Husband planning on going into childcare

[SmallestFrog]

Hi everyone, just wanted some advice/opinions really. My husband has been talking (for a very long time) about going into childcare, and now we have a child of our own on the way (3 months to go) he's decided to take the plunge and enrolled for a childcare course. He had a call today from the college checking he actually meant to apply for that course!

He's a little nervous about being in a class full of girls 9 years younger than him, and is also a little nervous about getting placements for work experience.

I hope this is the right forum to ask in.

Really he just wants to know,

• how people are likely to react to a man working in childcare (specifically nurseries and playgroups)
• how easy/hard it'll be to get placements
• advice on getting placements
• any other ideas for gaining work experience

Thankyou all in advance!

Don't work in childcare but when my dd was in nursery and playgroup I would have been happy to have a man working there.

Good luck to your DH

There are quite a few male teachers at dds pre school- I think it's great.

IMO.. We need more men in childcare, espescially primary and younger, think Childminder, Pre School and at least to year 6..

I work in childcare and think having a man on the team would be great! It would be good IMO if there were more male role models in childcare/early years (and also primary schools).

I would say he just needs to be positive, and show what he can offer in terms of his own unique skills.

As a parent too I would welcome more men caring for our young children, there just aren't enough of them and it's a real shame!

Just a thought, a lot of children's centres run dad's groups, perhaps he could go along to one of these as a volunteer to help run/organise? May not count as a work placement (worth checking with the college though), but even if it didn't count as course work placement it would still be valuable experience, possibly a good reference and a chance to network.

There was one male staff member at my DS's nursery and he was fab. There is also one at his pre-school and I welcome it. Positive role models and all that.

My dd has a male childminder !! I thought it was a bit weird when I first spoke with him but its fine.. He does a good job !!

I did my nursery nurse training when I was 22/23 at a local 6th form, so there was a bit of an age gap between me and some of the others. I was the only bloke.

Things have changed quite a bit over the last 15 years I feel... nurseries these days are much more open to the idea of male staff. In fact many managers/owners of nurseries would like to have male staff.

Parents are more open to it as well, though there will always be some who dislike the idea - so he may get some negative comments from time to time but may well end up getting more positive comments from those parents who do like it, so it balances itself out.
I did childcare part-time for many years. The past 7 or so years it has been full-time and I'm working as a nanny, so in an area of childcare where parents specifically are the employer and choose the childcarer, rather than using a user of a service (where parents don't have control over who is hired).

Good for him for giving it a go. Much better in my view to do a job he enjoys and is good at. I presume he has some prior experience of children - such as younger siblings, neice/nephew.

DD thought the male carer at her nursery was wonderful, although she did worry about him a bit. 'Mummy, I told A he could have dinner with us and you'd mend his holey trousers.'

Forgot to say, good luck to your DH Frog.

There is a male TA at school who is very popular, particularly for the mini football leagues he sets up at breaktimes. The boys love it. And he does breakfast and afterschool club too which ups his salary.

There have been younger (teenaged) males at nursery too - and we parents were supposed to be excited at how wowee the nursery was at employing them.

great good on him, we need more male role models for younger boys in nurseries and schools, you will always get the stupid ones who question his motives simply because of his gender but then if you see life like that you deserve to be ignored as you are a twat.

good luck to him and to you with baby

There are 3 male carers at DD2's nursery and all are great. Fantastic role models for the children, and I'm so pleased both of mine have been looked after by male and female carers. My DH works long hours so it's nice for them to have more male company.

DS's keyworker at nursery is male and he's fantastic. I'd second what previous posters have said about it being important for children to have both male and female role models.

Good luck to your DH .

Male carer at the nursery I use and he is fab. He was placed at the nursery by the college he did his training at and they kept him on once he'd qualified. I love there being a mix of carers- they also have a range of ages from just out of school to grandmothers. The kids love him (often hard to actually see him because he usually has a crowd of children hanging off him.)

Well done to your DH for taking the plunge.

Thankyou! That's really positive and encouraging :) I've shown him all your replies

Have PM'd you

we have 3 male childminders in our group everyone loves it