Advice please - doubting myself as a CM

[bitofanovice]

I am pretty new to CM and currently look after a nearly 2 year old girl 3 mornings a week. She is lovely and great company when we are alone together, but when we go to groups she seems wary of the other children and spends a lot of time pushing and pulling hair. I always go to her and tell her to stop and apologise to the other children (which she does), but she does do it a lot. Today when she did it to the charge of another CM (who is lovely), she told me in a pretty judgemental way, that if she does it again I must give her a time out. To be honest I now feel pretty shitty and like other CMs think I can't cope.

Perhaps it sounded more judgemental than the other CM intended - hopefully it was meant as friendly advice and not as a slight. But looking at it from the other CM's perspective, would you let a child in your care be repeatedly pushed about and her hair pulled without doing anything about it? It's clearly not acceptable to let your mindee hurt other children repeatedly and I would agree that you do need to look at managing this behaviour in some way. Without knowing the child it's hard to say whether a time out might work, but if she's not yet at a stage where she can understand and be influenced by a sanction, you will need to stay really close and intervene/distract before she can cause harm or even keep her out of the situation until she can handle it better. You may even find some useful support and advice from the CMs at this group if you are open to suggestions, as they will have observed her in action and may be able to throw some light on what triggers the behaviour.

Not everyone does time outs, I don't (I'm a cm) but I do explain to the child that we don't do that as its not nice and makes people unhappy. You do need to stop her just not necessarily using time outs.

I totally agree that she needs to stop doing this and could totally see the other CMs point of view. I watch her all the time when we are at groups and always tell her to stop and apologise, that it is not nice and makes other people unhappy. I feel like her behaviour is a reflection on me as a CM and that I am not doing a good job. I feel though that we need to go to groups to help her to learn to socialise appropriately, but it is very hard at the moment.

My CM doesn't do time out at all. And I am not convinced it works anyway.

Someone once told me not only to tell the child to stop what they are doing, but to then offer an alternative. So, in my case I had a child who was hitting a lot. Instead of just saying STOP IT! the alternate action was to offer "gentle hands". The child can then stroke the other child's arm or head.

A 15 month old in my care has come to understand "gentle hands" to mean a gentle stroking of someone's head :) My other children think it is lovely!

Try something like that, perhaps?

Don't let one piece of advice make you doubt yourself! We all started somewhere and we all learn as we go along. Besides, what works for one CM or for one child will not necessarily work for another - so my "gentle hands" may not work, but it might be worth trying.

Thanks for the advice. We do talk about being gentle etc., but nothing seems to be working. To be honest she has a bit of a hectic home life so I don't really know if her parents follow my behaviour policy although we have discussed my approach). I am seriously wondering if all this hassle is worth it

Hello bitofanovice. Welocome too

It will not always be like this things will get better.

Its not an easy situation as she is not your own child. Have you spoken to her parents about any of this? Do not try to deal with this on your own as you need the support of the parents.

Behaviour boundries need to be put into place if not already there. Get the parents to talk to her about what she is doing. Together you can decide how to deal with this challenge.

Is she an only child? Some children are not use to having to share things with other children. She is ok when alone which could mean she loves the one to one attention.

Do not blame yourself, its not your fault.

I have been cm ing for over four years and believe you me its been AN EXPERIENCE. I have had some good times and some not so good times. I am sure the other cms will agree, that you learn from your experiences very quickly!!!

All the best with cm ing

yes to gentle hands, to modelling kindness, also try to be even closer than you are at group, if you have to go over to deal with the behaviour then you are not really close enough

this might mean getting on your knees, ready to divert and distract in a flash

do ask your group for pointers, for help, guidance, experience. they will be delighted to help you

thank you so much. I feels so much more positive about this - the advice is great. I will definately talk to the other childminders too.

:) I was going to suggest 'gentle touching' so fab that other people have beat me to it.

Little ones have very short attention spans, so you need to think about what message you want them to remember. If you e.g. said 'No hitting! We don't hit! Its not nice to hit! People are sad when you hit!' then the word/idea you've reinforced to the child is 'hit! hit! hit! hit!'. So I'd do a firm 'NO!' then hold the child's hand and help them gently stroke the other child (or yourself/a doll if the child has moved away or isn't receptive), saying 'ah gentle touching, isn't that lovely, everyone likes gentle touching. Good girl X for being so gentle.' Then the attention that has been given is all for the positive behaviour that you want to encourage and the message you've given them is 'gentle, gentle, gentle'. See the difference?

I wouldn't do time outs with such a small child, but I might lift her away from an area and encourage her to play somewhere else if a certain child/toy is encouraging her to be rough or causing conflict.

Don't be disheartened. It does get easier dealing with this behaviour and even if the parents don't follow through then children learn there are different rules with you and at home. I've explained to all my parents that we do good/bad choices not 'naughty' (so its the behaviour, not the child) but they almost all turn up saying 'naughty'. All you can do is advise parents, but if they don't listen then thats their right. :)

If what you are doing is not working it may be time to change your methods. I don't like the gentle hands idea to be honest as a lot of children do not like to be touched by other children. I have one mindee who would hate it and be really upset.

What I would do:
First thing to do is stop the behaviour when it happens with a sharp no.
Then pay attention to the OTHER child, make sure he/she is OK, don't pay attention to your minded child right away
Third, get your minded child to apologise
fourth, take her out of the situation (without a cuddle, don't pick her up) and explain that what she has done does hurt the other child and we have to use kind hands.
Think of a positive incentive if she goes through one full session without pulling hair/pushing, such as a special sticker, a star chart, whatever you think she'll enjoy.

Obviously discuss any strategy for behaviour management with the parent first, be consistent, and do it every time.

If you try to see it as a developmental stage rather than a behavioural problem, does that help?
At this age, they push, hit, pull hair, bite (thank your stars she doesn't do that one!!), pinch, kick and it's nearly all to do with their lack of verbal communication. As their verbal ability increases, they learn better ways of attracting attention and getting their views across.

That's not to say you ignore it. You deal with it in whatever way seems best to you.

My own is to say firmly, in as deep a voice as I can manage: "No! Hitting hurts!" before checking that the other child is ok.

If it's a very young child, I'll then soften and lighten my tone as I say and model "Gently!" or "Nicely!"
As soon as they're old enough, I insist on a "Sorry!" being said, or they can cuddle for sorry or sign it.

We then have a Big Hug group cuddle together.

If the other child is hurt, he or she gets most attention and cuddles before the group cuddle.

I shouldn't think the other childminder meant to sound so judgemental. I've offered advice at groups before and I'd be mortified to think I'd upset anyone.

A bad childminder, by the way, wouldn't even notice any of the incidents until brought to her attention, and would then shrug and carry on chatting when told. Thank heaven, they are a tiny minority.

Way too young for time out IMO. Or incentives. They don't have that sort of impulse control at not yet 2. As Tanith says, it's totally a stage and not your fault or a lapse in "discipline". Distract distract distract.
Also you could talk to parents about if they have this problem at home and how they handle it. As a CM I'd expect you to be following the parents' strategy where possible for consistency.

My DD's nursery use a strategy of telling them to stop and then suggesting an alternative eg:

"hands are for stroking not for hitting"
"mouths are for singing/smiling not for biting"
"feet are for walking not for kicking"

Seems to work well for the majority and I have only known them use time out or any oth strategy for a particularly difficult and quite violent boy with some major behavioural issues