Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Flip

1 2 3 4 5 6

Original poster

problems with childcare

148 replies

Melinwelin · 23/09/2011 08:41

Hi Ladies
I would like to gage your reactions and comments please.

My daughter went to a local nursery from 9months old and I recently made the decision to move her to a childminder as she seemed to be constantly picking every bug up, other than that I was happy with her care.

I found a local childminder and she has a daughter the same age as my daughter (17months) and was also looking after another little girl 11months. During the second week I noticed my daughter had a really nasty bite on her shoulder (teeth marks and bruising) so I phoned the childminder who was apologetic and confessed that her daughter was going through a phase and she would keep an eye on the situation. I gave the benefit of the doubt but was not happy that it was not mentioned before. My daughter would have been really distressed and it played on my mind the whole of the weekend. During the 3rd week I collected her on the Wednesday to be told that a biting incident had happened again but the childminder had intervened, when I got home her little arm was so bruised that as far as I was concerned no intervention took place or if it had it was too late. I decided not to return my child to her care and managed to get her back into nursery on the Friday.

She had been paid upto the end of that week. She is now taking me to a small claims court for 4weeks notice (£620) but my argument is that she was in breech of her contract as she was unable to protect my child in her care and why should I be penalised and have to pay for two child care providers when this is of no fault of myself or my daughter..

Ok ladies whats your thoughts........ Do I fight this? Do I stand a chance? I am really upset by the whole thing and just wanted what was best for by baby....xx
___

OP posts:

itisnearlysummer · 23/09/2011 09:50

There are forms that the CM has to fill in to record incidents. Our CM accidentally injured our DD once. It wasn't major but she was mortified and it was the first thing she said to me when I got there and said they'd both been in tears over it. My CM was great and we all loved her.

Accidents happen, children will be children, but you are the parent and she has a responsibility to tell you before you catcher her out.

The bite wouldn't concern me. Not being told about it would.

itisnearlysummer · 23/09/2011 09:50

*catch her

SardineQueen · 23/09/2011 09:51

It is the CMs daughter who is biting, not another mindee.

A couple of posts have spoken as if it is another mindee biting - that is not the case.

itisnearlysummer · 23/09/2011 09:51

But I do think you over-reacted.

SardineQueen · 23/09/2011 09:52

If the CM has not done the correct paperwork and the not mentioning - might be enough for OP to have a case.

OP where are you? I think you should post this elsewhere.

TimothyClaypoleLover · 23/09/2011 09:52

OP, you are perfectly entitled to move your DD if you are not happy with the childminder however you must give 4 weeks notice. YABU as you are in breach of contract. I also think you are overreacting as kids always get into scrapes whether in nursery, at a childminder, in school or playing at home with other kids. You should have sat down with the childminder to discuss how she was going to deal with the biting going forward.

WidowWadman · 23/09/2011 09:52

Sardinequeen - I don't see how it makes a difference whether it's a mindee or own child

EdithWeston · 23/09/2011 09:54

By that age, if NT, there should be communication - indicating discomfort comes pretty early, and non-verbal communication (eg pointing, undue attention to area) would be alongside.

I wonder if OP has photos of these bruises?

cory · 23/09/2011 09:54

Sardine, when you send a child out to play with other children you do take the risk that they will at some time get hurt. To avoid that risk, you would have to keep them at home forever.

The other child is also only 17 months, so hardly responsible for her actions. Nobody thinks it's ok, as in "a good thing to happen". But sometimes things that are not ok happen.

tallulah · 23/09/2011 09:56

My DD was a biter. I used to dread pick-up at nursery to hear that she'd bitten again. She was supervised one-to-one and still bit. Her keyworker said she was sitting with her at the table and DD lunged at another child. No way she could have stopped her. It is mortifying to be the parents of a biter and there is nothing you can do. My DD grew out of it when she could speak properly.

Incidentally DD is the youngest of 5. DS1 went through a biting phase briefly but none of my other 3 ever bit anyone.

I think the only thing your CM has done wrong was not get you to sign the accident book when you picked her up.

Tewkespeggy · 23/09/2011 09:59

i have just trained as achildminder, but as yet, dont have any children with me. In my training we were told that if a child comes into my care, holding thier side and limping, for example, i'm not allowed to pull up her jumper and have a look at the injury. I have a form from the NCMA to fill in and register what symptoms the child was displaying when she arrived. If the accident happens while she is in my care, i have a different accident report to complete which the parent signs when they collect thier child.

I think that the childminder showed bad practice, but, if it happened while she was dealing with another child and didnt witness the accident or the 'aftermath'. its quite possible she didnt know about it.

on the contract point of view.... regardless of the rights and wrongs... if you lose you will have a CCJ. think mortgages, loans, credit rating?

Hope this helps

SardineQueen · 23/09/2011 10:01

Edith but you said that the DD didn't mention the incident to her mother, and that the mother would be likely to ask about her day.

My DD is over 2 and still not talking properly - she would not have been responding to those types of questions at 17 months. I don't think it ios right that not talking at 17 months is an indicator of special needs, surely?

SardineQueen · 23/09/2011 10:02

tewkes are you allowed to look at injuries that have occured while in your care?

If a child turns up in obvious distress are you allowed to eg take them to A&E?

KatieMiddleton · 23/09/2011 10:03

By that age, if NT, there should be communication - indicating discomfort comes pretty early, and non-verbal communication (eg pointing, undue attention to area) would be alongside.

