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?

If they are all picked up by 5.30, I think it's more than reasonable not to provide a cooked meal. My two go to after-school club til 6 and don't get a cooked meal there, but a substantial snack (toast or soup or half a jacket pot, small sandwich, one of these, not all). The idea is to fill them up til they get home for their meal, not give them a whole cooked dinner.

As for the person who said they wouldn't get home til 6 and would then have to start cooking, well, if you move to after-school care, that's what you have to do. I have a repertoire of quick meals (e.g. filled pasta) that I do on those nights, and whilst it is late, it's pointless to keep doing meals for children who aren't eating them and whose behaviour is really bad at the table. Lots of after-school care doesn't come with meals (one reason I pay out for school dinners, so I know they've had one hot meal).

'It's not all my job to correct their table manners,'

It is absolutely your job to correct them when they are with you.You are in loco parentis and responsible for fostering good behaviour during the time they are with you.

I don't know about correcting-but certainly insisting they do it your way.

You can't change a child's table manners when you have them for a few hours a week and their parents are so dim - hear me judge - as to think it is a good plan to reward poor eating and manners with ice cream, crisps and easter eggs at all times of the day and night despite having been asked not to as it prevents their child from eating good, healthy food.

OP, you are quite within your rights not to waste your time and money providing food that won't get eating and which spoils your own family's enjoyment of supper time.

Get eaten, not eating obv.

My DD is in daycare (nursery) and they provide a hot lunch but only a cold snack (usually sandwiches & fruit) late afternoon. If the kids aren't eating your dinners and the parents aren't bothered, why go through the hassle?

But the OP talks about wanting to work with the parents which in my opinion would be discussing the issues she has in rl and trying to find a solution not slagging them off on here.
Fair enough if the OP wants to offer snacky stuff at tea time - I think it's a very good idea to prevent stuff going to waste and cater to different tastes. Even when cooking, I personally, would have only served up a few spoonfuls for the fussy ones and topped them up if they ate that so I could freeze any leftovers .
But the OP loses my sympathy when she starts talking about the parents ruining all her hard work with manners etc at the weekend as if she's gods gift to childcare or something!

Well, to be honest, I get the feeling the OP feels her parenting is superior to that which the mindees receive at home.

"I feel the parents aren't really on my side" - how many parents?

"I know the parents will then go and feed them junk food and treats straight after picking them up" - they're their parents, they can do what they want with their own children. Save your worries for your own child.

If a child is used to grazing then the parent will know that too & not expect a full dinner for their child.

Ds (6) is a grazer - he could have an almighty appetite today & eat precious little tomorrow - I know he's like this, as does our childminder, as do both sets of grandparents.... doesn't mean he isn't used to having a good proper home cooked meal!

And your house, your rules!! Goes in my childminder's house too - they cleared the table in her house & loaded the dishwasher long before they did it at home! Fair play to her though - she has a lot to look after & is right to teach them the rules in her house.

I do feel you were judging though.

'You can't change a child's table manners when you have them for a few hours a week '
rubbish! A swimming teacher teaches swimming in half an hour a week!

Yes but a swimming teacher doesn't have a parent effectively teaching their children how not to swim for the other 6 and three quarter days per week.

I know it's terrible all these pesky parents in the way trying to sabotage childminders efforts to help their kids - is that what you really think?
It's threads like this that make me glad I don't have to use a cm and I will try my best to never have to which is a shame as I'm sure that there are some great ones out there.

"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."

As a parent, I absolutely see it as part of my DD's CM's job to correct her table manners - as much as it's her CM's job to teach her colours, shapes, numbers etc - all of which our CM has done. DD spends the majority of her week at the CM and the CM has toilet trained her, taught her table manners and how to use cutlery, taughter her to share, to mind her p's and q's as well as all the educational stuff. Of course DH and I have taught her these things too on the weekend but really we've been backing up the CM who is a Goddess and feels like a family member to DD (she calls her aunty).

You sound judgy to me. As a mother to a very fussy eater (2.9 yrs), I'd be mortified and pretty livid if I saw his eating habits and table manners being discussed here and then having the blame placed solely at my feet. Do you know for a fact that ALL of these children's parents are feeding them junk food as soon as they step out of your door, or are you just assuming that based on one pre-schooler girl who likes ice cream a lot?

