According to my DD, she spends the whold day watching TV at her childminders!

[mummyloveslucy]

Hi, my 6 year old daughter is home educated and has recently started going to a child minder one day a week. I asked on facebook if anyone knew any good CM's and a friend of my husbands family mentioned her daughter, who used to be a nursery nurse. She's only in her early 20's but I didn't feel we could really say no, so we though we'd give her a try. I sent my DD with a big bag of things to entertain herself, eg pens, paper, puzzles, books etc. When I picked her up she was asleep on the sofa. The CM said she'd been good etc. When I asked her what she'd done, she said watched cbeebies and a DVD. She didn't do any drawings or play with any of her things either. I noticed that the TV has been on every time we've visited, and if it's on, DD will watch it. She has an 18 month old daughter who DD has become very fond of, but no other CM children.
I'm not sure wether to say something very tactful to enquire about what she's been doing there, just carry on taking her, or what? I find these things really awkward! I don't mind her watching a DVD or some TV, but 6 hours worth is just too much. She goes on a day that's usually a chill out day, but even so, I usually encourage her to play games, read to her and involve her in what I'm doing.
Am I asking too much though?

OP it is great you have posted for some advice but really for the sake of your DD you need to resolve your whole home Ed and Childcare situation. Cm's are not proxy teachers and it is not a suitable solution to send your 6year old there during a school day because you have to sleep and your husband has to work. Re home Ed on 1 hour a day you daughter is going to quickly fall behind her peers as she gets older and then as she has SN will never be able to re integrate.
I urge you to get some proper specialist advice and work with your local authority to put a more appropriate structure in place for DD. You sound like you care but by being lazy and going for the easy option you are doing your DD a massive disservice.

Does your Childcarer have Public Libility Insurance.
Do ask her
You never know what accident is waiting to happen/round the corner..

Why is she at the childminder's at all? How is that home education? I am very confused.
I agree with Julesnobrain

OP is not asking the CM to educate her child. HE children do not have normal school days, just as they don't have normal school holidays. Personally I would do more than an hour a day, but maybe OP's child is not able to do more. We are being asked for advice about the CM, not about HE.

yes I agree, HE is very different from school. They dont have to be taught for the whole school day.

I don't see what her home ed has to do with it either. Do school children go to school 7 days a week? I thought I'd mentioned that she goes on one of her chill out days eg- NOT A SCHOOL DAY!

Which part of gardening, cooking, making things, learning to ride her bike etc are people missing here. This is all part of education too. Read more of the posts from the OP on mumsnet and you will get a better idea what she has gone through to try and sort things out for her DD. She asks for and takes advice on mumsnet. Some of you need to be a little more understanding. She has said she made a mistake and she is trying to sort it now. Hands up if you are a perfect parent?

She's not there so that I can sleep either, she's there so that DH and I can have a day together on our own.

Home ed can be very draining, especially with a child with SEN's. We need to take a small amout of time for ourselves every week, to re-charge in order to give our daughter our best. We are doing a fantastic job of raising and educating her, but everyone needs a break at some point. I'm not happy for her to sit in front of the TV for all that time, so as soon as I found out I asked for advice. (Wish I hadn't bothered now!) I'm going to seek out alternatives for her because I want to be able to relax on my day off knowing that she's happy and getting some interaction.

Thanks beautifulgirls!

To the people who say I don't care who I send her too, I'm sending her to someone I know!! Not a stranger! I didn't feel comfortable picking a nomber out of a book, then confusing my daughter by dragging her round different peoples houses day in day out until we'd worked through the whole list. I always have my daughters best interests at heart, believe it or not, I don't care!

I can completely understand why you chose this child minder, and don't like the aggressive and critical comments on here. It sounds like your life is pretty difficult anyway, and you have come up with an imaginative and - in theory - perfectly reasonable system for educating and looking after your daughter.

If you decide you have made a mistake with this particular childminder - in spite of the fact that your DD is happy there - because she is watching too much TV, you could do with some help in getting out of it. There are some fantastic CMs out there, so you could ask around/do the research that others on here have suggested. But again, maybe all that is needed is for you to voice your concerns to your present child minder, or give her some advice.

I would be concerned about the safety of the baby... a child who is being assessed for ASD could be a risk to a baby. All children are individuals and some children I've met on the spectrum are very placid and easy going the vast majority of the time. Others though are a danger to all those around them, through very violent outbursts.

Children on the spectrum can often jell with a particular individual, so how well the carer and the child get on is an important aspect.

I would like to make a suggestion to make the situation legal. Currently if it goes on for more than 14 occasions a year, then it's a probably breach of the Childcare Act 2006 (as care provided for more than 2 hours at the home of the carer, the carer is required to be registered as a Childminder with Ofsted if in England) other rules and regulators regulate childcare in Wales/Scotland/NI.

mummyloveslucy - your profile says you live in Devon, so English law applies... so either the person you are using needs to register as a childminder (which may be a bit of a pain if they are just going to care for one child other than their own), or they to provide the care such that it does not fall under the Childcare Act 2006.

