Interview

[sharlan]

I just had an interview for a 18 mo boy. As I showed the parents around my house, playroom, and backyard, the father kept saying "You have too many toys."

I do have a large selection of toys, all neatly organized. I was surprised.

I don't think I will get the child. The family is Asian (not being racist, just stating a fact), the child has never been in daycare. Mom has just gone back to work and the child is being watched by his grandparents.

[momofboys]

I just had an interview for a 18 mo boy. As I showed the parents around my house, playroom, and backyard, the father kept saying "You have too many toys."

I do have a large selection of toys, all neatly organized. I was surprised.

I don't think I will get the child. The family is Asian (not being racist, just stating a fact), the child has never been in daycare. Mom has just gone back to work and the child is being watched by his grandparents.

and if you didn't have many toys he would have complained about that, too. Sorry - I never thought having too many choices would be problematic!

[daycare]

I am married to someone of asian decent, you may have just dodged a HUGE bullet. I mean this in the nicest way, but all of the clients that I have that are of this background and are raised by the help of the grandparents usually have ZERO self help skills and brats......

My SIL is 40, never move out her parents house. She has a daughter age 6. They dress her, feed her like a baby, they don't let her do ANYTHING on her own and she is one of the meanest little girls I have ever met. She came to my daycare 2 years ago and lasted 3 days. I had to term.

[sharlan]

In all of my years of daycare, I've only had one Asian family. We parted ways on less than friendly terms.

The boy, under 2, was allowed to do as he pleased. Some days it would take Mom as long as 45 mins to get him in his carseat at pickup. At first, I would help, then I just shut my door so I couldn't hear him. Friends of mine saw the mom driving down a major street with the little boy standing on the arm rest hanging out of the car's sunroof.

He was the sweetest little boy when the parents weren't around.

[TwinKristi]

Too many toys... Ugh! Would you rather they stare at the walls?

[daycare]

In all of my years of daycare, I've only had one Asian family. We parted ways on less than friendly terms.

The boy, under 2, was allowed to do as he pleased. Some days it would take Mom as long as 45 mins to get him in his carseat at pickup. At first, I would help, then I just shut my door so I couldn't hear him. Friends of mine saw the mom driving down a major street with the little boy standing on the arm rest hanging out of the car's sunroof.

He was the sweetest little boy when the parents weren't around.

I would believe this. My niece who is in first grade more than half of the time when I see her, she refuses to sit in her car seat and bounces all over the place from front to back seat. I guess in their county carseats are not required...............

[KidGrind]

I don’t think the issue is race or ethnicity.

Quite to the contrary of some other individuals who’ve shared their experience or opinion, I’ve had wonderful experiences with children and parents who happen to be from varying ethnicities in the Asian community.

[nanglgrl]

I think that ethnicity has a lot to do to determine if a family would be a good fit for a certain daycare. Parenting differs so much between countries and we all do things differently. Not right or wrong just differently.
In the past I've accepted 3 Indian (from India not Native Americans) into my daycare and turned one family down.
They were all very nice families, even when I terminated our contract or didn't accept them into care but every single one of them were very similar in how they parented, presented themselves, expected from me and their child and it didn't work well for me.
In the situations I was presented with all of the parents were college educated (most beyond a BA), all of the children were between 1-2 years old and males. In every situation the child had never been in group care and the mothers were just going into the workplace.
All four of these children were first born, treated like they were infants (but the parents wanted a highly academic setting) and the mothers were practicing attachment parenting (I don't think they called it that though..it was just their way of doing things).
I have nothing against attachment parenting and recently found out that I would qualify as raising my children that way..I didn't mean to, it just felt right for me and my children.
I'll say again these clients and the one I interviewed were incredibly nice but just didn't seem to get the limits of group care. They were also very pushy, in a nice way but pushy none the less. None of the children could self feed or self soothe, could barely talk and were carried everywhere. When I mentioned the feeding thing to the parents (with all 3 children I accepted) they were shocked that a 1 1/2 year old should pick up a spoon.
I will continue to interview Indian people but I did have to come up with some specific questions to ask. Obviously I know not everyone is the same but if your deeply rooted in your culture there are going to be things that you do differently as far as parenting.
I haven't had anyone say I had too many toys but I have had some rather odd questions asked of me at interviews. With the last family I had to go with my gut after the interview (felt like an interrogation) and with this family I would suggest going with your gut. I always figure the family may not be right for my daycare but they may be perfect for another provider!

