Most families use day care in one form or another. You may be considering the use of day care to watch your child after school, during specific hours of the day, or to act as a socialization option for homeschooled children. You may find that church day care offers more flexibility for your needs than traditional day care options. If this is the case, you will need to consider a few key points of using church day care over traditional day care options.
Church Membership
Though each church is different on their requirements for enrollment, there are some church day care options that may require you to be a member of the church. This is especially true when you are dealing with part time care like Mother's Morning Out programs. These may be ministry outreaches offered to members only. If there is a church membership requirement, you may find that there are other day care options offered by the same church that are available to the public that cost more or have limited hours.
Food and Hygiene Needs
Traditional day care options may provide your child with one or more meals per day and snacks. This will greatly depend on the amount of time your child is in day care for the day. In fact, most day cares will require you to provide very little in the way of food or snacks unless your child has a specific dietary need. In a church day care, you will likely need to provide everything your child will need for their time there. For example, you may need to provide a sealed drinking cup, snacks, change of clothing and diapers. If there is a special day, such as a water play day, you will need to provide towels as well.
Education Options
Some church based day care options will offer a form of religious education while your child is there. You may want to check with the church to determine what style of education will be used, what will be discussed and how it will be discussed with the children. This may change your view, for good or bad, regarding some of the options you have in mind. You may find the church day care also provides other forms of education services, especially related to preschool age groups.
These are only three of the considerations to keep in mind with a church day care option. Once you have narrowed down the day care you would like to use, contact them to discuss any guidelines they may have in place and pricing. You may also want to schedule a walk through to visit the day care and determine if it really is the right one for your needs.
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