In this second of a two part series we're going to discuss what can be done to balance between child care and giving your child the attention he deserves.
To balance out the care your child gets between the child care center and yourself, assuming that both parents have to work or in the case of a single parent, there are several things that can be done.
This isn't always easy, but try to work out a flexible work schedule with your boss. If both parents work a day job maybe you can arrange to have one of the parents working either at night or a staggered shift, say starting at noon and working to 8 or 9. This way one parent will be home with the child most of the morning and the other parent can be home with the child all evening, leaving only a few hours each day that the child is actually in the care of a day center. This may not seem like much but every hour is something.
Another thing a parent can do is see if it is possible to take the child to work with him or her for at least a couple of days a week. Some work places actually have daycare facilities inside. While it is true that the parent will be spending most of the time working and not with the child, there is still the ride to work, lunch and break times and the ride home that they can spend together. Just this little bit of time to break up the day can make a big difference in your child's disposition, especially if he is old enough to look at the clock on the wall and know that in a short time mommy or daddy are going to be picking him up for a nice lunch together.
If neither of those are an option then there is another alternative that is actually becoming very popular especially among mothers. That option is to become a Work At Home Mom or what is commonly referred to as a WAHM. A work at home mom is just what it sounds like, a mother that does her work out of the house. Today, with the advent of the computer, this is easy to do. There are many legitimate opportunities a mother can find on the Internet that can pay her for the work she does at home, from stuffing envelopes to typing ads. Of course she has to carefully check out each opportunity before getting involved, as there are many scams out there, but once she finds something with a good reputation, usually a company that is a member of the BBBOnline, she should be able to make a decent enough income to justify her staying at home. It may not be as much as what she would make in an office but when you factor in that there are no transportation costs, no lunches to pack, etc., the income may be more than enough to get the family over the hump.
The bottom line is this. We don't have children to dump them in a daycare center. Children need their parents. There are ways to make that happen. It just takes a little effort and a little compromise.
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Michael Russell
Your Independent guide to Child Care
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