To stop cooking dinner when childminding

[Littlepurpleprincess]

I have been a registered childminder for about 2 years now and I've always offered a cooked meal at the end of the day (5pm). DH, DS, me and the mindees all sit together at the table. I do a meal plan for the month so parents know what I'm cooking and a have a healthy eating policy.

It's usually along the lines of spag bol, macaroni cheese, stews, casseroles, sausage and mash.....basically it's your typical home cooking.

However, I have several children who refuse to eat their dinner, or have awful table manners, or prefer to graze (ie eat what they want, when they want). I feel the parents aren't really on my side, and aren't that bothered about getting their kids to sit at the table and eat a proper meal each day.

Everyday I talk to the parents and I'm always honest about how the children have behaved at meal time and how much they've eaten but I know that the parents then go and feed them junk food and treats straight after picking them up.

Would I be being unreasonable to say I am no longer offering a cooked dinner due to lack of demand?

As a parent would it put you off a childminder if they didn't offer Dinner?

I will provide a healthy snack for children after school, and I will continue to offer breakfast and lunch, and healthy snacks throughout the day for the little ones.

Dinner time atm is really stressful. DH and I are tired of it and DS is beginning to copy some of the unwanted behaviour. I feel its important for families to sit together and eat at the end of each day but right now we are missing out on that. Is it selfish to want it to be just family at dinner time?

unfortunatley she is with me most of the time as I am a STAHM

But the OP has said she can't control the kids at the table (presumably it's somehow due to the parents though).

I am a childminder so can kind of understand your frustrations, however something did occur to me when reading the above posts and that was that my 3 year old cant stand mashed potato, wouldnt eat chicken casserole or macaroni cheese. He likes things the way he likes them so pasta with some cheese he can sprinkle on the top instead of mac cheese. This doesnt mean he is a bad eater. He eats brocolli, carrots, corn on cob, green beans, salad, veg fresh from the garden...he is a very healthy eater really. He is not keen on fruit either but he loves veg so actually thats better. If I sent him to a cm and he was served something he wasnt familiar with then he would refuse it and probably would get quite upset if anyone tried to insist he ate it, its never occurred to me that this is naughty though. And lets face it, any child whether a good eater or not wold prefer cake over dinner! It would really upset me to think that my parenting was being judged because of what my son wouldnt eat. I also think that if they have bad manners it is massively your responsibility to teach them. They might not do it at home but in your house its your rules so crack the whip...dont put up with them trampling your sofa!
For what its worth, I dont serve dinner because all of my parents want to eat with their children so i dont think it would be bad of you to stop doing it unless they felt it would affect the child and then you could offer to feed them a dinner or packed lunch that they provide.

I am a CM 0800-1800 and my day goes like this:

• breakfast at home (usually in the car I think)
• Fruit snack in the morning
• Cooked lunch (or picnic if we are out)
• Afternoon snack based on how hungry the children look
• Dinner at home

I have children arriving from 0800-0930 and leaving from 1600-1800 and it would just be logistically impossible to be feeding some and not others, trying to answer the door while children were eating, quite apart from being in the kitchen instead of spending time with the children.

All the above is adapted for babies, SN children, or children with some kind of special circumstance that day (ie off on a flight, so needs to eat first).

If I sent him to a cm and he was served something he wasnt familiar with then he would refuse it and probably would get quite upset if anyone tried to insist he ate it, its never occurred to me that this is naughty though

I didn't say this was naughty!

I can control them, thats not what I meant. I was just a little suprised that when they first started they thought this was acceptable behaviour, they don't do it here anymore, and if they do we have a reward/time out system which works very well.

I'm not blaming the parents for every misbehaviour, I'm just saying that a couple of the parents I have willl not work with me create consistancy with the children so the children are not going to eat their meals.

I don't serve anything unusual and I have an all about me form that the parents fill out before a child starts, that includes a space for foods I like/dislike. I plan according to this, so I know child T doesn't like peppers, I don't use peppers.

Of course they wouldn't be perfect with me, but they would behave better if the parents and I could work together.

yanbu offer tea instead

but whats going on with these parents? why are they feeding their kids shit, outting them to bed too late and not disciplining them? maybe you need to screen better as whats point if it stresses you. are you maybe judging them a bit?

Our CM does a hot lunch and sarnies for the older ones after school.

It's a shame- a decent sit down dinner matters so much- but can see why you would want to change

Piglet my ds's are like that (AS, ASD, beinga ssessed for asd, being assessed for ADHD) and it's a hard battle but one worth pursuing I think. Nonethless for some reason they are the better behaved kids at school lunch / CM as they ahve at least had manners modelled.

Did you know that it takes at least 20 attempts for a child to firmly decide whether they like or dislike a food? Children should be opened up to new tastes, textures and flavours from an early age so "he likes what he likes" maybe true but there may also be a plethora of new things out there that he hasn't yet formed an opinion on and won't if he's not given the opportunity to try them.

E.g. one of the children I mind was eyeing my lunch up yesterday (Chicken tikka pieces which were actually quite spicy and not what I'd normally have tried them with), asked to try a bit which I gladly let her do and it turned out that she loved it and ended up sharing the rest!

