You watch a few more minutes, breathe deeply, and log off. Afterward, work seems so much easier. For parents whose children attend a day care with online Webcast, a growing enterprise in which parents with Internet access can check up on their sons and daughters throughout the day, this scenario is a reality. Although online day cares were around as early as 1996, they have just recently begun to proliferate, as ordinary Americans have begun to appreciate the general usefulness of technology. And business is booming these days, with 20 new centers being added to the roster each month.
Day cares offer an open-door policy.
But as with any new technology, the threat of unintended consequences looms large. For Jay Jacobson , executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas, technologies like online day care reside in an ever-expanding gray area. But it doesn't take long to make a laundry list of possible repercussions. At Children's Courtyard, the rooms are equipped with phones, and concerned parents can ring up the day care workers to find out that Jimmy wet his pants and refuses to change. And though such checkups seem potentially disruptive, Kofron says that, in her experience, they strengthen communication between parents and teachers.