This afternoon Lauca has been dissolving into puddles of anxiety about the prospect of going to kindergarten without her favourite kindergarten teacher there. The teacher knew it would be upsetting for Lauca so she took time out to ring us over the weekend and warn us that she wouldn’t be there this week. She is very sweet. Lauca loves likes (strongly) this kindergarten and has settled in very well, but the memories of some of her worst times at daycare aren’t far behind her, and frankly they’re not far behind us either. Her distress has had her father and I feeling very tense this afternoon, and recalling the way we spent many previous weekends.
Back in the daycare days I remember doing my best to jolly Lauca along, scaling a mountain of morning preparation, only to get her through the door of the centre and find that the one carer she had bonded with was working in one of the other rooms today. It was the final straw for Lauca and no matter how cheery I tried to be about the prospects she’d be distraught and panicking. In my arms sobbing and howling, I’d have to unhook her little fists from my clothes and necklace, push her into another carer’s arms, and run back out the door, with tears in my eyes all the way to work. I still can’t walk past her old daycare building without shuddering, even though I think it was an excellent daycare centre.
Here is an interview I caught on the radio the other day about a pilot project introducing elements of attachment parenting into daycare centres, that is, assigning a ‘primary carer’ for each child at the centre and training staff in understanding the responses of very young children. The success was overwhelming, not just for the children and their parents, but importantly also for staff. This project was used for ‘at risk’ parents, but this kind of approach is what I mean when I am arguing for better access to high quality childcare for all working parents. One day I believe these principles will be standard elements of childcare.
As for us, we’ve decided one of us will be staying home with Lauca tomorrow so she can skip kindergarten. Some would call this jellyfish-parenting, those people would not be our neighbors listening to the sudden calm of the evening.
blue milk 
I’ve never heard the phrase ‘jelly fish’ parenting. Sounds like b.s. to me. I think it’s great you’ve got the freedom in your life to avoid something that’s distressing for your family, even if it is just for one little day.
One of the greatest blessings in our work-home life has been a schedule that has allowed us to avoid all the scenes you have written about, scenes that made my stomach clench for you. I’m so glad you have it less in your life now.
I heard that radio story too and was amazed at what a great, and sensible concept it was to have one main person to bond and connect with at child care. The attention to attachment with a main carer, in my books, is worth more than all the supposed extra-curricula activities that many day care centres offer put together. After one near miss with a child care centre that still makes me shudder, caused my partner to cut himself shaving, and brings back memories of my daughter’s, 10 months at the time, look of absolute fear and inextricable claw-like grip…meant that we looked around for alternatives…We were lucky to find a truely wonderful, devoted, family daycare mum who helped to nurture our little girl until she started school this year. I was her knowing of the small group of children, and thier knowing of her, and her safe and predictable routines, and her amazing warmth and common sense, that helped our daughter learn to trust someone outside the circle of family…Sadly, our day care mum’s meagre salary, which was on the lowest rung of the childcare worker scale, meant that she recently resigned…
I think you are right to give you daughter all the time she needs to feel comfortable, and feel trusting of strangers. If that’s jelly fish parenting, then I’m an irukandji.
When he first started childcare the lad only liked two of the carers, one of them didn’t work in his room except to cover breaks. I went to pick him up one day and discovered he was in the toddler room with his favourite because he wouldn’t let her go. I was sad that he was clearly not enjoying himself there, but relieved that they were able to run with what made him feel ok.
Now he barely says goodbye to me when I drop him off because they have plastic reptiles he’s fascinated with. It makes a big difference to my productivity through the day, I don’t think I’d get anything done if I was dealing with drop offs like yours.
My little ones go to family day care, so there is only one carer. The 3 year old has a tantrum every morning. He wakes up saying “I don’t wanna go to Nessa’s house” and repeats until I drop him off. Every afternoon I pick him up and he demands a kiss from Nessa, and says “No more sad face going to Nessa’s house, only happy face.” And then we start again.
Totally unrelated to what you are talking about, since I don’t think he actually as any anxiety, but I’ve no idea what is going on. Family Day Care is a really good alternative, especially for little ones. For anyone who has this option, I would recommend it.
Funny, I never thought about it before but when my daughter was very small (under 3) she did have a primary carer in each daycare room to whom she was very attached. She would not walk into the center, but had to be carried in and handed over to the arms of the teacher. As long as we did that, we had no tears.
Each room had two caregivers, and they didn’t rotate to other rooms, and they didn’t take vacation at the same time, so there was always someone there that my daughter knew. Isn’t that common sense? Doesn’t everyone know that toddlers need routines? I find it kind of staggering that any center would move people in and out of rooms. Makes me understand more why people don’t like bigger centers.
It would be brilliant if the idea of attatchment caregiving in daycare centres became the norm, so much better. I would be much more comfortable with the idea of 1 and 2 year olds in daycare if they were with the same person each time, and ‘attached’ to that person, in addition to whomever they live with at home. I don’t believe very small children need to be with their mothers all day to be happy, but they certainly need to be with individuals to whom they are “attatched”.
p.s. I reckon you would be great at combining the Phd opportunity with eveything else, but then again – the opportunity will come again, right? or not? It must be a hard decision make! If you turn it down I don’t think you’re going to lack writing opportunities in the future. If you do it – I don’t think you’ll be neglecting your daughter in any way, you’re too much of a conscious parent for that.
As a nanna now doing the child care drop off with Adya two and half nearly thirty years after doing it with my sons may I offer some suggestions.
1) Have a look at your anxieties..are they contributing
2) for young kids have something good for them to go to so they can be less focussed about what they might be losing when you leave. We have a generic ” Nadia” who represents all the educators in Adayas child care. So far we have taken in baby snails, puppets and a Giant strawberry to share with Nadia and the othe kids. thjere are still protests but they are manageable and sometimes even so minor you don’t notice.
I just discovered this (old) post of yours. I am in the UK and “attachment caregiver” is VERY much the norm here – each child has their own key worker who looks after them everyday. They have four child to care for and are paired up with another key worker so that if they are ill or on vacation the child will still be with someone that she knows.
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Going back through some of your kindergarten posts.. Our daycare (I’m in the States) uses a primary caregiver. It helped my little one transition initially to daycare. The challange came when it was time for her to move up to the next age group – the caregivers specialize by age group, so now she has a different primary caregiver. She still wants to visit her previous carer in the mornings. I agree its a good model.