Baby being "got at" by the older children at childminders

[autodidact]

My childminder (also a v good and lovely friend) reported today that my just turned 1 year old daughter had spent the whole day being hit/pushed/shouted at by the other two children there. They are both between 2 and a half and 3 and one is my childminder's son. I suspect that he has worked out that being unpleasant to my daughter is a sure fire way to get attention and see what happens when he misbehaves. I'm sure that my baby can be irritating and blunder into the older kids' games as well and he may feel a bit jealous of his mum looking after a younger child. But I think essentially it's a check out his mum's boundaries thing because she is very, very laid back and doesn't sweat the small stuff at all or even the medium stuff very much. I think this approach is fine (and lovely in terms of her care for my daughter who's still a baby) but may have the disadvantage of meaning that her son has to up the anti to know where he stands perhaps? Anyway, it's not ideal for my baby and my childminder was really upset about the whole situation too. I think she felt really stressed as she had to spend most of the day holding my daughter to protect her and telling off the other two kids, especially her son. I'm a bit worried. Any ideas on what would help? Is this a situation that others have experienced? Did it resolve?

CM is doing the right thing by

letting you know

lifting your baby out of the line of fire

She will work on modifying the other children's behaviour towards your baby, using techniques suitable for each child and intereventions such as lifting your baby and distracting the others

I have found that as babies become mobile they turn from being seen as 'awww cute' as they stay where they are plonked, picking through the treasure basket, to being a bit of a pest as they plough through the wooden trains/farm/skittles to get to where they want to be by the other children; each time I sympathise with the oldest children and point out that 'she/he is just a baby and is learning how we play here' etc etc

This doesn't last long as the other children adjust to the baby's development

Good luck

I think your minder needs to get her professional hat on and get some behaviour management systems in place.
sorry if thats a bit blunt and all credit to her for explaining the situation to you so openly - that cannot have been easy. However, she should not be saying which children it is (although its probably a bit 'obvious' if she doesn't have other kids - its a matter of confidentiality and i know one of them are her own.....)

Children are going to have 'spats' and its how we as adults handle it and teach them to resolve the conflict.

And, yep - our (us minders) kids are far from perfect - in actual fact we often expect them to be little angels unrealistically so, but she really does need to nip this in the bud.
Children of this age do not particuarly understand bullying but her behaviour management plans should be the same for all the children, including her own. That way its consistent messages all around.

I think she needs to ignore the small stuff - where possible, put into place some simple but firm boundaries, lots of gentle reminders, lots of positive reinforcement etc.
Being physical gets you removed from the situation
Paddies and interupting get ignored
Not sharing gets a warning
etc

your minder should have tactics within her behaviour management plan

agree with all of the above but also have great respect for your cm.. she didnt have to tell you this after all and she did so she must be taking it seriously.. let her deal with it and see how things pan out in a while.. at least you know you can trust her.

Oh yes, trust not an issue at all- she's a good friend whom I've known for many years, way prior to her becoming a childminder. You're all absolutely right that it must have been hard for her to tell me though and I do respect her for it. Also really do agree that babies can be v annoying for older toddlers, especially in a smallish space, which her home is.

But I do also agree with pippin that it nonetheless needs nipping in the bud/dealing with consistently and it's that I'm slightly worried about as I haven't actually ever witnessed my friend being firm with her son or with any of the children in her care, come to that. She's an immensely warm, creative, understanding person and parent but I think she finds it quite hard to deal with bad behaviour because she's not someone who naturally likes rules or imposing consequences. I think she's learning the hard way (as I did with my own first child many moons ago!) that toddlers often need short clear rules and consequences spelled out and enforced rather than lots of talking about why something is wrong. Thanks so much for your reassurance though. I'm sure you're right that she'll find an effective way to deal with it in due course.