Parents sending children to cm while they are on holiday themselves

do keep up the cm works 10.5hr day
cm isn't knocking back that work,is she
so as i said if cm willing to work 10.5 day, 50+hr week...well that's up to her

Saltire that is awful!

Saltire that is just awful how cruel makes me wonder why some people bother having kids.

The mum wasn't working 10.5 hour days though, she worked 8.45 till 12.30

so long as said mum pays cm on time it's not cm business
and a mum working 10and half hour day, well she's hardly one to cast aspersions. given the cm clearly needs or wants the fees

So what about parents who do the following

Take their 2 under 5 children to a childminder 7.30 am till 6.00pm, 5 days a week.

The mum goes and sits in the childmidners next door neighbours garden and plays with next door neighbours children in paddling pool. This results in childminder not beign able to go out into garden as mindees can see their mum and want to be with her

Parents also go to funfair/soft play/swimming pool/thomas land/digger land etc with neighbour adn neighbours children then picks her children up from childmidner and tell tehm what she's done.

Parents also goes ot legoland for the day with neighbour and neighbours children, repeat as above.
Parents go to Flamingo Land with neighbour and neighoburs children

by parents I mean both mindees aprents

I have a parent who always sends her little one to me when she has time off - I have mindee five days per week.

If I think about 'reasons' I guess she feels she needs time to herself and says, mindee has much more fun here :-(

I think CM has gone this way due to the lack of respect that was given to CM and the job that they we're doing. And due to parents wanting 'the best' for their children and seeing it on paper seems the way. (although when my DS finished FS2 last year not many of the parents knew what the early learning goals were or what the numbers meant - working class school though)

I have lost count of the number of mums I have heard say 'oh since DC has started at x nursery or y childminder they have come on so much' I always think would they not have developed in that way otherwise? Because mine have and they are at home with me.

I have never ever believed that nursery is the best start for a child. (it may be better for some children due to their home life or maybe necessary for parents to work) And after working in one recently I definitely don't think it is better for the child. I have however used a pre school for my DS's purely for social interaction.

The literacy and numeracy can be done though as part of natural play/ singing/ reading though. Like my Mum did with me. I do not intend to teach my mindees.

I just don't think it's necessary for a good childminder to be set up as an early learning professional . I don't think there's as much specific training, knowledge etc required to provide a good/outstanding childcare environment.

I also think it's not what most parents who choose childminders actually want. They want a safe, loving, homely environment, not one in which it's about early childhood pedagogy UK style (learning numbers, subtraction, addition or, to take my previous example, calling "puddle jumping" an "activity" linked to "learning goals" etc). Unfortunately, the simple things in life - humanity, love, compassion, good humour, a sense of fun and playfulness - are not "tiny achievable tickable targets" that can be deemed to be "professionally" or "unprofessionally" achieved.

There are some children who do need more "professionalised" care - children with attachment issues, some special educational needs etc that can't be met without specialist knowledge, training and experience- but in the main, your averagely developing child just needs a safe, comfortable and warm environment where the person providing care does so with as much care as they would their own child (e.g. doesn't plonk them in front of a TV while they natter on the phone).

It seems to me that to "ensure" that those childminders who might be indifferent or cold provide an adequate experience for all, these nonsensical curricula have been created so that it can be "proven" or "evidenced" that a normal, standard level of care is provided.

I sort of see how this happened, and why so many people want it.. but you know, it's just not something I agree with. My son is in nursery and I am very circumspect about it. I don't think he LOVES it, I know he would prefer to be with me, I think it would be better for him to be with me... but I don't need a portfolio of evidence that they are DOING WORTHWHILE THINGS with him to assuage my own feelings of ambivalence and discomfort that he is in childcare. I would like to know that they respond to his needs and keep him clean, safe, dry and warm, give him cuddles when he falls over, laugh when he is cute and don't totally lose the rag with him or make him bad about himself when he is being a brat unruly toddler. I just want to know they are decent.

I think women who provide this sort of care "in loco parentis" should be adequately compensated for the service they provide without needing to jump through silly hoops or be trained and considered "professionals". I think by professionalising it, it's saying these sorts of caring roles are inadequate unless they are attached to "targets" and "training" and "deadlines" and "inspections". To me, a childminder is a role like that of the doula: a support, like a member of the extended family, someone there to provide care and reassurance and assistance NOT teaching and "professionalism".

