CHOOSING CHILD CARE: A Guide for Parents

by Stevanne Auerbach ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 17, 1981

Disorganized information and too many checklists mar what could have been a useful guide for parents. The author of The Whole Child: A Sourcebook (p. 657) and Confronting the Childcare Crisis (1979) describes various types of childcare options--sitters, family day-care homes, day-care centers, and less common arrangements (like co-ops and communal living)--so parents will have a sense of what may be available. They will have to search, however, to find the advantages and disadvantages of each for, say, an infant--and will also have to flip back and forth between chapters on the qualities of a caregiver and on particular child-care settings as they interview prospective candidates. There are, moreover, ten different lists of things to look for: the emotional climate checklist, the learning climate checklist, qualities of a good care-giver, characteristics of the day-care center, etc. The questions will elicit good information, true (how will my child fit in with this group of children? does the care-giver promote active cooperation between parents and staff?); but they could have been telescoped into one or two easy-to-use forms--though then, perhaps, there would not have been enough material for a book. Compulsive and anxious new parents may find this guide helpful; most will be overwhelmed by all the paperwork that child-care decision-making seems to call for.

Pub Date: Nov. 17, 1981

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Dutton

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 1981

Categories: NONFICTION