Child Care Aware® of America is partnering with Parents magazine to urge Congress to focus on the child care crisis. Click here to see the article in the December issue of Parents. The federal law that allocates funds to states for child care is the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG). It has very few rules to ensure that children are safe in child care and that the settings that children are in promote their healthy development. The law has not been updated since 1996.

If you’re a parent with a young child in child care, chances are you’ve had a call to pick up your child due to some type of illness. Nearly 11 million children under age six are in some type of child care every week. As every parent knows, colds happen. Other illnesses happen too, but recognizing when a child should be excluded from child care and when it’s okay for them to stay in group care, varies by state and by program.

In a survey by the National Center for Early Development and Learning, nearly half (46 percent) of kindergarten teachers in a nationwide sample said that over half of the children in their class weren’t ready to succeed in school. Why?  Before we get out the magic wand and with Harry Potter-like precision create pre-kindergarten programs in every state focused on pre-literacy and early math strategies, education experts ought to review the relationship between “executive function” and a child’s future school success, particularly for low income children.

Last week in Washington, D.C., David Gray and Lisa Guernsey from the New America Foundation’s Workforce and Family Program and Early Education Initiative, led a panel discussion entitled, “Speaking Up: What the Presidential Candidates Should be Saying about Child Care and Early Learning.”

Early learning experiences are important to your child’s education and development. You work hard to give your child the best experiences and a positive start. Someone else you can rely on to do the same is your child care provider. When you and your child care provider work together, you are giving your child a great start and providing her an excitement for learning.

Las experiencias de aprendizaje tempranas son importantes para la educación y desarrollo de su hijo. Usted trabaja bastante para darle a su hijo las mejores experiencias y un empiezo positivo. Alguien más en quien puede confiar para hacer lo mismo es su proveedor de cuidado de niños. Cuando usted y su proveedor trabajan juntos le están dando a su hijo un buen empiezo y proveyéndolos con ánimos hacia el aprendizaje.