Going to the hassle of cooking home-made meals and watching a child gag on it, or refuse to even try it IS stressful. I know - I've been watching DS spit out 70% of the meals I offer him for nearly two and a half years. I sympathise; you are not being unreasonable to want to stop going to the trouble if you feel like it is unappreciated. Believe me, there has been many a day when I've wondered why I still bother, and why I don't just stick a ready-meal in front of him (at least then it's not MY efforts being rejected).

I don't think YABU to want to stop cooking meals. It's your business after all, your decision. Offer a selection of healthy snacks instead, as suggested before. Less work and more chance that some of the kids will like some of the food. But unless you know the diets of each and every one of your mindees, you are being unreasonable to put all the blame on junk food. Some kids are born to defy the text books on establishing eating habits. Personally, I resent the implication that because my DS is a fussy eater, it is obviously because I serve him nothing but chicken nuggets and chocolate buttons at home. Incidentally, I HAVE served chicken nuggets to my DS, AND they were also home-made (smug face right back at you). Guess what? He took one bite, then refused to eat any more.

I said it's not all my job. I mean it is both of our jobs, me and the parent to work together on this. And yes I have talked about it with them, and yes I have tried for us to reach solutions, and I am not slagging them off, I am saying that we have different approaches, and the part that I find challenging is that it is having a negative effect on the child at meal times, so I am changing my approach to better suit the parent. Want more do you want? because I feel that is putting me firmly on the parents side, backing them up and meeting their child's needs.

I am complaining about the situation, not the parents. I do all the things that BsshBossh has listed and my parents and children are happy with this. I can't really see any other solution. I have done what you are suggesting (ie, talking to the parents) and it hasn't worked.

Brynn, I don't think for one second that all parents are to blame for fussy eaters at all but in the case of these particular parents (and I have been refering to two seperate families on this thread) I witness the junk food every day, so yes, I know for sure, that in this case junk food is part of the problem.

Both of these families have talked to me about their children's eating habits, and both have asked for my advice, and both have ignored it. That's fine. It's their decision but the consequences of that are, that at my house the children will not eat that meal so I need to offer an alternative.

Apologies, OP, yes you said it's not all your job and I agree with that - it should be a partnership between a childcare provider and a parent (and the child!).

You are trying to make it all about the mealtimes now but you have also blamed the kids jumping on the sofas, running and screaming in the house, constantly telling tales and excluding other children on the fact that they haven't been taught respect at home. How is that not slagging the parents off! If that kind of behaviour is happening on your watch then you need to manage the kids behaviour better.

I mentioned those things in passing. They are not major issues. You are reading way to much into a small comment made by me while I was very stressed. I am managing that behaviour, thats why I'm so bloody tired.

I'm not a CM and I have no axe to grind. MIL was one when I first knew her though and some of the children were a nightmare of bad behaviour, which she dealt with very well but nevertheless they were undoubtedly poorly parented (or at least some of them, maybe there were some with undiagnosed SN). One 2 year old used to arrive with a carrier bag - no exaggertation - full to the brim with crisps and sausages, which he was expected to eat during the day.

There are poorly parented children and children who are given rubbish diets. No CM can overcome that completely any more than a nursery or a school and I don't see the point in making excuses for their parents.

BTW Brynn my DS2 was exactly the same as yours for 2 and a quarter years but then suddenly something clicked and he now eats almost anything in front of him. I was tearing my hair out with worry but obviously they can change. Hopefully yours will too before you are bald.

OK so you slagged them off in passing then because you were stressed and tired. It's just that you denied you had slagged them off at all.

Thankyou TheProvincialLady! I feel sometimes like am expected to be perfectly calm, accepting and forgiving, and never complain, despite how hard I work, but the reality is, some parents are hard to work with, and that is not my fault. It is a natural, human reaction to find that stressful.

But I don't feel like I 'slagged them off'. I had a moan about work because I was (am) stressed. I also said that I think they are lovely people and doing great job but you have chosen to ignore that....

It was 'they are lovely people but....' though which isn't quite the same. Of course everyone has bad days but I get the impression from the whole tone of your post that you feel all of the kids problems are due to the time spent with their parents at the evenings and weekends which is passing the buck a bit imo.
I also don't think it is wise to post so much detail on a public forum (unless, of course, you have changed things like ages).

You say that sometimes the children say they are not hungry or 'prefer to graze'. So why are you allowing them to graze if you know it puts them off their tea?