To ask if your kids are going to grandparents?

[Tedtalk]

May have already been asked, so apologies if repeated

My next door neighbour is in her late 50s. She is now working from home. Her daughter is also working from home (not wearing work clothes) and drops her kids off to my neighbour 2/3 times weekly, sometimes stopping for a cuppa in the garden.

I'd assumed this was all allowed until someone I mentioned it to questioned it.

Can anyone clarify this for me?
Any experiences?

I do 50/50 custody of DD with exH we try to minimise hand overs. This is allowed as per the government webpage.

So I will just raise the question, if you need to work and a young/healthy grandparent can do childcare - is this better or worse than using a keyworker school place? or indeed any different to swapping between children's homes?

On this thread, It seems that the mind your own business school of thought seems to come from those who think it's okay to mix households.

Common sense seems to have vanished with the toilet paper and yeast!

The general lockdown rules are very simple. They are not laws, though, and as long as pople aren't taking the piss what's the problem? At some point we all have to mix. These few people "breaking the rules" are neither here nor there.

Maybe it would be better for someone to use the GP for childcare rather than getting crazily into more debt and losing their house and employment and all the stuff that brings by making a simple risk assessment and using the GP? @ArtichokeAardvark in your position i would do the same.

And yes: I live in a rural area is a VERY good disclaimer. I do. I live in a village with less than 1,000 people. We all go out for walks/cycle rides whatever and can very easily keep to sensible social distancing rules. Sorry if that makes city dwellers jealous, and i understand that, but them's the breaks. When it gets back to normal you can enjoy your great public transport, theatres, museums and restaurants that we don't have.

I have no care for what people wear when WFH. Never said I did.
It was purely to illustrate she was working from home as opposed to in the office.
Not a curtain twitcher, but so share a drive/low garden fences. Can't miss the goings on.
The point of the enquiry was never what she was bloody wearing or I never even gave any indication if i agreed or disagreed.

I asked for clarification and experience of children going to Grandparents for childcare,

Thank you to those who are participating in that debate xx

It's against the official rules, no mixing of households. That was clear.

However, a lot of people are making a risk assessment and doing what suits them best. If they have the grandparents as an option they are very lucky as many couples are still trying to work and share childcare between them.

Interesting to see that the MN opinion on this seems to have changed so much in the past 3 weeks or so!

My mum has my dd 3 times a week. I go to work, if self employed as a cleaner and clean offices alone and not coming across anyone else.
I've no intention of not being able to feed my child just so some nosy bastard feels I'm following rules. As keeva2017 said you've no clue so mind your business.

I am looking after my 6 month old grandchild for my son and DIL who are both keyworkers. There is nothing to say that you cannot do this unless you are over 70 and more vulnerable. I am in my fifties and researched this carefully to make sure I am not doing anything I shouldn’t. Their childminder closed because she has a child of her own with reduced lung capacity otherwise he could have continued to go there which would have been more risky than coming here as there were other children around where as here he is the only child. To those that are saying it is not technically allowed please show me where it says that. One the the reasons to leave home is to provide care. It is in the regulations.

@ilovecakeandwine

” Unless you are a key worker you shouldn't be sending children anywhere . We are on lockdown , you either wfh or are furloughed.”

Not correct. Guidance says you should only go to work if it cannot be done from home and this may include those not on the key worker list.

Children with SEND can attend school, as can those who fall into vulnerable categories, some of which will be at the schools’s discretion e.g. children who are young carers or domestic abuse in the home.

I have no care for what people wear when WFH...
It was purely to illustrate she was working from home as opposed to in the office.

But as many on this thread have said, their wearing casual clothes to work and then getting changed, or are just able to wear casual clothes at the minute. You have no way of knowing that her casual clothes means she's WFH.

@Tedtalk

” It seems that the mind your own business school of thought seems to come from those who think it's okay to mix households.”

I’m not mixing households, so I have no skin in the game but people are trying to make you realise there are genuine and ALLOWED reasons for mixing households including to provide care to a vulnerable individual. Perhaps someone doesn’t wish to announce to their nosy neighbours that their daughter pops over to help them have a wash and clean or that they’re going to out multiple times daily to provide care for a relative with a mental health problem who lives alone.

OP

If you are curious, look at the legislation.

Potholeparadise Op has to make sweeping generalisations about those of us who take a common sense approach and who are doing our upmost to socially distance otherwise she can’t justify being being a judgemental nosey neighbour.

