Should the parent or the childcare provider have the final say about who children get to spend time with?

Leaving someone else to take care of your kids is a big deal. When parents work for a living, they usually have no choice, but that doesn’t mean that their choice of who gets to babysit should be taken lightly. They are somebody who could end up being a major influence on a child’s formative years, the person who spends a significant amount of time dictating what they do with little parental involvement. 

In some ways, it is inevitable that there are going to have to be some compromises made in this kind of situation. A lot of parents can’t be present for their kids 24/7, and the other people who care for them may have some slightly different ideas on how to do so. The most important thing is knowing that kids are going to be safe and happy, as well as ideally doing at least some of the things that parents want them to do. For any childcare provider who earns a living looking after somebody else’s kids, this should not be something that is overly difficult to do.