Childminders at soft play

[Hollygolightly89]

I visited a soft play with my 3 year old yesterday morning. There was a group of childminders about 3 or 4 of them and they each had a couple of children. They mostly sat in the baby part of the soft play chatting in a group with their backs turned to the children the whole time and also constantly on their phones, even when the children were eating they were on their phones. Most of the children they had went off into the soft play alone and most of them looked under 2. I was quite shocked by this because if I was paying for a childminder I wouldn’t expect them to be on their phones and my child let loose in the soft play. At various points the children were crying for various reasons and they acted like it was a massive chore to go and get them. I aslo heard them speaking negatively about the children like “oh guess who’s crying again”.

I've only ever seen one childminder behave in a similar way. Unfortunately it's the bad ones that put people off.

At a playgroup I went too there were 3 childminders and all were incredibly loving and engaged with the children in their care. They all knew each other and would watch the children whilst one took a child to the loo. One lady in particular was just fab and I wished I had found her when my ds was little.

Sounds like things haven't changed since mine were young. People questioning the cost, often soft plays offer a childminder pass which works out quite reasonable.
I agree with the poster who said there is only one childminder they noticed who they would be happy with, I am the same.
Also childminders on the school run are also quite shocking in the way they speak to the children. I imagine it's quite stressful taking along little ones/pushchairs and then having multiple classes to collect children from, but I was quite shocked by the way I heard one talking to the children she was with and would have been very unhappy if that was my child being spoken to in that way.

Yep, I saw this myself. When I had my first DC, I went to a small weekly soft play group, hoping to meet other mums - and every single person there was a childminder apart from me (there were about a dozen women)!

They spoke about the children in their charge in a way that shocked me. One sneered at a child’s name because they thought it was ‘posh’ and purposely pronounced it in a way that made fun of it, another made comments about a child’s jumper saying Mummy and Daddy had more money than taste, etc etc.

I was quite upset by it, as they spoke about the children with disdain and didn’t show any affection to them. Yes, yes, I know this isn’t all childminders, but it was still shocking. I felt sorry for the children and their parents.

No I’m not a childminder. I just thought you’d seen a lot to say you were looking after and playing with your own child.

When I was a childminder, I was always the lone adult actually interacting with my kids while the parents around me ignored theirs! In fact I was like the pied bloody piper because once kids saw there was an adult giving kids attention they'd latch on to me.

I am a childminder and I sadly have to agree that a lot of this behaviour occurs on a regular basis 😕 (and at playgroups and in playgrounds too).

It gives us a bad reputation, which in my case is entirely unjustified. I work with fabulous assistants and we are always watching and interacting with our children. Many of my current families have approached us out in public, after watching us work, to ask if we had any spaces free for their children! I don't understand other childminders who behave life this, we are basically advertising ourselves every time we leave the house. Not to mention the fact that the little people deserve better!

It makes me cross. Especially as we often end up having to supervise other people's children!

My DCs are older now but I remember the adults who were sat about ignoring the DCs they were in charge of were all childminders whenever I went to soft play. The parents were the ones who would interact with their DCs. I do remember one poor grandma losing her grandchild and I and my friend helped her look for them. She told us she was fed up of having to care for her grandchild on daily basis and it was too much for her.
Times haven’t changed.

So we can’t have parents in the soft play but a group of childminders trailing behind children would be ok? Surely the group would be more of a hindrance?

Oh and before we get lots of nannies making out they are miles better Ive seen plenty of those behaving like this too.

Even if I was sat on my arse the whole time glued to my phone, I’m not a childminder being paid to look after and supervise other people’s children now am I?

Yes, I have seen this behaviour by childminders at my grandchildren’s local park. It was the same years ago when I was a SAHM. A group of us ran a local mother and baby group. Every week we asked 1 of the members, in turn, to bring stuff for the painting table. The nannies and childminders would just not do it nor did they help tidy up afterwards.

No you are a parent that is responsible for supervising your child. I’m not saying I agree with the childminders not watching the children fully (I did say that in my first post)

And bugger off early so they don't have to help with tidying up at the one I used to go to!

I also think a lot of the parents of these children have no idea how crap the childminders are too. Our local Facebook page often has people asking for recommendations of childminders and time and time again I see the same ones recommended as being ‘amazing’ and ‘wonderful’ and I can see it’s these women who go groups, sit down and ignore the kids, complain about the parents, make horrible comments when one of the children needs help with something ‘for fucks sake what does he want now’ type comments.

Quite a few times my daughter has had toys snatched or been pushed aggressively by a child and I look round to see if anyone is going to stop their child behaving like this and they haven’t noticed so I have to deal with it myself. Often the leader of a group has to take a child by the hand and walk them back over to their minder and say they they need to stop throwing things/ hitting the other kids etc and the childminders just look pissed off that their chat has been interrupted.

Just shockingly poor ‘childcare’ if I was paying for my child to be looked after I’d expect a much better standard of care than this and I think the majority of parents who use these childminders are oblivious.

Missing the point!

Not uncommon unfortunately. In my town there are 2 amazing childminders and 5 who frankly I don't know why they do the job.

Not surprisingly the 2 amazing ones have a big waiting list!

They didn’t need to trail around after them the whole time, but surely not be on their phones and checking on them frequently is the bare minimum i would expect of a paid professional.

Totally common. Same round my way. Getting paid to sit around chatting to your mates, spend 5 mins doing a craft and take a photo, back to chatting. Your clients can’t tell on you. I’d never use one.
caveat - I’m sure there’s awesome childminders out there, I think we just bump in to the shit ones more often as they’re at play groups etc where they can do this.

It’s strange she could say that to a stranger but not her own son/daughter and son/daughter in law, though.

Some people like to feel beleaguered and exhausted by others’ unreasonable demands. It puts them in the position of helpless victim.

I do agree a lot of childminders are championed by parents who have no idea what they are like.

I suppose when all is said and done it's just a job to them, and just as you get great shop assistants etc you also get useless, disinterested ones. Just because it's childminding doesn't mean anything. It's just a source of income to them.

Yup. Nursery all the way!

Yes, some are only doing it for a financial goal to like a new car or holiday so can finish caring any time.

Well, I’m a nanny and certainly don’t think I’m ‘better’, but I am at work to do a job. I will caveat that my saying, I’m a lone wolf type character who does genuinely prefer the company of children to most adults, and I don’t seek out social interaction generally, (I suspect high functioning ND!) which is a big reason why I’ve chosen this particular area of the childcare profession. Some carers seem to need that chat and gossip or whatever they do with other adults in a way that I just don’t, but unfortunately as I’ve seen time and time again it comes at a big disadvantage to their charges.

I’ve seen that on our local FB page too @AuntieHistamine. I feel so sorry for the person who asked the question, but the CMs who I talked of above all recommend each other whenever any of them have a space. Glowing references because they want to keep their cushy life.

I used to run a couple of local playgroups and man, some of the childminders who used to bring children were not people I would have left my dc with. We had quite a few accidents (little ones falling from slides etc, paint/glue incidents), and it was always the children who were with the childminders who would bring them in, then just sit in a corner and not supervise them at all.

A few of them would also regularly try to sneak in the back door so they wouldn’t have to pay for the 2/3 children they brought with them.