Lots of ideas for hobby’s on social media OP, a much healthier and kinder way to spend your time.

Am genuinely staggered at the people who think this is alright or - worse - none of OP's business.

I thought people were pretty clued up about the guidelines, but it seems not!

Why are millions of people wfh and attempting to home educate their children at the same time, if sending your kids out to childcare is "no problem"???

And who says the gp is being used for childcare in op's scenario anyway? Maybe they are just visiting for the hell of it?

For the record I’m not mixing households. Nor am I doing 4 shops a week, having illegal BBQs or anything else you might accuse me of.

Ok, that’s a fair point. But it must be one that the government has considered, otherwise they could be giving advice that key workers may use a designated relative ( with no underlying health conditions and under a certain age) for childcare.

They've been asked the question specifically and recurrently dodged it. Probably because they don't want to hand people who don't need to mix households the excuse.

What Johnson did specifically announce was that, 'Children should not be left with older grandparents or older relatives who may be particularly vulnerable' and of course many grandparents are neither over 70 or affected by the conditions that make shielding necessary.

I can't see anywhere where it is against the rules. No mixing of households would also mean my childminder couldn't take keyworker children, but that is obviously allowed within the rules.
The government have specifically said in terms of finding alternative childcare, you should not be using anyone in an at risk category for informal childcare. They haven't said anything about informal childcare being against the rules completely, yet all informal childcare involved mixing of households.

I genuinely don't see what the issue is provided the GP in question is not in a high risk category.

www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-maintaining-educational-provision/guidance-for-schools-colleges-and-local-authorities-on-maintaining-educational-provision

Please, therefore, follow these key principles:

If it is at all possible for children to be at home, then they must be.
If a child needs specialist support, is vulnerable or has a parent who is a critical worker, then educational provision will be available for them.

Parents should not rely for childcare upon those who are advised to be in the stringent social distancing category such as grandparents, friends, or family members with underlying conditions. (it does not say parents cannot use childcare from family members!)

Parents must also do everything they can to ensure children are not mixing socially in a way which can continue to spread the virus. They must observe the same social distancing principles as adults.

Residential special schools, boarding schools and special settings continue to care for children wherever possible.

Surely anyone old and bright enough to hold down a job can see that sending three children to three different establishments to mix with three different cohorts of other children is riskier than sending them all to non vulnerable grandparents?

No one's non-vulnerable. HCPs of all ages have been dying. I agree that sending them to grandparents will be better for slowing the spread, but if loads of people do this with grandparents in their 50s then some of those grandparents will die, preventably, as a direct result, and others will need ICU and ventilation and contribute to the resource crisis for the NHS, which will in turn cause more unnecessary deaths. I know it seems a bit counter-intuitive, but I think it's a judgement call.

Interesting to see that the MN opinion on this seems to have changed so much in the past 3 weeks or so

I suspect that is partly because a lot of posters initially thought that it would be lockdown for x number of weeks and then back to normal. Now everyone has realised this is here for the long haul, we are starting to ask what is sustainable long term. Long term WFH whilst also caring for young children or schooling older ones just isn't tenable long term.

Well if she’s a key worker with children under school age then she may not have alternative childcare. All of the nurseries around us have closed, so if DP is back at work when schools reopen then my in laws will be my only childcare option.

Ditto if she does have school age children but her job doesn’t follow a 7.30-5.30 weekday pattern, as that’s generally the longest day schools can staff at the moment.

We have children of NHS workers at school being dropped off by parents heading into a 12 hour shift, then being collected by grandparents. They have no other option.

People will break the rules, I can see it in my street slowly people are starting to have people over, last night a couple of doors up had a bbq for a party. I wouldn't recommend pissing on your own doorstep and reporting them

CameraObfuscated

Schools aren't staffed by robots, either. Lots of people in their 50s working there, and every additional child who doesn't need to be there poses a risk to them.

The thing is there's a massive difference between having 50 people from different households over for a BBQ and 6 people from two different households meeting when none are high risk and all have been following social distancing.

“When asked about younger grandparents who are not at risk and other informal childcare, a spokesperson from the Department for Education said: “We have asked nurseries and other childcare providers to close except for the children of critical workers and vulnerable children, as part of our efforts to fight the spread of coronavirus”.”

They dodged the question.

They didn’t say you can’t, but in my opinion it goes against the rules for 2 reasons. 1. The individual is not a key worker 2. It is therefore unnecessary mixing of 2 households.

CoronaMoaner

By that logic a child visiting a NRP is unnecessary too