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Day care offers parents peek at kids

Online video offers a way to see their child is safe, happy

By John Rebchook, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published November 26, 2007 at 12:05 a.m.

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Lightway at Sloans, a day-care center in Edgewater, offers real-time streaming video so parents can keep an eye on their children from work. Klare Looney, owner of the center, says the images give parents a sense of security and allow them to be more productive at their jobs. If a day-care center didn't have a video feed, "it would be a red flag to me," she said.

Photo by GEORGE KOCHANIEC / George Kochaniec Jr. © The Rocky

Lightway at Sloans, a day-care center in Edgewater, offers real-time streaming video so parents can keep an eye on their children from work. Klare Looney, owner of the center, says the images give parents a sense of security and allow them to be more productive at their jobs. If a day-care center didn't have a video feed, "it would be a red flag to me," she said.

Klare Looney

Klare Looney

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Laura Magnum-Childers initially didn't care much about the real-time video offered by Lightway at Sloans, a day-care center in Edgewater.

When an online survey asked her to rank the importance of having secured, real-time streaming video that would allow her to watch Mac, her 2-year-old son, "I marked it as being zero, or maybe one, in importance," Magnum-Childers said. "I was more concerned about who was taking care of my child and couldn't care less about the video - or so I thought."

But after Mac spent less than a week at the center, which opened Nov. 5 at 5440 W. 25th Ave., his mother was sold on the technology.

"To have this peek into what he is doing and see how he is being treated has been amazing," she said.

Klare Looney, a mortgage broker and the 26-year-old owner of Lightway at Sloans, said Magnum-Childers' response is typical.

Looney, who lives in Denver just north of Sloan's Lake, founded the center after she became frustrated looking for day care for her 1-year-old son, Kale. She decided her day-care center would include "everything I wanted and more."

But before opening the center, she sent a survey to the 700 members of the Highlands Mommies group.

She found that her fellow members agreed with her on almost every issue except the Web video.

"But I think that it is because it is not available here and people aren't yet familiar with it," she said. "I called a lot of different centers and I couldn't find anyone else offering it. But it's becoming very popular on either coast."

But she said the mostly young parents, who pay up to $1,395 a month for the center, quickly warmed up to the technology, which provides views from five cameras through a company called abcKam.com. The technology allows them to take snapshots, which can be e-mailed or printed.

On a recent morning, parents and grandparents had logged on to the password-protected system 51 times, with people watching their kids anywhere from one minute to 47 minutes. At that time, less than a week after opening, the center had seven children, although now Lightway is taking care of 15. The center can care for a maximum of 20 kids.

"I think there are multiple positive things about this," Looney said. "First, there is the security of it. It seems like a day doesn't go by (without reading) a story in the news about a child being abused at a day-care center. We're not hiding anything."

Looney said she thinks every day-care center should provide the service, which cost her $7,596.

"If they don't have it, I'd ask why," she said. "It would be a red flag to me."

But could a parent see something on the video, misinterpret it and overreact?

"Sure, but you can bet we'll get a phone call in minutes and we'll deal with it," Looney said.

In the first few days, she said one baby was crying and the mother e-mailed the assistant director, Megan Glasmann, letting her know that her daughter loves to be under a mobile that plays music.

"You can see we put her in the mobile and she's loving it! LOL (Lots of Love)," Glasmann e-mailed back, Looney said.

The director, Megan "Doc" Wood, said the response has been universally positive.

"They're loving it," Wood said. "We're getting a lot of e-mails from parents and pictures of cute things their kids did. We're even getting e-mails from grandparents who are watching their grandchildren from out of state."

Looney said that seeing their kids helps young mothers feel less guilty.

"Some parents were worried that they would be spending all day watching their kids, and it would decrease their productivity at work," Looney said.

"But what they're finding is that it is increasing their productivity," she said. "They click and see their child is safe and happy and so on, and they can concentrate on work and not worry about leaving their kids at day care."

That's been the case with Magnum-Childers, a social worker, who is married to a firefighter.

"I think one of the reasons I rated it so low was because I was afraid if it was a possibility for me, I'd watch him the whole eight hours," she said.

"I think the most I have ever been on is maybe seven minutes," Magnum-Childers said. "And the cool thing is that my mom and sister in Oregon can also watch him. So it has not only been good for our individual family, but for our extended family as well."

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