To think we're deluding ourselves over childcare?

[aliteralAIBUforonce]

I have a child who goes to nursery one day a week. I am very lucky that I can go part time and family have the rest of the time.

He's been doing this since he was 11 months and I hate it. He doesn't dislike it but he doesn't look forward to it either. A couple of times o have dropped him off then had to duck back into the cloak room and I've seen him looking rather lost and alone at the breakfast table. Breaks my heart.

A few times when I've been out and about I've seen staff from nurseries taking groups of kids out. They never, ever engage with the kids. Just each other. Bloody joyless experience by the looks of it. Those are the better ones too.

AIBU to think that we're going to see an epidemic of adolescent mental health problems is the next few years?

This is a shit was to bring up our kids.

Average hourly wage for a nursery worker is £7,54 pass look it up,
My younger daughter is a student and gets 9,25 working in a shop. So therefore staff turnover is always going to be a problem.
EYFS is just another thing they have to cope with. I’m a teacher; I see the results of this every day.

@aliteralAIBUforonce - my DT’s went to nursery full time from being six months old. It didn’t make them ill. I chose to continue my career and DH and I decided upon an excellent nursery with caring and well qualified staff.

• My daughter is a psychologist with Camhs and there already is a huge problem with the mental health of young people in this country. I fully agree that institutional type care is part of the problem and there is plenty of research to back that up.*

What else seems to be the problem? Why are so many kids being referred to Camhs?

I would be going by current evidence, my child’s reaction, ofsted and your instincts.

Long hours in nurseries are probably not good - research evidence supports that. But not harmful to the extent they’d be advised against.

However I had to go back to work or lose our home. My son went in 3 days a week to a fantastic nursery. He was a highly sociable, active baby and at 6 months absolutely loved it. I couldn’t provide him with enough stimulation at home. There he also had access to other kids, a purpose built sensory play area, etc. Developmentally he progressed and thrived.

There were very few local childminders and had heard a few stories about sticking them in front of the tv and being lax on health and safety. So nursery for me was the best option all round.

My second child was very attached to me and overwhelmed by the world. I was fortunate that I didn’t have to go back to work that time, so was a sahm and that child thrived with one carer, me.

No one answer so I don’t realky agree with you Op.

*But I know people who have their kids in there full time. That will make a child ill.
*

Oh that’s it, I’m out

But I know people who have their kids in there full time. That will make a child ill.

I’m with you @Fruityb, I don’t know why I didn’t do this earlier.

I don’t understand why I would need to look up their wage? 20 years ago ish when you viewed one nursery there may not have even been a legal minimum wage, that was my point.

I chose out nursery for our eldest based on their staffing which included very low turnover. She had 3 key workers in 4 years. I know that many nurseries do have a problem with turnover though. Like some schools with their poorly paid teachers

I think that you’ve got a not terribly great nursery. Admittedly I’ve very little experience, but my dts went to a nursery for a couple of hours weekly for a course I was doing, and I wish I could send them to nursery every week. They had one carer between the two of them, and they had brilliant fun and tried loads of new things. Left me feeling like a bit of a failure if I’m honest 😂

Sadly for them, they’re stuck with me until they turn three because I can’t afford to go back to work and pay out double childcare.

Also there is evidence that quality nursery care is a protective factor if kids are having a chaotic home life.

OP, I understand the question you are asking. I have read both Raising Boys, Steve Biddulph and How not to f**k them up, by Oliver James. Both are an interesting read, one of them makes the point that leaving babies at 15 weeks in the US is proven to raise a boys cortisol levels, and those cortisol levels don’t reduce, they’re still raised at 15, and there are proven links to aggression and anxiety in boys. Boys books are a good read. Some points I agreed with, some I didn’t.

We’re all doing the best we can, with whatever resources we have. Some use nurseries, some don’t. I hope you find a solution that suits your son more.

I actually feel that the mental health epidemic is more down to over protective parents who don't want their child to experience the not so nice parts of normal life e.g. boredom, consequences, accepting responsibility for their actions and then when they have to face independence in the teenage years, the child can't cope. I think that children benefit from nursery care (although I agree that not all will be the same quality).

