Daycare Center Or Franchise?

[pinkbunny85]

I know the majority of you are in-home daycares. However, I don't think I would be able to have an in-home. I like my privacy and such. the bf and I were talking and he suggested looking into a franchise daycare center. Where I do like the idea after researching it a bit today I realized it's definitelynot what I want.

my concern is I don't want a HUGE daycare where a child is just a number. I want to provide excellent care, love, respect, and fun to little ones. but, how do I relay that to parents. we have a bunch of daycares, one where the little girl I nannied for goes. granted in the toddler room 1-2.5 year olds they show the love and give excellent care but once they hit the "pre-school" room they lose it. and that seems to be the trend in most daycares in this area. how do I get parents to realize that my daycare would be different?

[Blackcat31]

Originally Posted by pinkbunny85

I know the majority of you are in-home daycares. However, I don't think I would be able to have an in-home. I like my privacy and such. the bf and I were talking and he suggested looking into a franchise daycare center. Where I do like the idea after researching it a bit today I realized it's definitelynot what I want.

my concern is I don't want a HUGE daycare where a child is just a number. I want to provide excellent care, love, respect, and fun to little ones. but, how do I relay that to parents. we have a bunch of daycares, one where the little girl I nannied for goes. granted in the toddler room 1-2.5 year olds they show the love and give excellent care but once they hit the "pre-school" room they lose it. and that seems to be the trend in most daycares in this area. how do I get parents to realize that my daycare would be different?

What do you mean by 'once they hit the "pre-school" room they lose it'? The staff and/or teaches don't show love? or that the care is less than excellent? I dont necesarily understand what you mean...

As far as providing excellent care, love, respect and fun to little ones as you said you wanted to do and relaying that to the parents; that is the type of care we all provide our dck's. Home daycare providers do all of that and more so I am confused about what you are trying to tell parents is so different from other types of care? Having an in-home child care allows you to have flexibility in the number of kids you can have. Have the maximaum license capacity or have only two, that is up to you. You can also keep your privacy and keep it business or you can open yourself up to some wonderful families, children and experiences that you may have never had without opening up a bit and not always being so private. Every in-home child care provider runs his/her own business with their own formula between privacy and openness and that is your choice....it is also what makes us all different (and the same) as the others.

[Angels]

Your reputation in the community is what drives this business. The "word of mouth" is powerful and it doesn't take long for that to get out. A pleased mom or dad is an awesome advertisement. Matter of fact, we reduced our $500.00 per month add in the yellow pages to a 1 inch $90.00 per month listing all due to an awesome reputation for the type of care that you are talking about. Also dropped the billboard add that we had in the area - $136.00 per month.

I found that the appearance of the lobby, office, and center that the potential parents see is immediately important. Then the quality of care begins to seep in and once you have the parents to that point... It works very well.

We have paused in expanding to another center because of the lack of ability to oversee as we too want what you mentioned in the post.

[Sprouts]

Unfortunately the reason in pre-school classes loose that "love" is because many day care centers want to max out each class giving the teachers the maximum amount with out adding more staff which they SHOULD so they can pocket the rest. My daughter goes to a day care center like that and I am going to be pulling her out, I am just looking for a very good group family day care that can give her better attention, provide good character education and so on...so PINKBUNNY I am not sure if you want to open a day care center of family day care but for me as a parent if you want to show that their child will receive all of the love and attention make sure the ratios are reasonable and like Angels said, reputation is everything.

[pinkbunny85]

Thank you so much for the feedback. I understand where they would want to keep more money, but at the same time I wonder why they wouldn't want to give the best possible education. I would definitely keep ratios down. I know that a little boy blossomed in the toddler room but then regressed in pre-school and I don't want to see that happen. family day care seems to be the way to go.