My NT DS would not have been able to do that at 17mo. It's only in the last two months he would have pointed and he's almost 2.6yo (he has a hearing problem so speech is quite delayed). He is NT.

lesley33 · 23/09/2011 10:03

Being unhappy with your child carer is not necessarily a breach of contract. Similarly not being able to fully protect your child would not necessarily be seen as a breach of contract.

The court will look at what is reasonable. If your DC had been bitten by the cm's dog the court may have decided it was a breach of contract as it would be unreasonable for a cm to allow her dog to mix with her young charges.

However, a child biting another child will probably be seen by the court as one of those unfortunate things that can happen, but not a breach of contract.

The court will know that no adult can fully protect any DC from every danger. Children fall over, children hit each other, bad drivers plough into pedestrians on pavements, violent strangers randomly attack people in the street, etc. The question is whether the cm should have been able to protect your DC from being bitten and I think most courts would answer no to that question.

SardineQueen · 23/09/2011 10:04

cory you said that OPs child was not bothered at all by the bite though, and I don't think you have any way of knowing that. If the bite occured at 9.30 and the DD was picked up at 6, it's be a really serious injury to have them still screaming (a broken bone or something) and serious enough thay I would hope that the CM would have alerted the mum, gone to A&E or whatever the procedure is.

SardineQueen · 23/09/2011 10:06

lesley I think the point is that the CM didn't tell her

She may (?) not have completed the appropriate paperwork

widowwadman I mentioned it being the childminders child as if your own child bites someone your reaction may be different to a child which is not yours. I wonder if the CM didn't mention it in the hope that the mother wouldn't notice as she didn't want to say that her child had bitten. Speculation obviously.

Tewkespeggy · 23/09/2011 10:06

yes normal first aid rules apply.

KatieMiddleton · 23/09/2011 10:07

It's also much harder to remove your own child from the situation. You can give another child notice. But you're rather stuck with your own.

lesley33 · 23/09/2011 10:08

And I wouldn't want a judgement against me in the small claims court. If you don't trust the advice here talk to a solicitor. You can usually get 30 minutes free with a solictor. They will tell you if you have a case or not. If the solicitor also says that you will lose, then pay the cm.

I understand that you don't want to pay 2 child carers at the same time, but in a legal issue the law comes first not individual's feelings.

You could contact OFSTED about whether your cm is keeping the correct accident records. But this is unlikely to make any real difference to your case. And the cm will just be told to put correct forms/procedures in place and perhaps monitored more closely to check that she does.

cory · 23/09/2011 10:10

I didn't say that.

By "quite upset" I would mean as upset as my ds was, that is bringing it up again in the evening, pointing to injury, seeming unsettled and unhappy and bringing attention to the situation at a later stage, but not actually in an acute state of distress.

By "very upset" I would mean hysterically refusing to go near childminder or mindee.

I would define the OPs dd's reaction as "probably a little upset", i.e. may well have cried at the time, but showed no unusual unhappiness later (as far as we were told). Which is the kind of reaction I would also expect from a child who fell over and grazed her knee. Which mine did frequently at that age.

cory · 23/09/2011 10:12

sorry, that post was directed to Sardine.

Basically, I can't see that the fallout of this accident was much worse than that of a child tripping and grazing her knee on gravel- that is also very painful and a child usually gets upset but then settles. But would you withdraw the child from a CM who was unable to protect her from this?

SardineQueen · 23/09/2011 10:13

But you have no idea how she was cory. You are guessing.

Someone being quite upset means, to me, a bit upset, not very.

If someone is still drawing attention to an injury 12 hours after it occured then it is a pretty bad injury IMO. Especially if it is a young child - quick to move on to the next thing and not dwell on stuff etc.

I think maybe there is some underestimation of how much these bites hurt.

KatieMiddleton · 23/09/2011 10:14

Having just been on the receiving end of the first bite (while in our nanny's care incidentally) I've found out that human bites, where the skin is broken, need to be monitored quite closely due to the high risk of infection. The fact the cm didn't inform the OP so she could do this could arguably be negligence and that coupled with failing to keep proper records could get the cm into hot water.

So any court case would depend on how strong the case for breach of contact is. The OP obviously believes it to be so and that is what she's posted and we don't have enough to make an informed decision. We also don't know if the CM has lodged a claim with small claims court yet or just threatened to.

If When the OP comes back it might be possible to establish if there is enough of a case but until then we have to take the OP at face value.

lesley33 · 23/09/2011 10:15

sardinequeen - Yes the cm should have told her. And the cm may not have mentioned it hoping the OP wouldn't notice. But the OP can't prove this. It is just as reasonable for the cm to say she forgot or she didn't know the bite had happened. Without proof, it is just the OP's suspicions which in a minor matter like this will count for nothing.

You don't know if cm has done correct paperwork or not - there is a difference between the ideal paperwork that should be done and what will be legally required. But if she hasn't, then OFSTED will just make sure she does this in future.

But tbh even if we assume the worst of the cm and she has not done any paperwork. If she has any sense she will now have filled in the correct paperwork. This would be wrong, but the OP would have no way to prove if this was done at the time or later on.

The worst then that would happen is OFSTED saying to her that in future she should get the signature of parents to say they have seen this. She won't be deregistered for what is in reality a pretty minor incident - although I do understand a parent feeling upset at their DC being bit.

Flip

1 2 3 4 5 6

Swipe left for the next trending thread