To do that is simple... instead of your DD going to their home... they come to your home. They are then a nanny and nannies do not currently have to registered. You would become their employer and would need to keep records for taxation purposes (such as operating PAYE if the other person earns sufficient from you to attract tax/NI, or if they have another income - more details at: HMRC: PAYE Basics) You would need to comply with National Minimum Wage though, so that would put your costs up as £25 is below NMW for 6 hours work (NMW is currently £5.93 an hour for someone aged over 21). NMW rises to £6.08 an hour in October 2011, so I suggest you come to some agreement to pay whatever you consider is reasonable above £6.08

As they would be your employee, you can request that they do certain things, such as not having the TV on all the time but to ration it a bit. Your DD may also be even more happy as she is staying at home. You could still sleep at home during that day, though noise does travel.

Just something that may be worth considering, should you wish to continue using this childcare provider.

Thanks NannyNick, that's really helpful.

Oh and no, she's not a threat to the baby. She's the most gentle little girl you could meet! She is never violent, even in the slightest. She loves little ones too. She is very timid, and gets scared if she sees boys play fighting. When she's scard or worried, she'll be quite clingy to us or might cry, but would never lash out.

The placid ones are lovely - the more challenging one (is that a good way to put it) are fun and keep you on your toes.

I bet! I think I'm lucky to have a placid one, I'm not sure I could cope if she wasn't. She is a lot of fun aswel, every day she causes me to laugh one way or another.

If your husband is s/e but does all the HE in the day and his day off is spent with you alone whilst your dd is in childcare when does he actually work?

I'd work with the LEA to find a suitable school as that little amount of HE may be fine for a KS1 child but surely not for KS2 and beyond. Not to mention having all the skills to teach so many different subjects if neither of you are teachers.

You don't have to be a teacher to home ed! In fact people who have been teachers admit that it's totally different and that they've had to re-learn from scratch. One hour home ed a day, makes up for a whole day in school as it's one to one.
During an average school day, a teacher spends approx 7 minutes talking to a child indevidually. I spend all day talking and interacting with my daughter, making sure she understands things, answering her questions, pointing out interesting things etc. That's how she's made so much more progress than she did at school. She has the mental age of 4 at the moment, so shouldn't even be in school. We do so much learning in a fun way, our whole day is spent learning! If you take teaching her to dress herself, cooking and all the wonderful oppertunities for practical maths that activity offers, writing her diary, puzzles, nature walks, speech therapy games... the list is just so long. I say 1 hour a day structured, but everything else is learning too. She doesn't stop learning in the hollidays or at week ends either. She likes to continue her work as it's fun for her!
All the members of our family have something to offer her. She's learning about nature, gardening and cooking from her grandma, geography and maths from her uncle, art from her cousen. This isn't "formal lessons" it's just natural conversation, observation, and practical.
She has two sets of grandparents who help to look after her while DH is working. They both enjoy doing her work with her and she learns so much through sharing experiences with them too.

There is no law that says children have to go to school. They just have to get an education. If a child is not registered for school then the authorities are not bothered.
Makes you wonder how many hundreds if not thousands of kids are home ed and who is making sure that these children are meeting the same 'standards' that school educated children have to achieve.

And what happens when they have to take their exams, do the parents have to pay the full cost of them? Just curious

I also wanted to point out that there is NO formal evidence that early formal education benefits the child in any way. Experts suggest that the optimal age for formal learning is between the ages of 8 to 12.
If you'd like to find out more about this, then you can read "Better late than early" and "school can wate" both by Dr Raymond Moore. I did any it's really quite supprising. Sending little children to school before their brains are fully ready defies common sence.

Hi, yes, we have to pay.... I think anyway. I could be wrong. Home educated children from my experience far exceed the standards of school taught children for so many reasons. There is of corse the oppertunity to abuse it, but I'm sure that's quite rare. I hope! Home educated children are usually more confident when talking to adults or people of all ages. They are not peer dependant. They are usually very practical and self motivated. They learn through pure enjoyment, fascination and love of learning. Not just in order to remember facts in order to tick the relevent boxes and move on. Even my little daughter will show interest in something and we'll run with it. The fun she's had finding out about things that interest her has been brilliant. She's developing a love of learning that will see her through her life.

Oh and there are no tests for HE children. (Unless the parents want to test them for some reason). They don't do SATS or anything. That's the great thing about HE, my DD's education is compleatly tailored to her. She learns at an appropriate level for her, in her own time and pace and through things that interest her at the time.

why is everyone implying that the simple fact that someone is a registered CM is an assurance of quality of care? It isn't! I've had a not very good CM and have seen terrible CMs at playgroups (their mindees with a pooey nappy wouldn't get changed, they were inoring their mindees etc to the point that they used to climb on my lap for a story-read).
Equally, there can be very responsible individulas who love caring for children but ar not registered.
Its quite silly to vilify someone simply because their CM isn't registered, it seems to me you're simply attacking the category of minders for "stealing" work from you.

Sure pumpkincarver I've had some pretty shit care from medical staff over the years but i still wouldn't let an unregistered doctor treat me, however 'nice' they seemed!