Impact Child Development Center

Although I am sure the experiences and emotions of the previous poster are true and valid, I want to offer another view of Impact Child Development Center. My child has been with them for a year and I am extremely happy with the attention, compassion and love they provide my child. After being dissatisfied with my initial daycare provider, I chose Impact based on numerous extremely positive recommendations from friends and coworkers. My child has developmental issues that require monitoring and attention, and the staff have been very flexible to meet these needs and are attentive to my child’s development. They have been quick to note any possible delays, worked with me for interventions and been adaptive as my child has progressed (or regressed). The director and the various teachers have – without exception – been kind and encouraging to both me and my child. What has delighted me most of all is the culture of caring they nurture. The children in my child’s group show true affection for their teachers and each other, frequently greeting each other with friendly hugs. During her time at Impact, my child is developing a strong sense of empathy, which I give a lot of credit to the staff for modeling and encouraging. I agree that Impact does provide a structured environment – one that I have found beneficial to my child’s development while also being flexible enough to allow for individual growth and exploration.

I recently had my two children at Impact Child Development Center and decided to leave after five months of being in their care. During the time that my children were there, my three year old was not allowed to show any type of imagination or what they considered "defiant behavior". For example, they asked the children to come to the table for lunch. When my child was still standing they asked why he wasn't sitting and he said "because I am not a boy, I am a digger". I was told "we just can't have that kind of behavior, or they will ALL want to be something else". The director and teacher then went down a laundry list of things they thought were “wrong” with him such that he lacks empathy (according to the Encyclopedia of Pediatrics, that is the first thing it says about a three year old), that he doesn't play well with other children (most three year olds parallel play), he wasn't able to sit still for story time, and that overall he is very immature for his age. Even though I felt that their ideas of him were unfair, I tried to work with them to come up with a plan that would allow me to work with him at home as well as be consistent at school, but it was to no avail. Instead, every day I heard, "he had a rough day". The straw that broke the camel's back was during the Christmas performance. We had worked for months on helping him learn lines and practice his songs (he LOVES to sing). The week before they told me they wanted to "modify" his performance, because he couldn't stand still during practice. They said that the older kids (his classmates) would start the program and he would come up with the younger kids. I asked if he would be singled out or made to feel different from the other kids and I was assured that he wouldn't. With much hesitation I agreed. The night of the performance we were not allowed to see him beforehand, so he didn't know we were there and we weren't able to tell him how proud we were of him. When the performance started, he sat on the teacher's lap and then he was handed off to sit on the director's lap. I was FURIOUS! So much for not singling him out! When the little kids came up to sing, the director let him get up so he moved to the front to sing his little heart out. However, that wasn't where she wanted him to be. We then watched a power struggle ensue between a grown woman and a three year old. She removed him from the stage and my son never got to sing. Other parents even asked “why did she take him off the stage?” When we returned after Christmas, we were told that the director wanted to bring in a special councilor to help him with "his behavior issues". My son is a normal three year old who is energetic, articulate, and creative. He did not fit into the preverbal box that THEY thought he should fit in to. The director is not a child psychologist as she is acting to be. The teachers for the older students are cold and act as if they don't care about either the children or the parents. It is more like a boot camp instead of a daycare.