CM Club - need advice on couple of tricky problems with mindees

[looneytune]

I had a new mindee start recently, an older sibling of a mindee I've had for over a year. She's a lovely girl but very hard work, not helped by the fact the siblings fight all the time.

Mindee will be 5 in a few months and I'm having issues with her behaviour, school are having the same problems.

The problems I'm having is she hardly EVER listens to instructions, most things I have to ask her to do/not do several times and she only 'listens' with a firmer voice. She constantly argues with her sister (but her sister is only 2 so I can see a lot is from the other one), she snatches toys all the time, lies etc. Basically, my job has become extremly hard on those days and I'm struggling to get a meal on the table on time in the evening because of this.

I really feel for this girl as a lot has changed recently - she's left the nursery she's been used to as started reception so school is new and I'm also new (although she was very excited about coming to me and knows me well as been seeing me at pick up time for over a year).

The poor parents are having a terrible time of it at home too and I just want to help. At first I thought these behaviour problems were because of the changes but then her mum said it started when some of her friends left nursery before she did so now not sure? She also has gromits in her ears and has some speech issues so wondered if this is part of the problem? I'm not sure. She definitely can hear clearly as I've done several tests where she's responded when I'm quiet and not even looking at her so she CAN hear but I don't know beyond that. Her speech is more a case of it not being clear but afaik, not a major issue, just some special excerises they do to help her. One other thing that crossed my mind is that she is very cute and small for her age (almost same height as one of my just turned 2 yr olds) and maybe at nursery she was treated a bit more as if she was younger than she is? The tantrums some times remind me of what a toddler would do.

But as I say, she's lovely. She loves to help if she chooses to, she's very affectionate, always telling me she loves me etc, bless

I was just trying to deal with these issues and thought in time things would get better but it's proving to be a problem now due to simple things like a meal being a nightmare to put together. Her poor mum is fully aware although I've tried to downplay it all as I can't imagine what it must feel like to hear this is going on when they are having enough problems at home

I would love to work on this and turn things around but I'm not sure I can right now as all the other children have needs, and they aren't being fully met right now because of this. I have 4 children aged 2.3 and under already and tbh, although this child is nearly 5 yrs old, I feel like I have another toddler a lot of the time and it just doesn't work with this mix of children.

What will probably happen is that she'll go to an after school club as she's used to the bigger groups and maybe she just comes for mornings so I can take her to school - I'm fine with that. The mum thinks it may be best after all to split the siblings as they just fight all the time and that's no fun for anyone.

So questions.......

1. Do you think that under the circumstances, it would be in everyone's interest to do the clubs?

2. Anyone had children of this age behave like this and if so, can you give me any tips/ideas for working together with this? Just in case I have another situation like this in the future For now I've got sticker charts and hoping that will help but this has caused problems itself (one day didn't get the sticker for 'listening' and had a tantrum about it although I was very positive about everything else).

Thanks if you've got this far. I feel very sad about this as the family are fab and outside of actual childcare, she's LOVELY. I've just never had this situation before (usually it's my own children who are the problem with mindees behaving better here than for their parents - quite normal).

Any advice would be lovely as I just want to do what's for the best for everyone.

TIA

Interesting ... I had a slightly similar problem with a little boy who had real behavioural issues when he started at school and was very small for his age (smaller than a 3 year old I looked after). It seemed that he was treated like the baby at the after school club and had lots of fuss made of him. I worked with his Mum and Dad and we had to take a very firm, but kind approach to getting him to do as he was told, while still express himself. I did have the advantage of just having him and one older child once a week, which was a great day to work with him. I just have him in the holidays now and the first couple of days are normally a bit manic, but then he gets back into the routine.

I would use the after school club, both for your sanity and for the space between the siblings.

Thanks for that. We've had a chat (with hugs and tears ) this afternoon and both agree about trying the club route as it's probably best all round.

Interesting what you say though. I'll watch my 1 year old mindee as she's TINY (as you know) and we don't want the same sort of problem (if this has any part to play in the behaviour issues).

I feel much better about it all now. I'm sure all would have been fine if I had a different mix of children but to be fair to EVERYONE, it's best to try a club. At least she'll still come in the mornings so not feel totally pushed away I think she likes the idea of a club after school anyway and it will be more like nursery so probably best