In recent years, daycares with cameras that allow parents to view their child’s classroom have become a popular selling point. Daycares with cameras allow parents to monitor how their children are doing throughout the day. This gives many parents a feeling of security in knowing that their child is well taken care of. Plus, daycares with cameras allow parents a small connection to their children while they are away from them.
But are daycares with cameras a good idea?
There are definite benefits to having your child in a daycare with cameras, but there area few very notable drawbacks too. Learn more about the pros and cons of having cameras in daycare to learn if this is a feature you should look for in a child care program.
Pros
Confirmation of your child’s safety
One of the biggest benefits of a daycare with cameras is that it allows parents to monitor their child’s activity throughout the day. The simple act of being able to check in on your child gives many parents peace of mind.
This is especially true when a child is just starting a new child care program. Leaving your child with strangers is hard and having them at a daycare with cameras is a small way to make sure they are adjusting okay. Daycare cameras give parents a unique and simple way to confirm that their children are in a loving environment. Without daycare cameras, parents much rely on other information, like daycare licensing reports, that are valuable but don’t provide direct observation.
As your children get more adjusted to a new daycare you may find the value of having cameras begins to lessen. Over time you’ll get to know their teachers better and you’ll develop a relationship with them that allows you to share information more openly. But daycare cameras can be a great feature that provides some comfort during those early days your child is in a child care program when you’re all adjusting to a new routine.
Observation of any behavioral challenges
If your child is experiencing behavioral challenges at home, daycare with cameras allows you to see how they are behaving at their child care program. The behavior may be the same as at home. This gives you some reassurance that it is not something you are doing at home that is triggering the behavior.
Or, the behavior may be better than at home. Should this be the case, you can see how the teachers interact with your child, which may elicit calmer behavior from them. Sometimes it is not anything about the teacher-child interactions but rather something related to the environment of the preschool that helps improve a child’s behavior. Perhaps there is more structure? Or do they get more tired being in care and that provides a kind of calming effect?
Child care with cameras won’t answer all your questions about your child’s behavioral challenges, but it may provide some clues as their root causes.
Ideas for how to interact with your child at home
Building off the previous benefit, daycare with cameras can give you some very concrete and specific ideas for how to interact with your kids in new ways. Let’s say you see your child’s teachers successfully redirect your toddler after they get angry and have to transition away from playing. You can model that approach at home to see if you have similar success.
Or, you may see that your child’s teacher is very good at getting kids in the classroom to clean up after a snack. Trying the teacher’s technique in your home may be a better approach to that challenge and provide consistency between home and school routines. This consistency makes life easier for your child because it simplifies your expectations of them by not having rules that conflict with child care.
Connection to your child when you’re away for them
Having your kids in daycare can be emotionally hard. It’s normal for parents to miss their children when they are away from them. This is especially true for parents with babies or a first child. Over time, many parents grow more confident with their kids in daycare, but it can be a big adjustment.
One of the biggest benefits of daycare with cameras is that it provides a connection to your child when you’re away from them. Having the option to take a quick peek at how they are doing throughout the day provides a lot of reassurance to parents. Additionally, seeing your child thriving in their environment can be very helpful to parents in knowing that they’ve found a great, high-quality child care.
Cons
Lack of privacy for your child
Perhaps the biggest drawback of cameras in daycare is that it means your child has no privacy. Just as you are seeing everything that other children are doing, other parents are seeing everything your child is doing. Cameras in daycare mean that your child is under constant surveillance, every move they make has the potential to be monitored. And with monitoring comes assessment. Children aren’t perfect, no one is, and cameras within daycares mean that everything they do might be judged as being good or bad. Constant judgement can be exhausting.
Additionally, if your child is older they will may catch on to the fact that there are cameras at the or daycare. This may make them self-conscious of their behavior and not fully free to be in the moment and enjoy their time there.
This one issue is enough of a burden that many parents aren’t willing to tolerate cameras in daycares at all. A happy medium might be to not have cameras in the classroom, but to have them in other areas, like entryways and playgrounds. This allows parents the option to check in occasionally for that sense of connection and security without being too involved in the day-to-day goings on of the classroom.
Teacher exhaustion from always being ‘on’
On the teacher side of things, cameras in classrooms mean they will always feel like they have to be ‘on’. Every moment might be one in which someone, or many people, are viewing their classroom and judging their teaching. This can be equally exhausting for teachers as it is for children. It also means that any natural enjoyment that might happen between the teacher and child is hindered because the teacher is always wondering if they are doing things right.
Cost
Child care is one of the biggest, and sometimes the biggest, budget expense for families. And that high cost is usually without considering the time and labor it takes to purchase camera equipment, the software for allowing for web-based viewing, and the skilled labor to keep this equipment and software running smoothly.
Many parents might like the idea of a camera in their child’s daycare but faced with the added cost of cameras it can seem less compelling. Every non-essential cost, and daycare cameras are definitely non-essential, a daycare incurs will be passed on to parents. Money spent on cameras is money that is not being spent on hiring skilled teachers, educational materials, or new playground equipment. Many parents find that when they weigh the benefits of daycare cameras with these other improvements, the cameras just aren’t worth it.