4 Considerations for Parents Before Sending Their Children to Child Care Centre

If you’re like most Singaporean parents then you’re probablyalmost always finding yourself working all day all week with sometimes even the weekends taken up. And when those 3.6 months of maternity leave are over,letting go of your childinto the care of others is virtually unavoidable – unless of course you expect your kid to grow up by ten years in an instant (and even then I still wouldn’t trust my “kid” to take care of him/herself).

Who you choose to entrust the care of your child to, however, is still a highly contentious issue. Some parents, mums in particular, will feel awfully bad if their decision somehow led to something bad happening to their child – more so if it ends up reinforcing the social stigma of ‘abandoning’ their little ones in the hands of strangers.The reality of working life, family circumstances and high cost of living has left many with few options but to enrol their children at child care centres in Singapore.

So when should you enrol your child in a Child Care Centre in Singapore?

1. Your parents or in-laws are unavailable to care for your child

It may be because your parents/in-laws live far away from you, and sending your child to them means that you’ll lose the chance to see your child as much as you’d like. Maybe they’re already preoccupied with your sibling’s kid.Or maybe they’re just too busy spending their retirement vacationing around the world to bother. They may be our parents/in-laws and are (usually!) trustable to take genuine care your little one, but they are still human and are therefore limited by physical laws that govern our known universe of space-time.

2. You want to take advantage of the child care subsidy to send your child to a child care centre because you do not want to trouble your parents or in-laws

If you don’t want to trouble your parents or in-laws with having to raise yet another child (you were bad enough!), taking advantage of the government child care subsidy will help you better handle the cost of sending your child to a child care centre. So if your child is of Singapore an citizenship and is enrolled at one of the many government-approved child care centres in Singapore then you’re eligible to receive thechild care subsidy.

Also, child care centres in Singapore are staffed by caregivers who are specially certified to do their job and who conduct fun, educational activities for the children.You’ll be glad to know that the ECDA (Early Childhood Development Agency) makes periodic surprise checks on their approved-list of child care centres to ensure that standards are maintained, but if you’re the sneaky kind you could always take a day off work to spy in on junior and his teachers to make sure that everything is going the way you like it!

3. You don’t trust your parents/in-laws not to spoil your child

It’s a well-known fact that grandparents have a track record of excessively indulging their grandchildren with cuddles and affection. Yes, moms and pops the world over are in the habit of spoiling their grandchildren – and too often not in a good way!

It’s not disrespectful to your parents/in-laws if you just want the best for your child, and the decision of sending your child to a child care centre isn’t a half-bad. It’s not like child care centres in Singapore bar the grandparents of children from visiting the children at the centres, who may also have more free time to go on your behalf to find out if the centre’s curriculum are up to your expectations.

4. You want your child to socialise with other children at theChild Care Centres

If you’re familiar with the unfortunate stories of psychopaths and sociopaths, you’ll notice a scary trend characterising the backgrounds of those individuals: they are almost all poorly socialised and alienated from society.

We’re not saying that your child will grow up to be that way if they have no friends, but socialising and learning how to function in civil society is an important skill that can greatly influence the success (or failures) of your child throughout life. Child care centres provide this opportunity where children and caregivers are constantly interacting with one another. This notonly teaches your child how to empathise with others and therefore function better in society but also satisfies their need to interact with other children their age.