If you enjoy children and have the patience and creativity
needed, a home based childcare and day care service might be
the perfect business for you!

How To Start a Daycare Service
By Frank Breinling

Child care providers play an important role in the lives of
busy parents who need a reliable and honest person to care
for their children while they are working or away. If you
can demonstrate your ability to properly care for children,
you'll find it very easy to build your client base with
little advertising involved.

The first step is to take a good look around your home. Are
you prepared to make significant changes in order to
accommodate room for playtime as well as to ensure that the
environment is safe?

When it comes to parents evaluating a childcare provider for
their children, one of their greatest concerns is whether
their children will be adequately cared for while being free
to roam and play without potential danger.

You will also need to secure a business license in order to
watch children in your home and in certain areas, you may
also be required to complete a background check in order to
demonstrate that you are a responsible person who is able to
care for small children.

One of the most decisions you'll make will be in choosing
the age demographic for your childcare service. It's always
best to focus on a specific age group rather than accept
children of all different ages so that you can develop a
routine and schedule that effectively accommodates the needs
of children in a specific age group.

For example, caring for toddlers requires a great deal more
effort and energy than caring for pre-teens who don't
require as much room to play.

Furthermore, the age demographic will also play a factor in
the number of children you can adequately care for, with
younger children requiring more attention and monitoring
than older children.

The start up costs associated with running a daycare service
is minimal.

Apart from safety precautions, you will only need to
purchase supplies to keep children occupied, as well as
develop a healthy meal plan and daily snacks. It's important
that you demonstrate your commitment to providing a safe and
fun environment for children by developing an activity
schedule that provides the fundamental building blocks that
helps prepare children for school, as well as to bolster
their creativity.

It's important to parents that their children are able to
learn throughout the day, to get exercise and fresh air
rather than being kept indoors watching television, so the
more you focus on developing an activity schedule that
offers them the opportunity to evaluate what their children
will be doing from day to day, and the more enjoyable you
make their time with you, the easier it will be to retain
long term clients who know that their children are in good
hands!

The cost of supplies should be factored into your daily
rates, and to accommodate short-term daycare sessions, you
should create a price plan that caters to parents who
require day-to-day childcare as well as parents who only
need childcare every so often.

You need to be reasonable with the number of children that
you can adequately care for and again, pay special attention
to age groups. It's often easier to care for a larger number
of children who are close in age than to care for children
whose ages are very different.

You also want to check in with any local regulations that
restrict the number of children that you are allowed to care
for at any given time, and make sure that your home can
handle the number of children that you are considering
caring for.

Consider hiring a helper or assistant who can take over when
you need to step out. This is very important if you plan on
caring for a larger number of children.

You could also consider developing an after-school program
where you can pick up children from school and care for them
until their parents are home from work.

This is a very high demand service and if you are able to
demonstrate your ability and commitment to properly care for
children, you will find it very easy to secure enough clients
to go forward with your business.

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Frank Breinling is the founder of
http://newprofitablestartups.com , check out the site and
grab a FREE chapter of his ebook