It's been my experience that some of the very best childminders who have the attributes I would want have relatively poor Ofsted ratings because of how they do paperwork, while others who perhaps are more cool and distant with their mindees but sticklers for ensuring that everything is nicely updated and photographed and linked to the early learning goals are graded much more highly.

I don't want any childminder (or nursery worker, if I am honest) doing numeracy or literacy based activities with my under-5 year old. I don't agree with it being done at this age. I want my child to explore his environment on his own terms but while being adequately supervised and cared for. That's all.

InterviewMAD - do you not regard nursery workers or other early years practitioners as 'professionals' then? Or not deem it necessary for their role to be 'professional'?

Why wouldn't a mother reference Mary's advice and attribute it to her being a CM?
In doing so that mother recognises and respects Mary's knowledge, experience and training.

Where did I call you personally unprofessional?

You are missing my point. I don't think childcare should be a "professional" role at all.

I think by turning the "what" of family childcare into what is now, essentially, an early education teaching role in order to validate it and allow women to earn money for it e.g. by "professionalising" the role, we are saying that the act of childcare itself (as it would, say, be done by a SAHM) is invalid. I won't be at all surprised when the day comes where SAHMs are asked to "prove" they are "educating" childcare and I suspect already CMs may be referenced as professionals by mothers e.g. "Mary told me and she's a childminder.

The goals of early childhood development are to become a member of your community. You learn to talk, to play, to explore, to toilet, to eat a range of foods, to say please and thank you, to share and co-operate, to show and accept love and affection. You do not need a "curriculum" to do this in the ordinary way of things, although in my own role I very much appreciate there are children with special educational needs who do benefit from having targeted baselines and goals with respect to some of these areas, the average child will flourish just by being in a stable type family or home environment, wandering about, pottering, getting mucky, watching a person iron (oh shock horror) etc. It just happens. It is the wonder of our humanity that it is as varied and diverse as it is but the current EYFS has the most ludicrous set of almost businessy goals, and some of them don't even make sense in relation to eachother. Knowing some position words, for example, is something that just happens with no tuition, just because, between the ages of 2 and 3.. earlier for some, later for others. Knowing numerals 1-9, on the other hand, is arguably entirely unnecessary before 5... yet I know my 2.5 year old has been "taught" these things at nursery. And that's before we consider the ludicrousness of 20 white british under 2's "celebrating Diwali" when there is no one in the nursery who does, because it's "important" to celebrate other cultures (yet this is entirely conceptually unaccessible for those under-2's).

And as for some of the "social skills" e.g.

? Considers the consequences of words and actions for self and others
? Uses talk to organise, sequence & clarify thinking, ideas, feelings & events, exploring the meanings & sounds of new words
? Understands that people have different needs, views, cultures & beliefs that need to be treated with respect

There are people who are in their 50's who can't do these if you're going to be literal about them. Yes, social development is a massive part of learning for this age range but these descriptors are meaningless and very difficult to operationalise in a true, human way. All of them are things that just happen naturally and are quite difficult and require masses of specific skill to rectify if they don't. You might as well write: - gets taller or - hair grows.

You think "professional" = good and so therefore something to aspire to, and saying something like not working with your own kids there is "unprofessional" is a dig/judgemental/wrong etc. Professional has become a value-laden term associated with identity, when that's not what I mean.

I think "professional" in the childminding context = not good.

Safeguarding policies, not taking unnecessary risks all that = fine.
Seeing it as about "teaching" = over the top.

However, I don't think there's any immediate going back to how it was because a) women wouldn't get paid adequately as to get paid in our current world you have to be achieving achievable tickable targets and b) we don't have the societal structure anymore that supports a more "normal" sort of childcare arrangement.

I simply said that I don't think it's compatible with a "professional" role to have your children on site while you work. I would rather be in a position where my son could be with a lovely old woman like my Nan was who would become part of the family but sadly, that's not affordable for the average family and the alternative is now to just accept that he is going to be "taught" a "curriculum" no matter what. I just think it's stuff and nonsense.

My dear mad unless you apologise for calling me unprofessional I cant take you seriously.

Thanks for good wishes for dd.

Also, if the EYFS as it is currently is so wonderful, why did the government feel the need to seek consultation and revise statutory guidance, reducing the early learning goals from 69 to 17... perhaps the new EYFS will be more fit for purpose but we'll find out in September...

No... I teach Child Development. That is NOT the same as the EYFS. I have a lot of experience with the EYFS though...

