By CRISTINA JANNEY
Hays Post
Erin Gibson of Hays has been an in-home child care provider for 22 years — a job she only anticipated working for a few years while her children were small.
Today children she cared for as toddlers are grown and married.
Parents who have children in Gibson's care are pleased she didn't leave the profession.
Mother Ashley Sheely nominated Gibson, and she was selected as the March Child Care Champion.
"Miss Erin takes care of our kids as if they were her own!" Sheely said. "My kids have been with Erin for 3.5 years now, and she has become a part of our family. The support she gives her families certainly surpasses the expectations!"
Gibson said she initially became a child care provider because she wanted to stay home with her oldest two children. She taught preschool for a few years, but when her third child came along, she returned to in-home child care.
Gibson said providing care in her own home also gave her the flexibility to spend more time with her husband, who was a police department patrol officer who worked varied hours.
"I'm in it until retirement now," Gibson, 45, said.
Gibson said the children and their families became an extended part of her family. She spends up to nine hours a day with the children in her care.
Gibson operates on a play-based model.
"Play covers everything," Gibson said. "There's social. There's emotional, education. Everything that they need to learn at this point in time we can get processed through play. "
The day the Hays Post visited, the children watched a video on dinosaurs and then played with dinosaur figurines.
Playing with blocks or at the toy workbench or kitchen helps the children model what they see at home, encourages imagination, and helps them develop fine and gross motor skills.
"When something clicks with them, that's my favorite part," she said.
Group play also helps children build social and emotional skills.
"We talk about how you can have big emotions, but it's how you respond to your emotions that we try to work on," she said.
Instead of giving the kids access to a large selection of toys from a giant toy box, she separates the toys into categories to help extend the kids' attention spans.
When she gets out Mr. Potato Head, all the children play Mr. Potato Head until they agree they're ready to move on to something else.
Child care has been a family affair for Gibson. Her mother was also a child care provider for about 30 years. She said she was lucky to be gifted many of her mother's toys.
She said the children like playing with some of the older toys and seem to get as much delight out of them as they would something with a screen, or that lights up.
She also said she thought the toys promote children's use of their imaginations. The kids were playing outside recently. One of the kids had recently watched "Night at the Museum," so the children were pretending to freeze during the "day" and then become animated museum figures at "night."
Some of Gibson's favorite times are holiday parties with the kids. During Christmas, Santa visits and brings pizza. The kids make mummy dogs for Halloween — hot dogs wrapped in biscuits. Green beans are witch fingers, and marshmallows are ghost poop.
"It's so funny to watch the kids," she said. "They say 'Oooo!' They know what it is because we eat it all of the time, but if you call it something different ..."
In-home child care has its challenges. Providers must follow numerous regulations, take continuing education hours annually and are subject to surprise inspections.
Yet Gibson encourages others interested in entering the profession to hang in there despite the challenges.
"I tell people what other job could I have that my co-worker comes to work in rainboots, shorts and a superhero cape," she said.
She said the hugs and I love yous make up for all she has to do to prepare for the state.
"The rewards outweigh anything that could bring you down," she said.
She said she loves watching the kids grow up, but eventually, she has to let them go.
"They are like family," she said. "Every time I lose one to kindergarten, it's like they take a part of my heart with them."
The parents aren't the only ones who want Gibson to keep up the good work.
"One little boy told me, 'You have to keep doing day care so that when I have kids and go to work, you can watch my kids, too, '" Gibson said.
To nominate a Child Care Champion from Ellis County, click here.