal employee would. But there is an upside. Children in my care see a male that shows love and affection to me, as well as them, and they might not see this at home. This display of love may someday influence how they treat their own family. What better lesson could be taught? Could any lesson be more fun to teach?
I’m really looking forward to the day we can work full time as a team again and so is he.
Patti Jo Lawrenz
pjltips@aol.com
