Childminders at soft play

Agree Being a sahm sounds like hell on earth to me

How on earth would you enforce that, anyway!?

The child minders at my toddler group are like this. Too interested in talking to each other and not paying any attention to their children entrusted in their care.

If you are parent meeting a friend for coffee whilst your children play then I think that is very different than it being your job and being paid to watch those children. They don't have to helicopter but being aware of where everyone is, keeping a close eye on the whole room, being present and not looking down at your phone. No one would begrudge them 10 mins sit down to drink their coffee but the ones near me take the piss.

No, but if I had two or three squabbling toddlers and was working I might make it a rule.

This is one of the reasons I prefer to send my child to a nursery, at least in good nurseries there are senior staff and managers at to keep an eye on the rubbish staff. Although I know nurseries aren't perfect either! With a childminder there is no one to see what they are doing with your child all day.

Do you make your own children or passengers sit in silence in the car? If you need complete silence to concentrate on the road then you probably shouldn't be driving anyway...

My eldest is 26 and I remember this from public playgrounds when she was little. Their kids ran amok and were completely ignored. Unfortunately it seemed as though they were ALWAYS there

My mum was a childminder for years and used to go to toddler groups with her childminder friends and all the children. As I also had a toddler I would join them sometimes. I wouldn't have trusted any of them to look after a goldfish.

Why is that bad? It’s hard to concentrate on the road otherwise.

I agree. The childminders are pretty proactive round her, and also very helpful at toddler groups as they know the ropes and are very helpful to new (especially struggling) mums because they can give lots of advice.
They've always got bags full of stuff to entertain the children.

But in soft play, surely it's better that they stay in one place so the children know where to find them - they're not going to be able to chase round 4 children, one is under 1 and not crawling, two are 2-3 and one is nearly school age without restricting the 4yo or just carrying the baby around which isn't necessarily fun for them.

This has not been my experience with the local childminders round here. In the soft play they had the best behaved kids their and were almost competitively trying to find the extra learning opportunities for their charges like "collect all the red balls", "count the steps up to the slide" etc.

My experiences with my own childminder as a child are the reason I sent all of my children to a lovely private nursery.

I was ignored for hours and neglected and my parents were none the wiser. It wasn’t until I got older that I realised this wasn’t right.

Agree.
I sometimes wonder why some people are so anti- childminders. All the ones I know are amazing.
Plus they’re out & about a lot. out in public places, and people say they prefer nursery because there’s more ‘eyes’ - how can you get more eyes than being out & about all day.
Who knows what’s happening in a nursery. ( one near me had a nursery nurse hitting and pinching the poor kids ) was on the news & everything.

From a child’s POV-yes it would be ideal if they were looked after by a loving parent until they’re 3. The fact that some parents don’t like spending time with their kids is another matter.

All the childminders in my town are nothing like this, so please don’t slate all childminders. I know they’re not like that because I attended all the baby and toddler groups they go to and saw that they chatted to one another (and me) but also cared for the children. I’m not a proponent of helicopter parenting and was glad to see they cared but weren’t constantly hovering (except with very young ones who they obviously had within arms reach of them at all times). My childminder is outstanding and I know my son gets far more from being in a home environment and having trips out than he would in a nursery, he learns road skills, to socialise with children of a range of ages and far more 1:1 attention than he would get in a nursery, plus I don’t have to worry that his main carer will change at any time because nursery workers are poorly paid and are likely to leave for better paid jobs.

Seeing some at playgroups is the reason I never went for childminders.

I’ve heard some awful childminder horror stories from close friends and relatives. I preferred nursery, my logic was that at least there are a number of staff and they might sort of keep an eye on each other.

I’m just glad that my children are past that stage. Very difficult putting your trust into someone you don’t know well.

I think this is quite typical. A childminder isn’t a nursery. The childminder who used to collect from our school was constantly shouting at her own children and the ones she was minding and chasing them through the village as she couldn’t manage them all. There is a reason all of mine went to nursery.

Sadly that’s childcare for you. A lot of parents I see go on their phones a lot because they are bored when looking after their own children. Imagine if it’s someone’s else’s, you would be even less interested.

I think 'mindees' is a horrible term. Its dehumanising.
Why not just refer to them as children?

There is one childminder who I see around all the time (I am currently on mat leave) - also in her 50s - who seems wonderful. Always engaging with the kids, collecting leaves, splashing in puddles.

Yes I've noticed this too. It's bizarre.

Ideally we’d all be sahm and sahd?Hell no. I don’t want to be a housewife with my kids. Ever. No way
I booked nursery when 12wk pg to ensure smooth return to FT work.

Phew!
Thank goodness she was pretty!
God forbid she was an ugly childminder.

I was in a park with my child last summer and the young girls in charge of the holiday club there were paying no attention whatsoever. I helped my child on the zip wire and suddenly had a queue of 4/5 year olds wanting me to put them on too. Childminders didn’t give a toss some strange lady was picking all these young kids up to seat them on a zip wire, I had to ask each one if they’d done it before and knew how to hold on. Put me off holiday clubs for a while.