[providerandmomof4]

I just had an interview for a 18 mo boy. As I showed the parents around my house, playroom, and backyard, the father kept saying "You have too many toys."

I do have a large selection of toys, all neatly organized. I was surprised.

I don't think I will get the child. The family is Asian (not being racist, just stating a fact), the child has never been in daycare. Mom has just gone back to work and the child is being watched by his grandparents.

I have to say that I would take his comments as a red flag. But, then again, I take everything as a red flag after the fact-! Wouldn't you have loved to see his reaction if you'd said, "well, this way I don't have to interact with the kids at all!"::

[daycare]

I think that ethnicity has a lot to do to determine if a family would be a good fit for a certain daycare. Parenting differs so much between countries and we all do things differently. Not right or wrong just differently.
In the past I've accepted 3 Indian (from India not Native Americans) into my daycare and turned one family down.
They were all very nice families, even when I terminated our contract or didn't accept them into care but every single one of them were very similar in how they parented, presented themselves, expected from me and their child and it didn't work well for me.
In the situations I was presented with all of the parents were college educated (most beyond a BA), all of the children were between 1-2 years old and males. In every situation the child had never been in group care and the mothers were just going into the workplace.
All four of these children were first born, treated like they were infants (but the parents wanted a highly academic setting) and the mothers were practicing attachment parenting (I don't think they called it that though..it was just their way of doing things).
I have nothing against attachment parenting and recently found out that I would qualify as raising my children that way..I didn't mean to, it just felt right for me and my children.
I'll say again these clients and the one I interviewed were incredibly nice but just didn't seem to get the limits of group care. They were also very pushy, in a nice way but pushy none the less. None of the children could self feed or self soothe, could barely talk and were carried everywhere. When I mentioned the feeding thing to the parents (with all 3 children I accepted) they were shocked that a 1 1/2 year old should pick up a spoon.
I will continue to interview Indian people but I did have to come up with some specific questions to ask. Obviously I know not everyone is the same but if your deeply rooted in your culture there are going to be things that you do differently as far as parenting.
I haven't had anyone say I had too many toys but I have had some rather odd questions asked of me at interviews. With the last family I had to go with my gut after the interview (felt like an interrogation) and with this family I would suggest going with your gut. I always figure the family may not be right for my daycare but they may be perfect for another provider!

This is so true. Every country does things differently. I have had clients that I interviewed that come from my own home country and I did not take them because much like your experience, we did not see eye to eye on parenting. Or maybe I should say that we did not have similar views on parenting or caring for children. They wanted a lot of special. They wanted things done how they would be done in their culture.

I have a very diverse group of children and the only thing that we all have in common is that they all have great parents and that's why we all work out here as far as that part of it goes......

[dingledine]

I just read an article about this. In a lot of Asian countries children only have a few toys, like a handful, literally. These children learn to play creatively, take REALLY GOOD care of the toys they have, and so forth. If they want daycare, they are going to find the same, everywhere. I've had a non Asian parent say that it is nice that I have many toys, but not TOO many. I think I have quite a lot yes, but it is NOT chaotic.

[Laurel]

Just to give another perspective. I have seen ads on Craiglist and also just the setup of home daycares here and there and the number of toys looked overwhelming to me.

This was because it appeared that most of the toys they had were on shelves that went around the room and were all out in the open. One provider that I knew had rows of shelves and everything was neat and the toys were nice and they were not down all at once. However, the way they were displayed was the problem for me. She had rows of shelving that the children could not reach and then some they could. In case I'm not clear, it appeared that whether the children were using them or whether they weren't they were all 'stored' in the room in view.

Even to me it looked 'too busy' and just wasn't a soothing enviornment in my opinion.

Laurel

[MissAnn]

I don’t think the issue is race or ethnicity.

Quite to the contrary of some other individuals who’ve shared their experience or opinion, I’ve had wonderful experiences with children and parents who happen to be from varying ethnicities in the Asian community.

Thank you, and I agree.

[dbslas]

I have to say that I would take his comments as a red flag. But, then again, I take everything as a red flag after the fact-! Wouldn't you have loved to see his reaction if you'd said, "well, this way I don't have to interact with the kids at all!"::

::