There are a lot of reasons that people decide to start their own day care. For some its strictly a business venture. For others the motivation could be a background or academic training in child care and finding a way to use that expertise outside of public schools and pediatrics. But for many and perhaps for you, the motivation is quite simply that you know you can do it better than people who run day care centers that you have used.

One of the most heart wrenching things a parent has to do is to drop off your child at a day care center and to leave them in hysterics because they don’t want to stay there. And while some amount of separation anxiety is to be expected especially in very young children, if your child is miserable at day care, you have to wonder if something is going on.

If that is the situation that you encounter when using day care centers, some networking with other parents who use that facility can be eye opening. Those conversations will often surface problems that seem endemic with so many day care centers that begin to give you the idea that you can do it better. Some problems that often drive parents from using some services are:

1. Not enough activities for the children so they are bored all day.
2. Not enough discipline so unruly children create a bad experience for the good kids.
3. Too much discipline so the children cannot “just be kids”
4. Cost cutting that becomes painfully obvious such as a drastic reduction in quality of foods or other necessities.
5. Poor training of the staff child care employees who are not good with the children.

There are two kinds of day cares and the distinction reveals the priorities of the facility which are reflected in the service. There are day cares that are primarily a business who happen to offer day care services as their “product”. The focus there is on the business, on profitability and on running the day care in an efficient and cost conscious way.

The other approach that reflects the values of a day care shows that this is a facility that is dedicated to providing loving and quality care for children and they are doing it as a business. In such a facility, the children are the focus and every resource an incorporated business can provide is employed to give those children the protection and care they need as well as to provide for their emotional and intellectual needs and to do so in a way that assures each child will have fun and goes home happy. This is the good kind of day care and the kind that kids are eager to go back to.

Sadly too many day cares are of the first kind rather than the second. When you see the evidence that the day care your child is in focuses primarily on the business rather than the kids, that is why you can legitimately say “I can do this better.” And if you approach your ambition to start your own day care center with the heart of a parent and by placing a high priority and value on providing a place where kids are well cared for and a place they love to go to, they you will sidestep many of the problems that day cares you have experienced have had and you will build a day care that parents and kids love to use for their child care needs. And when you have that kind of success, not only will you know that you can do better, you will be doing it better as your passion in life and as your profession. That is an excellent motivation for starting your own day care facility.