Childcare in Shuls: A Checklist

Too many mothers stay home on Shabbat morning or only make it to shul for musaf, because they find that the shuls don’t tolerate or involve their small children inside shul and also don’t provide proper childcare outside of shul. Mothers like me, along with their supportive husbands, who need this situation to change, can suggest some of these ideas to their rabbis or shul boards.

Does your shul provide any or all of the following?

1. Staggered minyanim so that fathers and mothers can alternate between looking after their children and davening.
2. A nursing room for breast-feeding mothers (including a comfortable seat, possibly access to some drinking water, the door should be closeable and the room should not be used for other purposes).
3. Youth groups carefully designed for different age children. The youngest children need close supervision, toys and snacks. There should be age-appropriate davening, divrei torah, brachot and educational stories interspersed with games. This daycare should begin close to the beginning of tefillah time.
4. Enthusiasm to include children in the main tefillah (for instance, allowing children to accompany their father to the bimah for an aliyah, bringing children up to the bimah for Anaim Zemirot and Adon Olam and allowing children to open and close the ark).
5. Sensitivity to children in the way davening is conducted (the entire service should not be unnecessarily extended because children just cannot sit for such long periods of time).
6. A separate minyan (or Musaf service) designated for this part of the constituency, which does not mind the noise generated by children.
7. Not all shuls have the resources to accomplish many of the above suggestions, so another possibility would be to have a toranut schedule, where several parents could alternate running a Shabbat morning program for the children.

If you have other suggestions, feel free to post your ideas.

Comments

[shanna]

We have #1, #3, and #5 for sure, some measure of #4, and allegedly #2 (though, not yet having had a need to use it, I don't know anything about its actual accessibility and comfort...then again, I probably would just sit in the lobby). #6 is almost certainly never going to happen at our shul, though I know that there is a monthly "Family Minyan" at the shul where I grew up (and it's been going since I lived there, so it's probably at least a decade old).

Hmmm...this is probably the first time in a very long time I've viewed our shul in such a positive light!

[Timbo]

Great checklist, and a terrific blog too.

I have just one more suggestion that may be controversial: ensure that the childcare extends from the beginning of shachrit to the end of musaf.

This gives a real opportunity to parents who want to spend some of the time teaching their kids about the service but the majority of it focusing on their prayers...

[Adam]

Great website! Another suggestion for making shul child-friendly might be to have the kiddush in the middle of the service rather than at the end.

Yakar in Jerusalem does this -- it allows the children to have a break so that the service doesn't seem so long, and it allows to adults to socialise a bit so that those who are especially eager to be gregarious will be less likely to talk during the remainder of the service.

[Air Time]

Our shul, Young Israel of Oak Park, has created a children's room where kids 18 mos through about 4 or 5 can play. The room is brightly painted with a mural on at least one wall, has two babysitters in addition to parents who stroll in, toys, couches, a crib and a privacy curtain for nursing mothers.

We also have groups beginning at about 10:30 for kids in grades K-6, split into age appropriate groups.

The kids do Anim Zmirot and open the Aron for anim z'mirot, and no one will stop a child from following his dad up for an Aliyah. We have a youth gabbi who is in charge of getting kids for Anim Zmeriot.

By far we have the most extensive shabbos youth programming in our community, yet it does not translate into new members. It does seem to work to keep members from leaving the shul, though.