Con #5: Behaviour Issues
While this is an issue that can happen in both home daycares and centres (and even at home), I mention it here because children are in large groups with children their own age. Think of your little toddler just starting to exert his fierce independence, struggling to contain those large feelings and emotions with almost no impulse control. Now put five of those toddlers in the same room. It can get messy. Children learn a lot through their own experiences and watching others. This can be quite challenging when one or more of the children are struggling with hitting or biting or throwing toys. These are all very normal behaviours for toddlers to experiment with, but a child seeing another toddler doing this, may start doing it as well (when he might not have if he hadn’t witnessed it). Also, centres usually have fairly rigid routines, which does not always mimic their routine at home and does not compensate for how extra tired and overstimulated they are going to be from going to daycare. Some children definitely struggle with behaviours after starting in centres because they are tired and they may not like the food or they may just not have had a chance to get comfortable yet. Daycare is a big adjustment for the parents but also very much so for the child and that may come out in the form of temper tantrums, irritability, hitting, not listening, etc.
