If you’ve ever worked with young children you know it can be a lonely job, especially if you’re doing it out of your own home. While a child care center may have many classrooms, teachers, floaters, and administrative staff, family child care might just have you, the owner and director. Being part of a community of professionals has benefits in any field and early care and education is no different.
Community is incredibly important for moral support. Working with young children and their families is physically and emotionally challenging work. It requires a superhuman level of patience and understanding. If you don’t have a teaching team, who can you go to when you’re having a tough day?
Community can be more powerful than a Google search. Of course the internet has all sorts of resources and ideas for you to pore over if you have the time. A community of trusted, knowledgeable, and like-minded family child care providers has the most relevant advice for you.
Communities support learning and growing. If you’re running a program all on your own you may feel like you’re missing out on the brainstorming, observations, and feedback you might get with a large teaching team. A community of professionals can expose you to new ways of thinking.
Community connects us to the greater purpose and value of ECE and family child care. It can be so easy to be hyper focused on the day-to-day that we forget to pick our heads up and remember why this matters. Having a community reminds us to pause and celebrate, so that on our hardest days we keep going.
Early learning and child care are possibly the most important professions a person can choose. They are also possibly the most challenging. Remember that you are not alone and leaning on your FCC community will help you get through this too.
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