But I know people who have their kids in there full time. That will make a child ill.

Proof?

I totally agree that childcare should be better paid, better trained and higher status.

There are good nurseries, and less good nurseries. And nurseries are not new. My mum was a nursery nurse in the 1960s. I've got 3 children, and have used one of 2 nurseries with each of them, and they were loved there, and had a wonderful, happy time. My eldest is 15, the youngest nearly 10 and we are still in touch with the staff and owners.

It seems to me you have unreasonable guilt about your own child using nursery, and that he hasn't settled (unsurprising, most settings recommend min 2 days per week in order that it doesn't seem like an unfamiliar environment every time, and 11 months is peak separation anxiety time) and extrapolating from this.

I think we’ve all found out that you can’t argue with stupid

Obviously not all mental health issues are caused by parents and sorry if my pov is offensive but in some cases I feel this may contribute

I honestly think some people just tell themselves that nurseries are pure evil to give themselves the excuse to stay at home and not work. That’s fine it’s your choice but remember some people want to work to guard their futures ( as we see on MN many a woman ( esp SAHM) gets fucked over financially by separation when they have no income ) , they want to work so they can have a roof over their head. Now give over OP with your faux wide eyed naïveté - you knew exactly what you were doing when you came on this thread.

I don’t know about well paid (I made £16,500 as an EYP) but yes I consider a lot of nursery staff professionals. Most of the nurseries around here have someone with QTS/EYP/EYT (all graduate qualifications) working with the oldest DC. Other nurseries have staff that are Montessori trained or specialist art teachers.

I assume they all do it because they really love early years education/children.

My ds used to run happily into his childminder (who was more like a mini nursery as there were three of them running it: main childminder, whose house it was, plus her mother and her MIL). It was literally the house next door. He went there FT from 4 months until he was 3.5, at which time he started going to the council nursery for the morning and back to her in the afternoon, until 3 weeks before he turned 5, when he started school.

He would run in happily and come out smiling. I never had any guilt.

When he was at school he went to after school club between 3.15 and 5.45.

He's now nearly 19 and about to start his 2nd year at Uni - and seems very well adjusted

I do agree that we don't value child care enough: dh, who was chair of the out of school club for many years, used to have this argument with other parents/users regularly, who resisted giving the staff any pay rise Yet they expected to have a degree qualified manager and happy, motivated staff looking after their precious children

There's also the cost issue imo. I know Europe isn't the land of milk and honey but the cost of nursery places here v places like the Netherlands and Austria is astonishing - before you look into staff pay there (higher) and the state of the nurseries (better, of the limited ones I've seen). It's a particularly English phenomenon that you could pay literally £2,000 a month for barely adequate care (or conversely, that paying this amount doesn't guarantee adequate care).

I call troll

I'm sure children who attend nursery or preschool adjust to school better. Isnt that one of the many reasons we get 30 free hrs childcare after 3?

There are lots of things notastealthboast
She worked for a charity previously for young homeless people which was also packed.
In terms of camhs my daughter says social media is a big problem-creating false expectations of a kind of ‘perfect’ life. Austerity is also a big factor-difficulty finding jobs or feeling that they won’t find one. Poverty/drugs/violence. Loads of stuff.

I totally agree with you. Unfortunately our extended family suffer from severe MH issues. From experience and research its down to our environment and lack of engagement/care. Its so sad to know that our problems could have so easily been reduced with more time and attention. Instead problems have been passed on from generation to generation.

Do you have mental health problems that you can trace back to your childminder OP?

The answer is simple, stop working and then you can raise your child yourself and ensure no ill mental health later in life...

You may be pretending you started this thread for an 'interesting debate' (not that you are engaging in any of that) but it is obvious you started it to bash working parents (weird since you are one) and nursery setttings. What a sad life you must lead to have nothing better to do

In terms of camhs my daughter says social media is a big problem-creating false expectations of a kind of ‘perfect’ life. Austerity is also a big factor-difficulty finding jobs or feeling that they won’t find one. Poverty/drugs/violence. Loads of stuff.

No childcare on the list though.