What to consider when choosing community childcare
This guide was written in collaboration with our good friends and community childcare experts Abulé.
As many of us know, childcare is EXPENSIVE. It can also be incredibly difficult to find the right structure to fit your family’s needs, or a daycare that isn’t miles away from your home or office. Most importantly, TRUST & SAFETY are key non-negotiables to be considered.
The idea of childcare is often limited to daycare or babysitting but ideally, it should include all aspects relevant to a child’s upbringing from their earliest stages in life through young adulthood. This can be school pick up/drop offs, tutoring - essentially it’s everyone coming together to share knowledge and wisdom to holistically raise children. By extending the meaning of caregivers to include the community as a whole - volunteers, college students, extended family (grandparents) - parents can more easily find the support they need to raise their children.
There are multiple different ways to create a childcare option that works best for your family, and in this article we’re working with Abulé to highlight community childcare as an option. Abulé helps families create local tribes (because it takes a village) made up of neighbors, family, friends, and community members who can all support one another with childcare.
Things to consider when building YOUR tribe
First things first, let’s talk about core values. Core values make it easy to establish trust with your tribe, and make it less daunting when you know that you’re all aligned in how you want to approach child care/rearing. When you’re in person, core values may extend from following specific diet regimens through to the types of activities we want our children to engage in.
When we think about virtual childcare, Covid has made the world “flat” (don’t worry, we’re not flat earthers) but we now have access to meet people from much further away who may share similar values as we do that can translate across the interweb.
Religion - a key thing to consider when we talk about child rearing. Do you have a certain set of beliefs that you want your children to grow up with? How do you feel about your children being exposed to other belief systems?
Medical - unfortunately more relevant now than ever before, we need to determine how we want to approach medication, vaccinations, injuries, etc
Treatment of others - while the “golden rule” may feel ingrained into some of us, that might not mean anything to people not growing up in a Christian/Western focused society. How do we want our children to treat each other? Their community?
Political - how (do) you want politics to be introduced/ingrained into your children?
Next up, parenting style. Are we helicopter parents? Completely hands off? Time outs vs spankings, activities versus screentime - all of these are worth discussing with your tribe to understand preferences, concerns, and how to foster curiosity within our kids. Some examples of parenting styles may include:
No cursing
Limited screentime
Cellphones
Empathetic mediation vs punishment oriented
For in-person childcare, location can make all the logistical difference.
How close do you all live?
How far do you all need to commute?
How rigid are your office hours?/how early/late do you work?
How big are your respective homes? How close are you to outdoor space? Activities?
If all of you are on opposite work schedules, or if you all live pretty far from each other, more organization and logistics will be needed to make things work. Tribes should be about alleviating some of the stress of care, so make sure to think through all of these aspects.
Lastly, let’s talk about interests. What do you want your kids to do when they’re in their tribe?
How old are all of your kids? What kinds of things do they like doing?
Do your children all participate in after school activities or sports?
Do you all have similar interests, skills, or activities that you want your children to learn or participate in?
Learning styles can also help community members understand how best to support your children. Do they go to Montessori school? Are they audio or visual learners, etc.
In conclusion, choosing your tribe involves some soul searching, great communication, and some operational work, but it’s so worth it. For more information on how to choose your tribe, or to find one, check out Abulé!
