Getting Started Again

I’ve not put anything new on this blog since last week. I’ve been searching the web for childcare sites and possible links. One of the things I’ve been plagued with over the years is a plea from parents who want more readily available, user friendly articles written for parents by childcare people about children’s issues without having to dig. There are few.

There are dozens of childcare books in the book stores and most of them say the same things: do this, don’t do that. They never really get to the heart of childcare because most of them are written by people out of the field who think they know, and think they can tell parents, but who miss most of the fine points of working with children.

I’ve read several of these books, and have been disappointed. What is it about childcare that people miss? I think it’s the daily, year in and year out working with kids that can’t be duplicated. It's the same with the Internet. There are few sites I have found that offer any perspective on rearing children that's not business first, child second.

When I started writing the column 15 years ago, there was a bet at the newspaper that I wouldn’t last three months. What could someone actually say about kids that didn't relate to a product. But the editor was adamant, “She’s in the field and can put a sentence together.” I’ve written about children every week for fifteen years, and the well never runs dry because the well is constantly being refilled by the hearts and little deeds of children at school. Perhaps the vision is unique; I don't know, but there is a real need for parents to know, and it's not being expressed.

People want to know where I get my information and what my sources are. I always tell them that what I write about I’ve learned from first hand experience. It’s not something I can learn in a classroom because the knowledge I need is not in the classroom, the experience is not there; it’s second hand, it’s theory. Every year I guest lecture at the two Universities here in town, and the hands on experience is always appreciated by the students. Theory will never take the place of doing, because we are not working with something finite; we are working with infinite possibilities - people.

Childcare is about bringing the world to children. It’s not about repressing children into some dressed up doll “look what he or she can do” ideal. Childcare is about teaching real people how to enter the world with a fully developed sense of what’s out there and how they can use it well. That’s why we teach the liberal arts at school. People laugh at our curriculum, but the children love it and when they go off to school, they know what the Norman Conquest is, they have an historical perspective, a knowledge of science, Scripture, and why virtue is better than vice.

I’ve been in the childcare profession for thirty-five years and the early childhood education world for twenty-five years. Edith, my partner, was teaching seventh grade when I was in seventh grade about four states away.

Most people who are as serious as I am about childcare leave the trenches and become early childhood educators, lobbyists, inspectors, childcare directors, and speakers. I’ve stayed in the trenches because I like being around children.

My own children took 27 years to get from one end of the public schools to the other, so I had kids at home a long time. Now I’ve got teen grandkids and one still under two. Was it all smooth sailing? Nope. Problems and crises were handled along with the joys and merits. Nobody’s kids are perfect.

People ask me if I’ve published books. I have two in the hopper – one on the high energy child and one on what parents should look for when searching for childcare. The response is interesting. I’m an essayist, so my work is parent friendly to read, and egregious to publish. Publishers want brief, to the point bullet ideas that sell, sell, sell. I want to explain, to share, to allow the reader to be satisfied and finish reading with a smile.

Back to the blog: My intention with this blog is to make it a first rate childcare resource for parents wanting to know about how childcare works. It's going to take time.

I want to offer music as a first project, so if you are reading and have a web site you like, a resource you enjoy, please send it to me.


Letters and comments are welcome.

Judy