You have never met anyone involved in teaching or lecturing who would say that? The EYFS has had quite a bit of criticism, my dear. It's not just me who has issues with it or the commodification of childcare...

However, you are choosing not to engage with the core substance of what I am saying here and seem desperately to want for me to be saying something else.

U teach EYFS yet you think it's a 'steaming pile of poo'. You are a very strange person and I have never met anyone involved In teaching or lecturing who would say that.

All the cms I know don't and it appears to be just your personal opinion.

Noone is wilfully misinterpreting your posts they are just your opinion and we don't agree with you.

You havnt said anything earth shattering or complicated.

Tanith is obviously far more qualified and aware than you appear to be.

I think you have lied to try and justify your silly views.

Tanith: We're perfectly capable of reading your posts, by the way, and we know what you said. We disagree with your opinion.

Which is? What is your opinion? Do you honestly think all this proceduralisation and professionalisation is worthwhile? If you come from a background of district nursing you will have seen the same happen in a different caring profession so I am surprised you don't get my point here.

definitely not ignorant MAD, a very coherant post.

Thebody, I am very sorry your dd is unwell and I too wish her a speedy recovery.

I don't really understand any of the aggro here and I think you are really desperately trying to misinterpret my points, thebody. You say I am "so so wrong" and Tanith, you say I am "unprofessional" because I have a view that if we are going to professionalise childminding, then we have to either go the whole hog and be honest about that or accept that childminding doesn't have to be dressed up as "professional" to be worthwhile.

My background, as I said, is child development. I don't personally agree with the overprofessionalisation of childcare, I think it is quite antifeminist and I think (as I said from my first post) that things were very different back in the day when women took in children to care for alongside their own without the current guidance/procedures/policies etc... when it was one member of the community caring for another child from the community and the whole thing wasn't based on portfolios and health and safety regs etc, when the mother childminding was someone whose kids would play out with yours, who you would see at Church on a Sunday etc and where the financial transaction was so much pin money but worked because of community cohesion.

There were downsides, of course, and I do understand why we have health and safety guidelines and women can't iron while they have paying customers in the home because of our risk averse, safety-crazy reality now but so much of it is nonsense..

Juule, you know what I'm saying if no one else seems to want to read it. My grandmother cared for two children in their home in Ireland when she was aged 60-70. She is 90 now and has attended their weddings/graduations etc. She did have a position in the home as a sort of surrogate Granny... but that is not what Ofsted wants.

I despair of planning sheets for activities like "puddle jumping" . I think that trying to turn human experiences into observable, measurable activities that can be ticked off against the woolly claptrap checklists of early childhood curricula is horrendous. Yet I see DF's point too, we are in a risk averse age and we want assurances of safety and policies etc.. but honestly, you CM's so outraged by what I am saying can't see the inherent lie/dehumanising effect of a situation that causes you to write:

• [our children are] treated as minded children and included in our numbers.
• It's in my policies that Granny and Grandad come to visit and that's what they're called so no, not a lie.

Policies. Children included "as numbers". Directives. What a load of nonsense. There is no real human truth to this. In the end of the day, it is a valid question to ask who would you save in a fire because it is not about a community of people of whom your children are a part, it's about business/expenses/paperwork. Commodification. It's really very sad. Particularly as so much of it is pants. The EYFS is a steaming pile of poo. How many of you have been graded down because of inadequate "baselines" on a tool that has limited scientific validity or even relationship to developmental theory? Why does a CM environment have to cover the same curriculum as a nursery?

Look at ALL my posts. I have said again and again that I don't think that childminding these days is really compatible with having your own children in the home because of these changes (which I really don't support, to be honest).

There is nothing unprofessional in thinking as someone with an interest in child development that the current situation is not really ideal, sorry.

Thanks blonds, was just thinking we needed your commen sense on this post and big paws I do the same.

Sorry mad just don't belive you are in early years training D you seem ( pardon me) so ignorant.

body, so sorry to hear about your dd :( wishing speedy recovery

tanith - your parents aka dc's grand parents sound lovely and tbh the reason parents chose a cm is usually to reflect family life

I apologise for playing catch up here, but could interviewMAD please reassure me you don't tell your trainee childcarers it's OK to iron with children around?! As a Full-time CM (+ full-time Mummy) I pay a lady £20 a week to do my ironing. No, not a stranger in my house before that is assumed - she takes it and brings it back the following day. Just to relieve me of a weekend job so I can give attention to my own DDs

Do you think it confuses children when the parents employ a "nanny"

Thanks tanith and as always great post.