However, back to the original point. I think a light tea should be sufficient, then at least you're reducing the time spent preparing it, the waste and your stress levels. :)

It's up to you what service you provide, and you obviously have reasons for wanting to change, but from a personal point of view, if my CM - who does provide meals - stopped doing so I would have to move. One of the reasons I chose her (one of MANY reasons :) ) was that she provided food. SHe charges slightly more an hour to do so. I would suggest you talk to the parents and say that in order to keep the meal facility, you will need to slightly increase hourly rates. Cover the costs and out it in front of them, either they eat it or they don't. If you want to have your family meal time seperate cook something for mindees which can be done in a batch and used for a couple of days (shepherds pie, say) and have your own meal after they have gone.

Really OP you were surprised that when young children started with a new cm (quite an upheaval) they misbehaved a bit?
If you want the parents to work with you to create consistency you need to talk to them - not us on here. Have you told the parents in question that you think it's their fault that the kids won't eat and have bad manners? I doubt it.
Tbh I'm finding the slating of parents, who keep you in a living, quite uncomfortable to read and quite unprofessional. I only hope my daughters pre-school teachers don't post on forums about the many ways in which they think I'm going wrong with my parenting.

No, but you can be damn sure they'll do it in the staffroom if they have a desire to!

I am also a cm. I don't do cooked tea for my mindees. I f I was in your position I would send a letter home to state that you will no longer be providing evening meals. I would be happy to heat up meals provided by parents. I would also have a healthy eating policy where i would ask parents not to send in sweets, fizzy drinks, chocolate bars etc.
I had a mindee that would bring sweets and easter eggs in with him in the morning (7:15am!). I had a firm rule that my own ds was not allowed those things for breakfast so neither was he. I offered him alternatives, cereal, toast, fruit etc.
I'm sure most schools and nurserys have a healthy lunch box rule. IMO its not to much to ask that parents cut these things out at these times, they can feed them whatever they like at home. Otherwise its not fair for one child to be allowed sweets and others not!
I also think as you have been offering meals for no extra charge it is not unreasonable to to charge the same - you will still be offerering snacks and drinks.
Also as much as i love looking after my mindees, i do look forward to a family meal in the evening - its our time :)
You sound great btw xxx

So peachy there is hope. At the moment she has packed lunch at preschool then home straight after. Some parents pick their child up earlier, she sees the children going and gets so distressed as she thinks mummy has forgotten her. They find it hard to control her at lunch I am worried for when she starts school. Dd has been approved for the next stage if statement so that's good

There's hope. DS4 btw is same at CM- eve after 2 years he cries at drop off . nursery induction next week; coudl go either way but will be a key moment I think.

and also she does not want to do what pre school teachers want her to do, she has her own agenda which is a problem. But there are some NT kids her age who are defiant too.

DS1 is like that; it's to do with hierarchy and a lack of social understanding of that which leads to apparent defiance. Linked to understanding of social norms. Also known in this house a PITA, esp. as ds1 is a control freak at the ebst of times so he's really impossible to make do anything.

True Squishy but I'd expect them to have more sense and professionalism than to put it out there on the internet for all to see and possibly recognise. There's a fair bit of detail on this thread.

oh peachy so thats what it is . Its all to do with the social aspects and getting used to social norms and rules that we have. how do i go about improving that?

You sound like a lovely person. I send dinner for my children 3 evenings and the other two I pick up by 430 so she just gives them a snack. Hopefully if you ask the parents to provide the food, they will be sending something the children will eat!

I would like to stress that I'm not going to stop providing food. I am going to stop providing a cooked dinner. I will offer a more substantial lunch and a lighter snack after school instead, as I feel this will better suit the children I am currently minding, be closer to what the parents I have want and create a less stressful environment at dinner time. Fair?

yes, totally fair. If it suits the parents and suits you then what more could anyone ask?

You sound very judgmental if I'm being honest.And your job as a CM is to correct their table manners and stop them grazing if it's stopping them eating their meal, not blaming it all on the parents

But in this instance it's the parent's actions that are contributing to the child's issues with food and I am frustrated with that. I'm putting the child's welfare above the parents feelings.

It's not all my job to correct their table manners, the parents and I should be working together. That's just passing the buck.

I feel that these changes will mean that the parents and I are working together better, as Sprinkles says, if it suits us both better, what more do I need to do?

Being frustrated with an element of my job is not being 'judgey', childminders are only human and everyone has bad days at work sometimes, and disagreements with people, or trickier customers. An anonymous rant on here meant that the next day I could go back to work with my professional head on and a smile on my face. I hope you don't think I rant infront of parents or children. That's just silly.

I don't think it's that anonymous. 4 year old girl with speech delay, ice cream for breakfast, shortly to find out that hot meals will no longer be provided along with a lot of other details I cba to troll back through the thread to find. I think I would recognise myself. Lets hope they don't use Mumsnet.
Maybe if you put as much effort into working with the parents as you have posting on here you may have been able to come up with an action plan where the parents don't buy the kids an alternative on the way home for a while to see if hat helped them eat their dinners.
Have you even raised it with the parents that you feel that them getting junk on the way home is stopping them from eating their dinners? They may have a different view - the kids might be telling them the food is 'disgusting' as they have said to you and the parents feel they have to get convenience food on the way home so their dc aren't going to bed hungry. If you worked with the parents rather than slagging them off on here you could probably find a solution. I doubt the parents want to be forking out for extra food every day when a nutritious, homecooked meal is included in the cost of the childcare at no extra expense or effort to them.