One-on-One with Niki Darling-Kuria

 

For the Children: Being the Best You Can Be

 

As a family child care professional in the early care and education field you have undoubtedly spent countless hours engaging in continuing education. You can’t keep all this fabulous knowledge to yourself. You’ve got to share it so that it grows exponentially. It’s important that you use your experience to teach others about providing quality family child care, being a mentor, educating consumers on the importance of advocating for worthy wages, assisting parents with working to increase parental benefits in the form of tax relief, federally funded Universal Pre-K, and reinforcing a professional image for family child care providers throughout the land. Whew! And you thought providing quality child care was hard.

 

Historically, the life cycle of a family child care career lasted only five or six years. Usually the length of time it takes to give birth to a child and see him enter Kindergarten. Just when things started really cranking along, the provider would cash in her chips and head to greener pastures. But that’s changing. Providers are staying in the profession longer because family child care has become exactly that—a profession. Career opportunities are expanding on every front. Individuals that have chosen to dedicate their lives to working with young children in their own homes can do so while reaping the rewards of belonging to a vast workforce. This has strengthened the resolve of many and encouraged others to pursue greater challenges like seeking accreditation, obtaining higher degrees and writing books on the subject (at least that’s what it did for me.)

 

As a professional family child care provider you are an industry leader and are an expert in the field of early care and education. As such there are new opportunities that can enable you to share your wisdom and knowledge with others. As an expert you could write a letter to the editor about a situation in your community that affects children and families. You could publish articles in newsletters or local magazines detailing a specific aspect of the benefits of quality child care.

 

You could apply for contract opportunities and workshop presenting. Or how about begin (or become involved in) a local provider association as well as how to get involved in state level or national organizations to promote child care professionalism and worthy wage issues. There’s no limit to what you can do! Your career ladder can lift you as high as you want to go.

 

It’s important to recognize your value. How many people in this world can honestly say that their job impacts the world? Whether by chance or by design, many dedicated individuals embarked on a new career in an effort to be home with their children. They fully intended to do right by the other children as well, but when they started they believed the time they spent “doing family child care” was just a temporary stop along the highway of life. They thought they would stay home for a few years, care for other children and when their own children no longer needed them, they would return to the “rewarding and profitable” careers they had left behind.

 

Ten years ago very few people woke up and said “today I am going to change my life and dedicate every waking hour to caring for other people’s children while earning very little money and getting even less thanks in return.” Let’s face it, who would say that? But plenty of you did. You arise everyday and prepare your home for the brigade of little people marching into your living room that for the next ten hours will be transformed into a premier quality early care and education classroom. Then, just like magic after the last child leaves, the classroom walls disappear and it’s your home again. Poof! Just like that. (We wish!)

 

For some of you those walls come down, but for others they remain constant fixtures in your home décor. My friend says her house is decorated by the famous designer “le petite Tyke” (That’s Little Tyke to you and me). But regardless of whatever different means you use to transform your homes and your hearts you should be never forget that there are “many right ways” to achieve success and that you contribute to our society in the most meaningful way possible.

 

You fill a void in the lives of many families--the home environment that they may not be able to provide because they have made the choice to work. And we know better than anyone that it doesn’t matter why they made that choice—either they needed to, or they chose to—we respect parents for making those choices. We support their families by caring for their children for as long as they need us to. Ten or more hours a day, five or more days a week, 52 weeks a year, from birth to age thirteen, you’ll be there when families need you. How do I know this? You wouldn’t be reading this right now if you weren’t.

 

It takes a special kind of person to listen to that little voice that says “but it’s for the children.” You’ve heard that voice right? It’s the one that says “spend an extra $100 on that swing set…it’s for the children.” “Forget about that vacation you have been putting off for the last ten years, the children need you.” We’ve all fallen victim to that little voice, but a true professional has the right come back. “I can’t be the best I can be “for the children” if I don’t take care of myself first.”

 

You know it’s like that drill they give you on the airplane before you take off. They review the safety procedures and remind you that should the oxygen masks deploy you should place the mask on your face first before your child. They do this to make sure that you will have the resources and strength you will need to care for your child as the impending disaster unfolds.

 

I’m not saying everyday in family child care is like a plane wreck, although some days your house may look like it. What I am saying is that this job is hard and it’s important for you to remember to put that oxygen mask on first. Make sure you have prepared your life for this career and you have prepared your career for your life. They are two very separate things. What you share is your living and working space, but you don’t have to live and breathe your child care business. Take time for yourself. Believe me you’re going to need every ounce of strength you can get. It is because you are strong you can make such a difference in this world.

 

You know that as a family child care provider you are more than just a person who provides a safe, nurturing, and educational setting for children to grow and thrive in. You are also a small business owner, or as we like to say, chief cook and bottle washer, CEO and everything in between. But the value of what you offer is immeasurable to the children and families that rely on you to be there day in and day out. I know you won’t let them down. But more importantly, I hope you never forget to take care of yourself so that you can be the best you can be.