Sharing

by Laura Shallow

A friend of mine believes we need to share information and help each other out.  She always says, “It’s not like we’re building the bomb.”  She was referring to the entire child care field and that means you, your competition down the road, the chain center across town and the new center on the block.

  We all need to make money.  It should be a top priority; for if we don’t make money, we won’t be around to help any child or family or staff member.  We won’t exist.  But, in my opinion, it doesn’t mean that we make money to the exclusion of helping each other.

 When I go to WCCAA meetings and learn something new, my first instinct is to say, “No way will that work, or we can’t do that, or that is crazy.”   Or I’d justify my negativity by thinking, “Well, they are non-profit”, or “they are a big chain so of course they can do that”.  Either I rejected outright their idea as impossible or only possible in centers not like mine.  I also use to think, “no way am I going to share my “stuff’. Why help them get better?”  I was not secure enough to believe I could share and still maintain my customer and staff base.  

I have since learned that many of the ideas I hear from other centers can work great at my center with some adjusting.  I also learned that some ideas do not fit with my goals and philosophy or into my budget, but I no longer immediately reject ideas.  I ask, “Should I try this?  Could it work within my budget and philosophy?  Is this an idea for the future?  Why are we not doing this?

I was also surprised to learn that many of my precious secrets were “old news” to other centers.  It was only when I opened up and shared that others also seemed to open up.  What others taught me brought me to a new level of thinking.  I was getting complacent.  It was getting easy to just go with the status quo.  While I don’t jump on every trend, I do try to enhance the center with appropriate new ideas.

Support WCCAA at the state and Region 4 level, attend our monthly meetings and share an idea or write an article for this publication.  Together, we can keep childcare in our Region to the highest quality. That’s why most of us got in the business to begin with-to provide quality care.