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”.

My experiences with my own childminder as a child are the reason I sent all of my children to a lovely private nursery.

I was ignored for hours and neglected and my parents were none the wiser. It wasn’t until I got older that I realised this wasn’t right.

This has not been my experience with the local childminders round here. In the soft play they had the best behaved kids their and were almost competitively trying to find the extra learning opportunities for their charges like "collect all the red balls", "count the steps up to the slide" etc.

I agree. The childminders are pretty proactive round her, and also very helpful at toddler groups as they know the ropes and are very helpful to new (especially struggling) mums because they can give lots of advice.
They've always got bags full of stuff to entertain the children.

But in soft play, surely it's better that they stay in one place so the children know where to find them - they're not going to be able to chase round 4 children, one is under 1 and not crawling, two are 2-3 and one is nearly school age without restricting the 4yo or just carrying the baby around which isn't necessarily fun for them.

Why is that bad? It’s hard to concentrate on the road otherwise.

My mum was a childminder for years and used to go to toddler groups with her childminder friends and all the children. As I also had a toddler I would join them sometimes. I wouldn't have trusted any of them to look after a goldfish.

My eldest is 26 and I remember this from public playgrounds when she was little. Their kids ran amok and were completely ignored. Unfortunately it seemed as though they were ALWAYS there

Do you make your own children or passengers sit in silence in the car? If you need complete silence to concentrate on the road then you probably shouldn't be driving anyway...

This is one of the reasons I prefer to send my child to a nursery, at least in good nurseries there are senior staff and managers at to keep an eye on the rubbish staff. Although I know nurseries aren't perfect either! With a childminder there is no one to see what they are doing with your child all day.

No, but if I had two or three squabbling toddlers and was working I might make it a rule.

The child minders at my toddler group are like this. Too interested in talking to each other and not paying any attention to their children entrusted in their care.

If you are parent meeting a friend for coffee whilst your children play then I think that is very different than it being your job and being paid to watch those children. They don't have to helicopter but being aware of where everyone is, keeping a close eye on the whole room, being present and not looking down at your phone. No one would begrudge them 10 mins sit down to drink their coffee but the ones near me take the piss.

How on earth would you enforce that, anyway!?

Agree Being a sahm sounds like hell on earth to me

Spending time with my kids yes. Spending all day everyday with them when having no money to do anything. Hell no

BAnd why 3? I can't remember barely anything before I was 3

I've had 3 kids, been a parent for over 7rs, always taking them out and about to playgroups and things - and I feel the same as you. Actually sadly I've never seen any I would be happy with. I'm sure there must be some really good ones but I've never witnessed one.

Have met a couple of amazing nannies though, and aware that I may have seen even more of these without realising they're a nanny and not a relative.

Nursery or childminder, you can never be certain of the care someone is providing to the most vulnerable members of our society, that’s just a fact. Mostly, the care is at the very least adequate, sometimes warm and caring, but even in nurseries it would appear that severe abuse is perfectly possible, bearing in mind yesterday’s rape conviction of the nursery worker Thomas Waller, or the conviction of Roksana Lecker for the sadistic abuse of multiple babies in September, or Kate Roughley, last year - the nursery worker who suffocated a baby by leaving her strapped to a beanbag.

As for soft play, at least that's in a public venue and, tbh, is a place that many people resort to when they feel in need of a bit of a break and the company of other adults somewhere that they think the child in their care will be relatively safe and entertained; better that than sticking them in a pen at home while they scroll on their phone, unseen and unjudged by anyone. Being a bit inattentive at soft play does not automatically mean these people are just the same at home, it can just be the case that nobody can provide undivided attention and all singing and dancing entertainment for children without a break for an entire day. Obviously, the better childminders will be more community minded and will help each other ensure that adequate attention is paid to all of their children if they meet together in a group at soft play to decompress but, tbh, society is not particularly community minded in the modern era, we have all become massively more individualistic and self-centred, so it’s hardly surprising this is reflected in childcare practices.

exactly! Not to mention who is in and out of their house while your kids are there!

My friend is a CM and I would say she is brilliant at it. She came to it in her 40s and it was always something she wanted to do, she sits and does activities with the children all day.

However I also want to many different playgroups with DD and the CM were awful. You could tell they disliked the children, hated it when they came and spoke to them. I never even considered one so sent DD to nursery. The staff there were a mixed bag, some were amazing and some okay so hopefully balanced out. I know on here is that CM are a ‘home from home’ and I think like my friend, is probably true, I think a lot of them are faking it for the parents.
My friend was briefly one when her children were small, she had a massive waiting list, parents loved her, very highly rated. She hated it, she hated the kids, she needed the money though. The moment her youngest went to school she stopped. She’s one of my oldest friend and I wouldn’t have used her.

I think the fact you can barely remember anything before you were 3 is kind of the point - what happens to you between the ages of 0-3 has a colossal impact on your brain, social and emotional development, but you do not have the capacity to clearly communicate issues to others at that age, and despite what happened to you affecting your future development and mental health, you won’t remember clearly what happened to you to even be able to share adverse experiences with others later on. It’s what makes very small children so incredibly vulnerable.

Never forget seeing the horrible cow of a childminder near us picking up the tinies from school, she would walk in front of them not holding their hands and sniping at them to 'hurry up', nasty horrible cow, and like a PP has said if she was happy to behave like that in public wtf, was she like with them in private.

This is the main reason I don’t think they should not be allowed to be honest. How people are comfortable using them knowing that safeguarding is pretty much non existent is beyond me.

Absolutely! There is no substitute for a child between 0/3 to be with a loving & caring parent. Nurseries/childminders are used out of necessity.

Can't be bothered to read 6 more pages of responses but my reply was a response to the question about how the OP saw what was happening, not a comment on what the childminders were doing. No I'd not expect a childminder to trail a 4 year old either and that's why I didn't say that.

Of course childcare is a necessity. I don’t want to be at home full time. I want to work FT. Good well regulated childcare is safe and beneficial

I used to observe this all the time when I did the playgroups and soft play circuit while I was on maternity leave. There were ten childminders who were there everyday. Probably four of them interacted with their charges in a lovely way. The others were disinterested and verging on neglectful. I noticed that the childminders aged 40 plus were far more engaged.

I'm the same. Wait for the cries though of from the"If you don't want to spend time with your children, why have them?" brigade!