To not want my childminder to collect her child from a school...

[persimmon]

.. about 5 miles away after she's collected my DS and her other mindees from their school? I can't figure out if I'm being mean. Basically, her child will start senior school in September. She applied to one outside the catchment and got in. CM doesn't want her child getting the bus, so is planning on driving to her child's school every day with all her mindees. The senior school is in a different place entirely and will involve a significant drive on busy main roads during school run time.

I just feel like we pay her to look after DS and don't want him stuck in a car for what could be almost an hour after school. Or is this normal for a CM to do?

I am on the fence.

If you're not happy with her service YANBU to change service provider.

YABU to expect her to change.

my CM picks up mindees from different school - oh the horror!

seriously OP a childminder provides a family experience - this involves doing things for the family!

find an alternative if you don't like it

YABVU.

Change childcare if it bothers you that much.

An hour to do a 10 mile round trip? Blimey, what a nightmare. My ds is at school 7 miles away and we're there and back in under 30 minutes, including weaving through the jam-packed, double-parked village and drop off/pick up.

What to the other mindees' parents think? If you're not happy then it's time to either change childminder or ask for a discount for the time spent travelling.

Hmm it's difficult but I think you either accept it or move. I doubt raising it will make any difference and will just cause ill feeling.

I wouldn't be happy and I would avoid a 40 min car journey for my own kids when with me every day. You should post this in the childminding toic and dee what other childminders think, that would give you a more balanced view.

Sitting in a car chatting away is hardly damaging for a child but if you don't like it then find somebody else. When you employ a child minder then this sort of thing is inevitable.

I don't expect her to put my child before hers - of course not! I just feel a bit sorry for DS and the other mindees who'll be bundled into a car after a day at school and shuttled around. If I'd known this was going to happen I would have gone with a different CM two years ago. Hey ho.. hopefully she will realise fairly quickly that it's a monumental faff and let he DC get the bus.

Does cm also look after any toddlers? Do they (or their parents) object to the cm picking your child up from school? I doubt it. It's the same. Cm could pick up a mindee from secondry school, would you see that as a problem if it were part of the buisness? or if you want your child to go this other secondry school, would you want cm to pick up your child from there? YABU.

I wouldn't be surprised if she finds it a total pain after a while and sticks her DS in the bus.
I should think a car full of mindees will be noisy and most senior schools have even less convenient parking than primaries.

I have grabbing my two from seniour school once a week to a fine art, but it involves them and me being in the right place at the right time. Not easy with small people.

She's not being at all unreasonable, she's made arrangements that suited her family and given you information to enable you to decide whether to continue with her or seek alternative childcare. Peoples' circumstances change all the time.

I wouldn't be happy about the long car journey either, if this was the situation I would look for someone more local.

I don't think you can change what she wants to do. I'd find an alternative. I definitely wouldn't want my children spending an hour in the car every day - no way. I'd be amazed if any parent she minded for agreed to that.

I wouldn't want to spend my afternoon being driven around so would be looking to change childminder.

My DC's used to go to school just over 5miles away from our home. It took around 25min to get there for 3.30pm, 10min (on a good day) to collect DC's then 5min to clear the school traffic and 25min to get home. So just over 1hr due to traffic. That is a lot out of your time if she only has him 3hrs each afternoon.

YABU. The idea of childminders is that your child gets a home firm home experience as if in a normal family. Lots of families do the school run by car

Have you thought about after school club instead? Then your dc won't be in a car but the flip side of that is that it's probably less personal than a childminder.

Childminders are not nannies. If you expect childcare that is focused entirely on your child, you need a nanny, not a childminder.

Do you really think this is going to do your child any harm? It won't, so I don't think you have an actual problem here.

No, she only minds school-age kids. She's very nice and I don't want to change CM really. I think we'll see how it goes.

Actually I think YANBU. It would piss me off too. I guess it's her prerogative though, if it's what she wants to do. I'd be looking at changing too - tell her why.

If it genuinely takes an hour, then no I wouldn't be happy paying cm a fiver ( or whatever) for an hour my kid spent in the back if a car.

Hopefully her son will rebel! Mine would have been mortified to have been picked up from secondary school by their parents.

I would look for a new childminder or nursery though as I definitely wouldn't want my child spending long times in the car as part of their daily childcare routine.

I am a childminder and my children go to a secondary school out of catchment (7 miles away) and I do my share of school runs with and without mindees.

None of the children have a problem with it!! We chat, sing, read road signs and spot churches!! We practice spellings and number bonds or have completely random conversations about nothing at all.

You are BU and are completely over reacting.

Get together with the parents of her other mindees and see what they think. If she's going to lose all her charges through this decision I imagine she'd thing again.

I don't think I'm over reacting; I'm a reasonable person with genuine concerns about my child's childcare.

I would certainly change childminders - she has every right to collect her DS from school and not want him to get the bus, and you have no right to make her make a different decision, but you have every right to find a different childcare arrangement. I agree with you, I certainly wouldn't want to pay a childminder to "look after" my child by strapping them into a car for ages collecting other children from other schools - though I understand that this is exactly what happens with many childminders, it's just not something I would ever choose.

YANBU. I would not want my child to be in the car unneccessarily for an hour every day. If you don't want this, you'll just have to look into other childminders/after school clubs, although I realise this isn't ideal if she's settled with her current childminder.

Maryann1975 made the points I was going to.
If this was another contracted mindee she was collecting, would your point of view be the same?
As long as the children aren't expected to sit in utter silence I cannot see any problem with it. When in the car with my mindee's we chat about everything and anything under the sun, we sing, the older children engage the younger ones with games such as eye spy etc.
Once a month I have to complete a 2 1/2 hr round trip to drop dd off, I have to take one of my mindee's with me. Luckily enough his Mum is very understanding and doesn't bat an eyelid, even once when traffic was horrific and I dropped her ds home an hour late.
These flexibilities and understandings come with the territory of using a childminder. If you don't like it then it's your prerogative to change providers.