Parents all over the United States and even the world find themselves asking very similar questions. “What kind of person will my child grow into?” “Am I doing a good enough job parenting my child?” and “Is there a good day care near me?” are all common questions among parents. The answers to these questions can vary a lot depending on the family and where they are, but some people may be confused why so many parents look for daycare centers near them. It can be a little confusing for a lot of people, so let’s delve a little deeper into this topic so you can have a better understanding.
Saving Money on Gas
With skyrocketing gas prices, it only makes sense that a lot of people are looking for any way they can to cut a few miles off from their point a to point b. That’s one of the biggest positives for finding a good daycare center near home. You don’t have to drive as far which naturally means that you won’t be spending as much on gas as you would have otherwise. Even just cutting off 5 miles each way means 10 fewer miles a day and 50 fewer miles a week, assuming you’re only getting daycare 5 days a week. With there being 4 weeks in a month, you can stand to cut 200 miles from your commute a month. Based on the average mpg for cars in the United States, that could save you nearly 10 gallons of gas. That’s almost a full tank in most cars!
Get Your Child’s Immune System Up and Running
Many people enroll their children just to make sure that their immune systems are ready for the world. There are a lot of germs, bacteria, fungi, viruses, and protozoa all over the place that can make your children sick. When you or your children get sick your body gets to fighting the illness. This is typically done with white blood cells. They learn about the invader and attack it to the best of their ability. Once the white blood cells know what an invader looks like they’re able to have a game plan for the next time that said invader visits. That means that exposing your child to these things at a young age can get their immune system for the real world. The stronger a child’s immune system, the less likely they are to get seriously ill when they’re an adult.
Know Your Kid is Nearby
Many parents, especially of children that are too young for kindergarten, have a condition that’s commonly referred to as “separation anxiety.” This condition is typically brought on when you spend every day of your child’s life with them. This causes some anxiety both in yourself and in your child when you’re separated. This condition is perfectly natural and can even happen with pets. The best way to get past it with your child is to acclimate to the new situation. Every parent has to deal with it someday, but there is something that makes it easier. Knowing that your child is near home means that you can worry a little less because they’re still close geographically. It doesn’t make it easy to deal with, but it does make it a lot easier.
Teach Your Child Social Skills at a Young Age
Humans are social creatures. We are such aggressively social creatures that we even make friends with creatures from other species, most commonly cats and dogs. Knowing that social skills are incredibly important. As a human, it’s important to have social skills so that we can satiate a very intrinsic need that is engrained in our very DNA. When you put your child into a daycare program, you give them a chance to interact with other humans that are at a similar stage of development. That’s huge for children, especially children that are used to only interacting with people that are significantly older than them.
The social skills that your children can learn in a daycare program will give them the tools that they need to be well-rounded people. We use our social skills in our everyday life, whether it’s talking to our parents on the phone, dealing with people at work, or even when we go on dates. Your child will have to do all of these things for themselves someday, and it’s good for them to get an early start. By enrolling your child into a daycare program you can even make sure that they have the skills they need to not feel as nervous when it’s time for them to start their official academic career, which can be incredibly overwhelming for such a young person.
Make Commuting a Little Easier
Time is a non-renewable resource. That means that the more time you spend fighting traffic, the less time you can spend with your children. By having your child’s daycare close to home you could feasibly cut down on your commute time by a lot, especially if you work far from home. Some especially lucky people have good daycare centers right down the street from their house, meaning that they can just swing by on their way home and not add too much time to their trip home. Even just saving a few minutes on your commute adds up to hours over time, and those hours can be spent with your family doing things that are a lot more fun than sitting in traffic.
Give Your Child a Head Start on Their Academic Career
The beginning of school is arguably the hardest part. Of course, doctoral programs deal with highly advanced concepts. Law school leads to the bar exam which many people consider to be the hardest test in the world. While there are types of schooling that deal with much more complicated than what’s covered in kindergarten, starting off from scratch is hard. By enrolling your children into a daycare program, you give them the chance to start learning before they get to kindergarten, meaning that they’ll already know some of the basics and be better prepared for their academic life.
Save Time During Your Daily Routine
Time is important. Some people feel that there’s never enough time in the day, and that’s a valid concern. If it takes 30 minutes one way to get to your child’s daycare, that’s an hour a day added to your daily routine. There are only 24 hours in a day, so that means that you’re spending roughly 4% of your day just driving to pick up and drop off your children. By having something nearby that’s a much smaller concern because you don’t need to drive around quite as much.
Reliably Have Someone to Watch Your Children
Childcare is hard to find, and high-quality childcare is even harder to find. Regardless of the difficulty of finding good childcare, you still have things to do. Whether you work a full-time job five days a week, a part-time job 3 days a week, or you work a lot more than that, you’re going to need to find something to do with your children. Babysitters are people and that means that their cars can break down, they can get sick, they can have emergencies, or they could just need mental health days just like anyone else. By hiring a daycare center, those kinds of logistical issues aren’t your problem. It doesn’t make a difference to you if one of the daycare employees calls out because the center has the infrastructure in place to make sure that your child still has someone watching them.
Having a Pre-Established Familiarity With the Area
One of the easiest ways to make sure that your child feels comfortable is for them to be in an area where they’re already familiar. Most people are a little nervous in unfamiliar places, and when your child has so many new things that they have to deal with in one place it’s good for them to have even just a little something that they can hold onto for familiarity.
More Comfort For Your Child
Children don’t like change. The same can be said for people in general. Putting your child into a daycare program will likely be a little stressful for them, so having them close to home means that throughout their day they’ll be able to think about the fact that home isn’t too far off. Such a comfort is something that helps even adults, and when your children are in their developmental phase it makes doing through these interesting times a lot easier on their minds.
Enrolling Your Child in Daycare for a Better Future
Everyone worries about their child’s future. Children are a blank canvas with a whole life ahead of them, sometimes even 80 plus years. Giving your child the tools that they need to succeed early on increases their odds of being successful later on in life. By choosing a program that’s near your home, you can help make your life a little easier while still giving your child everything that they need to thrive in life.
