Thursday, February 19, 2015

Honoring Family's Beliefs

Just for the record, on the religion side of things, I consider myself a Lutheran.  

As I am an in home childcare provider, with today being Ash Wednesday and with it ushering in the Lenten season I need to pause and decide what's right for my childcare.  As a Lutheran, I don't need to "give something up for lent" or eat fish on Fridays.  Both of those things, as far as I know, lean more towards Catholic beliefs.



So what do I do when I am serving Catholic families...I support their beliefs.  Do I compromise my own?  No.

I can easily serve fish on Fridays.  In fact, it's easy for me to do.  It's one less meal I have to to worry or wonder about.  It can be PB and J day or egg or tuna salad sandwich day too.  All of those are easy preps.

Honoring the beliefs of each family we care for is something we should be doing daily and that doesn't mean just religious beliefs.  It can be cultural beliefs or simply customs that families have.

At one point in my childcare days I had a family that woke their son each morning at 5 am so they could have family time with him before childcare.  That child came to care and even though he was older, he still had to have a nap in the morning.  He was tired.  The problem, that nap time was during the time that I had preschool activities scheduled in our day.  The mom was very upset that he was missing out on the activities.  After a talk we came to the conclusion that I would make an effort to try to do the activities a little earlier in the day or I would send the activity home and she could do it with him.

It was an easy fix and still honored the family's wishes and beliefs of spending quality time together in the morning.

What are you doing to support and honor the beliefs of families in your care?





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