Cartoons at after school club?

For goodness sake, kids should be allowed to relax after a whole day at school.

Parents are the ones still at work, not the kids.

Have you ever looked after 30 kids on your own at once? It's exhausting for everyone inc kids so sometimes a bit or numberblocks etc is necessary!

These clubs often struggle to stay afloat as they are, let alone having staff stay for 20 minutes when the children have gone. The last hour of the club at the school I work at runs at a loss every single day, but is kept open to help the parents who use it. There are constant threads on MN complaining about the cost of childcare. I'd much rather 10 minutes of Waffle the Wonder Dog as the last few kids trickle out than the club folds...

ASC is cheap childcare really isn't it? Or, at least, cheaper than most other forms of childcare. That's not a criticism at all (we use it) but I don't expect anything fancy from it other than a safe space for DS to play with his friends. I know they do some activities, or, at least, some activities are available for them, but the kids can generally just choose what they want to do. DS doesn't often watch TV because I don't really have any limits on screen time so he doesn't feel like it's a treat or something special.

Is it an after school club run by the schools own staff or an external company?

Either way, yes, you’re expecting too much. There is nothing wrong with listening to Disney songs and watching the videos.

I feel like there's a middle ground to be found between asking a question about screen time on the school grounds and homeschooling. Just personally.

Modern parents often feel an increased sense of responsibility for their children's well-being, including their educational experiences. This heightened involvement is driven by societal expectations and the desire to provide the best for their children, not by entitlement. Though across the board people are definitely becoming more entitled so hard to unravel that one... I know several older family members have said to me their glad they don't have to parent now as it seems so more pressured than they remember. Could give a hundred small examples but it's easier to just say the world has changed. Really not fair though that teachers are often the ones in the middle of this perfect storm of stretched budgets Vs increased expectations and pressure from the parents and the governments and policies. It's tough from practically every angle. Can understand why teachers are leaving in droves and there's an increasing homeschool movement!

If you don’t like what they are offering, you will need to sort out alternative childcare or change/reduce your working hours to be able to collect your child from school and avoid the club altogether.

They will watch TV if it's kids cartoons as it's designed to be addictive. Not because they are exhausted or want to sit down. Tiredness in young children doesn't usually manifest as sitting still resting.

I'm just as guilty as the next parent for letting my kids watch TV so they don't make a mess or a noise - but let's be honest this is not in their interests apart from the fact that it helps me keep my sanity!

At my kids school they use a lot of screen time. Phonics and maths taught from a video. Music too. And RE. Plus they have TV during wet play and at home time. Not ideal IMO but that's how it is

Parent takes an interest in their childs care...

Mumsnet 'Jesus if you're going to be opinionated about your kids maybe you should homeschool!'

Seems reasonable...

Blimey. The po-faced attitudes on this thread explains exactly why recruiting for childcare staff is so difficult. As well as dealing with the low pay, long hours and often stressful nature of the job they have to deal with moaning and interfering parents like this.

I work in a primary school and I don't know what's causing it but parents seem to be getting more and more demanding, and frankly arrogant in some cases, every year.

My kids are young adults now. They went to the school afterschool club. There was lots of opportunity for free play, playing out, organised outside games, but at the end of the day when staff were less available to sit down with the kids and were starting to pack up all the activities, and the kids gradually got picked up one by one they'd tend to do the simpler activities like watching TV or sitting drawing or doing homework/reading. The kids themselves chose which.

My work finish hours were varied so I used to turn up at various times and saw what went on at different times. If I'd turned up every time and all the kids were sitting watching TV with nothing else offered I would have been rightly horrified. But that just wasn't the case. I'd arrive earlier and they'd all be outside doing a group game. If there were any who really didn't want to do that they might be inside playing a group board game with a member of staff.

Do the kids seem happy and relaxed? All getting on with each other? Do they tend to like the staff, and look forward to attending? If so, great.

But honestly, chill your beans with the micromanaging of your child's education and care. Do it yourself if you have such fixed ideas of how you want it done. I'm not being facetious. I genuinely mean it. After school club obviously is not the type of care that you want.

I can see why staff on minimum
wage might want the kids contained at the end of a long week, to give them opportunity to tidy up so they stand a chance of leaving and getting home on time. Starting to get cutting and sticking or musical instruments out at the end of a session just creates a lot more mess.

Mine feeds them jam sandwiches. Poor AF up north.

Again, they don't need to be stimulated. They just need some of paper pencils scissors glue Lego toy cars role play stuff outdoor space, and let them crack on.

No biggie.

This happened to us when we moved our DS (2) from a private nursery to a preschool attached to a school back in May. The after school club was ran by the preschool staff, including his key worker, in the same room, so no change to his day to day really (the preschool also ran the after school club in the main school and send staff over there every night). I was very shocked to pick him up and see the kids watching TV. Mainly because I don’t allow screen time on an evening as his behaviour is so much worse afterwards and getting him to bed is a nightmare. I asked the staff and they said it was usual towards the end of the day when the day kids had left and the after school kids were the last left, as they want the kids occupied so they can clean down. I told them we don’t allow screen time on evenings and why - even told them about the plan/routine the Health Visitor had helped draw up (when I’d rang in desperation about his behaviour on an evening that then escalated to him being up all night screaming) and how no screens had been very clear and how much of an improvement we’d seen once we cut it out in afternoons (he still gets it on weekend mornings until his midday nap). I could see they understood but they explained that’s the way it had to be and they will use the TV. So my son started coming home every evening crying for TV because he couldn’t understand why he could have it at nursery 10 minutes prior but not when we got home. Tbf in the nicer weather and summer it did lessen because they shoved the kids outside to play while they cleaned up, but it’s starting again now. There’s not much you can do. But YANBU, I don’t agree with it happening.

After a long, busy day, they may not want to draw, colour or play - they may just want to sit down, and putting the TV on is a way of stopping them from falling asleep.

I know when I get home from work, I often just want to flop out in front of the TV or on the sofa. I certainly don't want to do anything active or that takes up too much of my brain!

I guess after school club is staffed by people on NMW with no particular qualifications required other than dbs. It's probably reflected in the price. If you're wanting your dc to be stimulated after school I guess you'd need to look for a nanny to take them to afterschool extra curricular.,

I worked at a posh nursery years ago and we put all the toddlers in a little room with a drink and they watched the teletubies!

@Catza found it....

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9923845/

This is fine imo. Loads of kids get home from school and watch TV. It's downtime

100%!!! I feel like there's a strong message that people in general, but especially young people are spending too much time in front of a screen and the message I hear more often than not is directly comparing hours of screen time (inside or outside of education) compared to hours of unstructured free time/free play. So assuming that if they're not in front of a screen they should be engaged in structured activities or being entertained for an adult seems so counter intuitive. They could be allowed to be bored, find their own way to unwind, make their own entertainment.

Then again perhaps that's also happening and then every now and again there's also half an hour or so of the box. Hard to tell on an internet forum without all the nuances and facts!

When I worked in after school club we had a sports hall garden art room and computer/tv room each area would be open with a staff member in each area and children could move around each area freely.

Wasn't there a 2011 study by a pediatrian? Maybe American...

Sweden came out v recently saying there should be genuinely zero screen time for the first two years. It's growing opinion.

I don't think it's a problem for kids to watch half an hour TV at after school club. And I understand about the cleaning needing to be done.

But it's strange how nearly everyone on this thread equates TV with being the only way for children to relax. And if not watching TV they have to be doing organised activities.

Does no one let their kids just potter about doing their own thing ? It shouldn't be stressful or tiring for children to play with toys, do some self directed drawing or colouring or play outside. In fact quite the opposite.