Checklist to do after pick up your child from childcare

As a working mom, one of our hard reality is sending our child to childcare whether it's playschool, tadika or pengasuh.

From my own experience, this is the hardest decision I ever made since I got my boy. We've decided to sent our son to playschool when he just turned 2 years old. Before that, we had our lived in babysitter but she go back to Sabah for good and also we feel that our son need to start to mix with others kid as well. After our babysitter went back to Sabah, we are not immediately sending him to childcare, I take care of him while I'm working from home which is very challenging. Sometimes, I sent him to my uncle's house for few hours when I got important meeting that I'm the one need to presenting or just to feel sanity.

After awhile, the company I worked with, started to asked all the staffs to back to office every week but not everyday. This making our life even harder because my son will know when I'm WFH and he will tantrum so hard whenever we sent him to school. I can say, no routine make it even harder. 

So, after discussed with my husband, we decided to sent our son to playschool back in 18 July 2022. We sent him to nearby playschool, just 10 minutes from home and I'm thankful that while we sent him there, teachers is taking care of our son without any issue and the experience has been good. Thanks God. But, that's not make me lalai. After these years sending my son to childcare, I routinely do these checklist after pick up my son from childcare. 

Here are my checklist:

1. Look at your child in their eyes

I love making eyes contact with my son because I feel the happiest whenever I saw him truly happy. And, I believe that, eyes is the window of our soul.

Sometimes, our child will not really want to tell us what's happening in his life at school but as a parent, you can check how they're doing by looking their eyes. If their eyes look sad, try your best to approach your child so they can tell you what's happening. Don't ignore this. It's maybe a first signal.

2. Mandikan anak and check your child body

I routinely mandikan my son after come back from school because I can take this opportunity to check on my child body and its personal hygiene too. I will check his body and whenever I saw something is wrong, I will ask my son and I will take photos. If it's just scratch, I will just let it go. But, again check carefully during this time. Just in case.

3. Always alert on your child behavior

I know as working mom, we are so busy with other things in our life. We have work, family, personal things to think of but please please be always be alert on your child behavior. Always make time to talk and layan him even just a while. Never ever make your child feel like nobody there for him especially during their early age like 2 and above.

Kerja memang tak pandai habis tapi anak tak akan kecil kedua kali. Whenever I feel so busy with other things, I always remind myself with this quote.

4. Jangan ambil mudah dengan apa yang anak cakap

Now, my son is 4 years old. He is so talkative. Thanks God!

During my busy day, I admit that his voice is so annoying haha but I know that he is so excited to tell me his story or to communicate with me. I am human after all so sometimes I can be annoying even with my child. It's normal! 

After you child go to playschool, he will talk a lot with you and always take time or listen to him carefully and please jangan ambil mudah dengan apa yang anak cakap.If he said, someone hit or bite him, ask him where and after that, confirm with teacher on that event. Don't just ignore it.

5. Follow up with teachers

On my son's previous playschool, they will update about our son activity in Telegram and update the logbook.So, I can see and know what my son is doing today and how's he doing. But, for my son's new school, they don't practice like this and I know it's different but I need to follow up with teacher on my son's activity.

I've watched one Podcast on YouTube about this working mom experienced that her child get physical abuse at school. You can watch it below and we can learn from it.

I hope you can learn something from this post.

Let's be alert parents and pray for our child safety at school.

Love,

Aya