There are many reasons a parent might choose to stay at home and care for their child. Whatever the reason, the decision to stay at home has an impact on your family’s household income and budget. To offset this, stay at home parents should consider becoming a certified family child care provider.
Becoming a certified provider would allow you to care for up to 3 unrelated children under the age of 7 within your home. Note that you would only be able to care for a maximum of 6 children (including your own) at a time. Certification opens the door to eligibility for our food program, which provides subsidies to providers who feed the children in their care nutritious food; a listing in our 4-C Referral Database; and support, resources, and technical assistance from 4-C to help providers succeed.
Beyond the resources 4-C provides, there are other benefits to becoming certified. One of the immediate benefits is the extra income. There are plenty of parents who have turned their at home child care operation into their main source of income. If you have a passion for caring for children, then why not make money from that passion?
A major benefit is the ability to be your own boss. Running your own child care operation can be fulfilling and satisfying. Being at home means you control the schedule and environment, and you don’t have to operate on someone else’s time. You would have the ability to establish your own hours and structure your own day.
One of the best parts of becoming a provider is getting to experience the joy of helping raise and guide children. You are already getting to experience that with your own child, and caring for other people’s only multiplies that experience. Everyday would be a new adventure for both you and the children that you would be caring for. Very little can match the sheer joy of helping a child grow and develop.
Before becoming certified, there are plenty of things to consider, but if you are already choosing to stay at home with your own child, 4-C highly recommends becoming a certified child care provider. If you are looking to begin the process of certification, or you have questions about certification, contact us through our online form or at our email: [email protected].