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Parenting Through Daycare — Finding the Right Environment for Your Child's Design
Daycare is often chosen based on what works for parents: proximity to home or work, hours that fit their schedule, organic food, promising academic or extra curricular activities. This page shares other things you might want to consider.
What's On This Page
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The Cost of Wrong Fit
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How A Child's Perception Of Unkindness Impacts Their Health
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Why the First 6 Years Matter: Delta and Theta Brain Dominance
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Knowing the Degree to Which Your Child Is Impacted by Others
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What Your Child Actually Needs
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Questions to Ask Before Choosing
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What Comes Next
The Cost of Wrong Fit
When a child's needs aren't being met, they show you, and then it is up to you to figure out what to do about it.
My eldest cried at the breakfast table before daycare
He was being hands on as a way to try to engage play with other kids. The daycare response? Put him in the corner with a shopping cart telling him that pushing is for shopping carts, not our friends. He needed someone to get down to his level and role model how to ask others if he can join them in their play.
We moved him to a preschool that could provide this for him and everything changed. The teachers were inspired by his ideas and made them real, and many of his classmates wanted to participate too. He felt seen.
But when he got into senior kindergarten he got confused why some kids were getting more stickers than he was (he thought this meant that the teacher thought they were more skilled, when really the kids just asked for extra and were given them). He became discouraged and decided he preferred to mark his own assignments, and then, eventually, he preferred to only attend after school care, because then he had access to the materials in the classroom but could explore them with his friends at his own pace.
My middle child pointed out every misalignment
Why couldn't kids play while waiting for food? Why was there so much academic focus at preschool? Why did the teacher restrict when they could drink water? She even reminded me several times what we were forgetting, when I tried to take her to daycare without shoes. Thankfully her teacher was open to looking at her Human Design and seeing that she did better when each ingredient was eaten separately.
My youngest had to be out when all the other kids were in
As a Reflector (according to her Human Design), she feels everything and eventually needs to report about it, through her words or through her health. But as a young child she was simply overwhelmed by the chaos. When the classroom filled with kids, she would want to go outside to be in nature, and when the kids went out, she felt safe enough to go inside and explore the toys, crafts, and educational material. She had a lot of issues with feeling safe; we used to put a hula hoop around her to identify that this is her space and what is in it she is using, as she would like to build elaborate projects that required a lot of equipment. We were lucky that we found a teacher who could see that she didn't go from 0 to 100 just like that — she goes from 0 to 60, and if you don't see her warning signs, she takes it to 100. This teacher was instrumental in teaching us to narrate for her and others, so things seemed a lot more predictable for everyone. She made a valiant effort to help us transmit this knowledge to the school, but school was still more than my youngest could handle. Thankfully we had access to Kirlian Photography and Esogetic Medicine to increase her tolerance and know when she was ready. Integrating to school is still a process, but at least we have moved past teachers not knowing how to treat her with respect.
How A Child's Perception Of Unkindness Impacts Their Health
This is what her Kirlian Photo looked like after being spoken to unkindly at school:
This is what it looked like after a few months with a less supportive teacher:
And this is what it looked like after a few months with a more supportive teacher:
While these are not daycare pictures per se, she was 6 years old, and it shows you how a good or bad fit can impact the child — not only their behaviour, but their health.
Why the First 6 Years Matter: Delta and Theta Brain Dominance
In the first 6 years of life, children's brains are Delta and Theta dominant. Essentially, they're sleeping — which means their nervous systems are absorbing everything with no ability to filter what is and isn't theirs to take on.
Examples of how kids under 7 are impacted by their environment:
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All the unhealed patterns the adults caring for them carry
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The classroom energy, conflict, and stress
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Whether they're being treated with understanding or dismissed
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What they're expected to think, feel, and value
It is easier for you to undo the damage your own unhealed patterns do to your child, because you were there. You know the story. It's much harder to undo the damage someone else has caused because you weren't present to see and understand it.
Thankfully, the Information Field is available whenever we are trying to understand and improve situations that seem out of our reach.
Knowing the Degree to Which Your Child Is Impacted by Others
Knowing where your child is open in their Human Design (and some aspects of their Soul Contract) also helps you know the degree to which they are impacted by others. So you can tell if their behaviour, emotions, or even physical symptoms or thoughts are theirs, or someone else's. This helps you know where to put responsibility (if any) and how to resolve it in a way that honours what we are and are not in control of.
What Your Child Actually Needs
Before you choose a daycare — or decide if daycare is even the right fit for your child — it is helpful to know your child's Unique Psychology. Then you know how to choose a daycare that will be a good fit for what they need.
Kids have different ways that they need to eat, learn, and share what they know. Some need certainty; others need freedom. Kids who are looking for a mentor may need to be inspired and have people who are inspired by them. Not allowing someone to eat how they are designed can clog up their brain. Likewise, respecting when each child needs to rest (some when exhausted, some before they get exhausted) is important. Some kids need to talk things out. And all kids come with specific goals and things they are here to work through.
Knowing this helps you inform the staff of what they need and helps you figure out what might be going on if they are not happy or frequently sick.
Questions to Ask Before Choosing
Some kids will be fine no matter where you send them (within reason), but if you suspect your child is going to need to feel like the people who are caring for them really understand and want to do what is best for them, ask yourself:
Is this daycare open to understanding how my child thinks?
Will they be open to hearing about my child's Unique Psychology (or Kirlian Photo)?
Do they have a one-size-fits-all approach?
Can they work with how my child needs to eat? (not just adhere to allergies or religious beliefs)
Do they see behavior as communication?
Will they work collaboratively with me when my child struggles?
Do they understand that each child comes for a purpose and has value?
Can they provide recognition, freedom, routine, or surprise, based on my child's need?
Can kids have different sleep setups or routines?
Do the staff seem to have done enough work on themselves, not to project problems onto my child?
If the daycare is defensive, rigid, or unwilling to listen to what your child is showing you — that's a sign.
Do you know your own Unique Psychology well enough to use your unique strengths to decide what is best?
What Comes Next
Hopefully you can find a daycare that can meet your child's unique limits and needs. If you can't, then you are moving into the territory of getting them ready for school, where there tends to be much less wiggle room for what they will let each child do to meet their unique needs. That said, with a good understanding of your child and enough healing done on yourself, you can find the words and positive relationships to navigate it, while you monitor your child for readiness (once they are able to follow instructions to take a Kirlian Photo, usually around age 5).
Some people choose an alternative school as a resting place for their child to heal, while they are waiting for readiness to attend public school. If this is you, then again consider their Unique Psychology and what you know you need to be able to do to provide them with the accommodations that they need.
Heard enough to speak in person?
→ Book a free 15-minute consultation
Need more information?
→ Unique Psychology, which includes:
→ Gene Keys - what your child needs in the first 7 years of life and what they will wrestle with
→ Soul Contract - where they are sensitive and how they might impact others
→ Getting Your Child Ready For School
Online sessions available worldwide. In-person sessions in Oakville, Ontario. Alahnnaa Campbell | MSc Psychology & Neuroscience, Stress and Health