Childminder's holidays

[cjm10979]

I toyed with the idea of putting this in AIBU, but thought I would get more relevant responses here.

We have a childminder to look after 2 DDs, one school age, one pre-school. I have known her for some time and is a good childminder with no complaints generally over the last few years of using her.

Around 85% of the children she regularly looks after are of school age. All the clients have different hours/days for the care, so no one family's requirements are exactly the same.

We have an all year contract and up to 6 weeks holiday for either side (some others do have term time only and pay a higher rate accordingly). During holidays for either party she charges 0.5 the usual rate. The problem is that the childminder mainly takes her holidays in term term. Her children are teenagers, 1 is about to go to uni and they get the grandparents to stay in their house when they are way. Our relatives are not close by/have their own health issues so we are not able to do the same when she goes on holiday. Additionally, some of the other clients are foreigners with no family in this country, so it's difficult for them to do the same.

I understand that she needs to take holidays and it not an issue with the 0.5 rate, it's just that we have to take holiday in term time to cover hers. Then we have hardly any holiday left ourselves to take as a family. We can only have 2 weeks & 1 day off together this year. I don't think we we be able to both take time off around xmas as we won't have enough. She is going on a 10 consecutive day holiday in September.

How do other childminders deal with this? I do think she is taking the piss a bit, given that 85% of the children & almost all the families will have at least 1 school aged child.

If it doesn't work for you, then leave.

If the childminder who looks after ds3 and collects ds2 from school did this we'd use another childcare provider. Not because I don't think childminders don't have a right to holidays or anything, but because the service she was offering wouldn't meet our needs.

Imafurchester, you have this to come, your child is not at school yet. I would put the pre-schooler in a nursery if it solved the problem

I won't; as already stated, my nursery do wraparound care for school aged children.

If they didn't, I would put him in after school club or make sure I asked a childminder when they generally took holiday before I signed the contract with her.

Not rocket science.

Actually I would be more bothered if she took 6 weeks in school holidays! Those are the days I struggle most to get covered. Lots of jobs allow a max of a week holiday because of being short staffed and some really struggle to let employees off in august. Even if other parents take their min holiday in the Summer, it doesn't mean the actual dates would be guaranteed to line up.
I have also never heard of childminders only charging 50% - count yourself very very lucky for that.

A lot of people are missing the point TBH. It would be absolutely fine for the op to find a different CM who takes her holidays at different times. That's her prerogative.

What she can't do is complain about the cm's holiday. Unless it was stated at the time of contract signing that 6 weeks holiday would be taken in the school holidays and the CM has now reneged on that.

Otherwise it was up to OP to determine this beforehand. She didn't.

To be fair, it may be inconvenient for you but the majority of people will find that easier to cover? Esp when they have children in school. People will find school holidays harder to cover as its hard to get annual leave (on a specific date) in the school holidays in a lot of workplaces. Cant please everybody but really she should be able to take her holidays when its suitable for her!

Plus, as a two parent family, surely you will get a minimum of 8 weeks holiday per year between you. That's more than enough to cover her holidays?

It doesn't say in the contract WHEN she will take her holidays.

Which you agreed to. If it was important to you that she didn't take holidays during rent time then you should have asked it to be made part of the contract. You didn't. You agreed to 6 weeks unspecified holidays for her.

I was thinking this, as another pp suggested. Are you friendly with other parents? As your children know each other have you considered covering it between you? Each parent taking one day's leave only possibly? Fun for the kids etc??

You agreed to 6 weeks unspecified holidays for her

The question was

'How do other childminders deal with this'

Stop pointing fingers OP has a problem and asking for a solution - offer one -

It's up to her to chose her holidays. That's the beauty of working for yourself. Why on earth would she want to pay higher prices for school holiday holidays, and probably have to have more children around during that holiday too, when she doesn't have to. She isn't taking the piss. She's considering her own requirements - just like you are. She can't possibly please all her clients if everyone has different requirements. If you are unhappy with it you may need to look elsewhere but I wouldn't expect anyone to accommodate your needs over their own to be honest.

Stop pointing fingers OP has a problem and asking for a solution - offer one

The solution has been pointed out numerous times. She needs to find cover for the childminders holiday or source alternative childcare.

OP i don't understand - why do you think it would be better for the cm to take holiday in school holidays?

Surely by taking hols in term time it is reducing the amount of alternative care that needs to be found - as the kids are in school some of the day.

Can you not take half days / finish early on the days she is away rather than using a whole day and so have more allowance left for your real holidays?

I use a nursery that does after school pick ups - could that be an option for you?

GreenTulips, thanks for your suggestion. I'm looking to send an email to all the other parents involved. All our contracts are up at the end of August/July (for those in term time only). It might be workable to everyone to take turns we'll have to see...

My personal preference would be to pay a little bit more and for her to take all her holidays in school holiday time. I'll have to see how the other parents feel, see if we can come up with something that is win/win for everybody.

We are completely exhausted we have not had any holiday since Xmas time as we have had to cover the CMs to date.

A lot of you don't get it, if we had friends/relatives that would do this they why would we be using a childminder?

We do have quite a bit of holidays between us, but we also have to cover when the childminder has been off sick (she had an operation) and when the children are off sick (thankfully only a couple of days). My point is, it looks like we'll only have a couple of weeks off in the whole year as a family.

Feelingsickaboutit - do you seriously think we can take 12 weeks off per year (6 for childminder & 6 for us)! . If one parent covers the 6 weeks for the childminder and then 6 weeks together we're looking at a total of 18 weeks off between 2 people!) This is the WHOLE problem, we can't take off as much time as we'd like because she's been off sick & on holiday.

She did actually tell me, one of previous parents left her because she had too much holiday!

I never mentioned you covering with your own holiday so don't get your knickers in a twist. Just pay for another person/nanny/childminder to temporarily look after your child while your childminder is unavailable.

Eh? Why do you need to cover 18 weeks holiday if your CM only has 6 weeks off? You only need to take the 6 weeks off that she does, surely?

We haven't had any holiday since Xmas time as we have had to cover the CMs to date.

So you have had holiday?

Perhaps I was not clear with my question- Do parents of school aged children and use a childminder have this problem where the childminder takes their holidays in term time? If so, how do you go about tackling it?

You've had your answer - they take holidays when the cms do!

Drip feeding about her operation. These are all issues you should have thought about before signing the contract. You need a nursery who are open year round with part time staff who cover other staff time off. Why not change? Maybe the childminder is significantly cheaper and you would rather try to get her to change her time off to suit you, rather than pay a more expensive nursery?

Sorry but I think this is the reality for most working parents - whether you're covering term time or school holidays, each parent takes separate holidays and it you are lucky you get 1-2 weeks all together.

Your other options are: find a substitute childminder, ask for favours from friends or family, use a babysitter, cover using holiday, cover using unpaid parental leave.

Ok well from another POV.

I'm a cm with school aged children myself. Much of my holiday is in the school hols with one week of term time so I can't have some r and r and catch up on things around the house whilst my own are at school.

I cm for teachers. They have to find cover for those. My holiday only child's parents have to find cover for my school holiday time off.

I can't please everyone. I can only please myself and my family and let everyone else sort themselves out.

My answer is still the same. Find alternative care if you can't cover it yourself. Most people would find it easier for someone else just to care for their children after school than a whole day.

No, I haven't had a holiday, I've been off work whilst covering for my childminder's holidays and sickness during during term time.

Actually, I'm now only interested in parents' responses as up to now the childminder ones are generally not constructive and i'm agreement with Greentulips on this one.

Most childminder are parents too. Not constructive because the answers are not the ones you want to hear.