Childcare workers attend to children at schools, businesses, private households, and childcare institutions. Perform a variety of tasks, such as dressing, feeding, bathing, and overseeing play.
Maintain a safe play environment.
Observe and monitor children's play activities.
Communicate with children's parents or guardians about daily activities, behaviors, and related issues.
Support children's emotional and social development, encouraging understanding of others and positive self-concepts.
Care for children in institutional setting, such as group homes, nursery schools, private businesses, or schools for the handicapped.
Sanitize toys and play equipment.
Dress children and change diapers.
Keep records on individual children, including daily observations and information about activities, meals served, and medications administered.
Identify signs of emotional or developmental problems in children and bring them to parents' or guardians' attention.
Instruct children in health and personal habits, such as eating, resting, and toilet habits.
Organize and store toys and materials to ensure order in activity areas.
Perform general administrative tasks, such as taking attendance, editing internal paperwork, and making phone calls.
Create developmentally appropriate lesson plans.
Perform housekeeping duties, such as laundry, cleaning, dish washing, and changing of linens.
Read to children and teach them simple painting, drawing, handicrafts, and songs.
Assist in preparing food and serving meals and refreshments to children.
Discipline children and recommend or initiate other measures to control behavior, such as caring for own clothing and picking up toys and books.
Regulate children's rest periods.
Organize and participate in recreational activities and outings, such as games and field trips.
Sterilize bottles and prepare formulas.
Help children with homework and school work.
Provide care for mentally disturbed, delinquent, or handicapped children.
Operate in-house day-care centers within businesses.
Perform general personnel functions, such as supervision, training, and scheduling.
Accompany children to and from school, on outings, and to medical appointments.
Work Context
Contact With Others — 84% responded "Constant contact with others".
Assisting and Caring for Others — Providing personal assistance, medical attention, emotional support, or other personal care to others such as coworkers, customers, or patients.
Making Decisions and Solving Problems — Analyzing information and evaluating results to choose the best solution and solve problems.
Thinking Creatively — Developing, designing, or creating new applications, ideas, relationships, systems, or products, including artistic contributions.
Communicating with Supervisors, Peers, or Subordinates — Providing information to supervisors, co-workers, and subordinates by telephone, in written form, e-mail, or in person.
Getting Information — Observing, receiving, and otherwise obtaining information from all relevant sources.
Resolving Conflicts and Negotiating with Others — Handling complaints, settling disputes, and resolving grievances and conflicts, or otherwise negotiating with others.
Organizing, Planning, and Prioritizing Work — Developing specific goals and plans to prioritize, organize, and accomplish your work.
Establishing and Maintaining Interpersonal Relationships — Developing constructive and cooperative working relationships with others, and maintaining them over time.
Identifying Objects, Actions, and Events — Identifying information by categorizing, estimating, recognizing differences or similarities, and detecting changes in circumstances or events.
Performing General Physical Activities — Performing physical activities that require considerable use of your arms and legs and moving your whole body, such as climbing, lifting, balancing, walking, stooping, and handling of materials.
Monitor Processes, Materials, or Surroundings — Monitoring and reviewing information from materials, events, or the environment, to detect or assess problems.
Evaluating Information to Determine Compliance with Standards — Using relevant information and individual judgment to determine whether events or processes comply with laws, regulations, or standards.
Coordinating the Work and Activities of Others — Getting members of a group to work together to accomplish tasks.
Documenting/Recording Information — Entering, transcribing, recording, storing, or maintaining information in written or electronic/magnetic form.
Developing Objectives and Strategies — Establishing long-range objectives and specifying the strategies and actions to achieve them.
Developing and Building Teams — Encouraging and building mutual trust, respect, and cooperation among team members.
Performing for or Working Directly with the Public — Performing for people or dealing directly with the public. This includes serving customers in restaurants and stores, and receiving clients or guests.
Updating and Using Relevant Knowledge — Keeping up-to-date technically and applying new knowledge to your job.
Inspecting Equipment, Structures, or Material — Inspecting equipment, structures, or materials to identify the cause of errors or other problems or defects.
Training and Teaching Others — Identifying the educational needs of others, developing formal educational or training programs or classes, and teaching or instructing others.
Scheduling Work and Activities — Scheduling events, programs, and activities, as well as the work of others.
Knowledge of principles and processes for providing customer and personal services. This includes customer needs assessment, meeting quality standards for services, and evaluation of customer satisfaction.
English Language
Knowledge of the structure and content of the English language including the meaning and spelling of words, rules of composition, and grammar.
Education and Training
Knowledge of principles and methods for curriculum and training design, teaching and instruction for individuals and groups, and the measurement of training effects.
Public Safety and Security
Knowledge of relevant equipment, policies, procedures, and strategies to promote effective local, state, or national security operations for the protection of people, data, property, and institutions.
Psychology
Knowledge of human behavior and performance; individual differences in ability, personality, and interests; learning and motivation; psychological research methods; and the assessment and treatment of behavioral and affective disorders.
Monitoring/Assessing performance of yourself, other individuals, or organizations to make improvements or take corrective action.
Service Orientation
Actively looking for ways to help people.
Social Perceptiveness
Being aware of others' reactions and understanding why they react as they do.
Active Listening
Giving full attention to what other people are saying, taking time to understand the points being made, asking questions as appropriate, and not interrupting at inappropriate times.
Speaking
Talking to others to convey information effectively.
Critical Thinking
Using logic and reasoning to identify the strengths and weaknesses of alternative solutions, conclusions or approaches to problems.
Coordination
Adjusting actions in relation to others' actions.
Complex Problem Solving
Identifying complex problems and reviewing related information to develop and evaluate options and implement solutions.
Instructing
Teaching others how to do something.
Reading Comprehension
Understanding written sentences and paragraphs in work related documents.
Learning Strategies
Selecting and using training/instructional methods and procedures appropriate for the situation when learning or teaching new things.
Active Learning
Understanding the implications of new information for both current and future problem-solving and decision-making.
Writing
Communicating effectively in writing as appropriate for the needs of the audience.
Judgment and Decision Making
Considering the relative costs and benefits of potential actions to choose the most appropriate one.
The ability to listen to and understand information and ideas presented through spoken words and sentences.
Oral Expression
The ability to communicate information and ideas in speaking so others will understand.
Problem Sensitivity
The ability to tell when something is wrong or is likely to go wrong. It does not involve solving the problem, only recognizing there is a problem.
Speech Recognition
The ability to identify and understand the speech of another person.
Far Vision
The ability to see details at a distance.
Written Comprehension
The ability to read and understand information and ideas presented in writing.
Deductive Reasoning
The ability to apply general rules to specific problems to produce answers that make sense.
Near Vision
The ability to see details at close range (within a few feet of the observer).
Time Sharing
The ability to shift back and forth between two or more activities or sources of information (such as speech, sounds, touch, or other sources).
Selective Attention
The ability to concentrate on a task over a period of time without being distracted.
Category Flexibility
The ability to generate or use different sets of rules for combining or grouping things in different ways.
Information Ordering
The ability to arrange things or actions in a certain order or pattern according to a specific rule or set of rules (e.g., patterns of numbers, letters, words, pictures, mathematical operations).
Inductive Reasoning
The ability to combine pieces of information to form general rules or conclusions (includes finding a relationship among seemingly unrelated events).
Fluency of Ideas
The ability to come up with a number of ideas about a topic (the number of ideas is important, not their quality, correctness, or creativity).
Written Expression
The ability to communicate information and ideas in writing so others will understand.
Speech Clarity
The ability to speak clearly so others can understand you.