childminder taking me to court!

[salsabunny]

Hi, Any advice please on my situation would be really appriciated, am so stressed here. I'm a young mum on a quite a low income and my 6 year old son hasn't been happy at childminders for a while having tummyaches when he has to go there.

He told me she has been force feeding him which explains his recently refusing to eat at home and school. Also there are several other exaples of very bad care that have happened that I prob shouldn't go into due to confidentiality. He has been very upset on at least 3 occasions because of how he is treated there.

Basically I felt i needed to stop sending him immidiatly causing a big nightmare for myslf with regard to work ect. I said I'm not happy with the care she provides and she denied everything and threatened me that if I don't pay her notice (even though she won't look after him in that time) she will take me to court.

She has sent me a solicitors letter already She is demanding £500 for nothing after she has mistreated my child. I worte back offereing her half but she refused. After reading some other similar posts it looks like I'm going to get nowhere with this????

I'm already out of pocket with missing work and now paying my sister to come and look after him (my sister lives 60 miles away from me so i'm paying her petrol each day).

I have no faith a complaint to OFTED will be of any use at all (She'll get away with doing this to other children too!) and I think the courts will just force me to pay anyway. Do you think I should just use my savings I keep for emergencies and just pay her off - this is making me ill I'm getting migraines and being sick every day i'm so steressed that shes doing this and lying

I'm really scared of being taken to court.

Please, any help?

I'm sorry, but she's in the right here. It's her job (whether you think she's good at it or not). how do you think she will pay the bills this month without the money she thought she had? she's unlikely to get another mindee straight away. you had a contract, and the court will enforce it.

also as it goes, why didn't you tell her of the problems and try to sort it out before removing your child?

I'd call the NSPCC/social services as it's abuse to force feed a child.

Send her a letter back telling her that your child has told you that she has mistreated him and that you are going to report her. She has broken the contract that you have with her and it is you that are out of pocket, should she wish to take you to court you will be more then willing to counter sue for the distress she has caused to your child and for the loss of income you have sustained whilst seeking alternative arrangements for your son.

No. She is trying to bully you. Call her bluff.

I would reply to the letter saying you withdrew your child from her care because you had great concerns about her as a childminder, and will bring your complaint up with ofsted. Forcefeeding children is a form of abuse, and Ofsted needs to know. Tell her you had hoped the fee situation would be sorted amicably with you agreeing to pay half, seeing as she would not be looking after your child in her notice period, but failing this, you will take your own advice and see her in court.

You should definitely report her to Ofsted! It may stop other children being mistreated.

First, report to Ofsted immediately. They do take action. I would also consider reporting to social services from the circumstances you have outlined.

Second, whether you ahve to pay her notice money will depend on any agreement you ahve with her. Did you have written terms in writing for notice periods etc? If so, that should be your firt port of call. You have clearly been trying to sort it out amicably, but if she has got a solicitor writing to you, do everything in writing to cover you back and provide evidence that you are being reasonable. Do you have a local law centre, a lot of solicitors will give free advice at drop in clinics if you need legal advice. Also, if you have household insurance, check the policy to see if you ahve legal expenses insurance.

Can you give us a bit of detail about the 3 other occasions that caused you concern in the past

I can't imagine how one could force feed a 6 year old, did he describe HOW she did it?

Oh my goodness, thanks for all your messages....

I had spoken to her about the incident and tried to sort it out but she diddn't see a problem with pressuring him to eat and denies all the rest. There were other incidents and I feel I had given her chances and the benefit of the doubt many times but the last incident was the 'last straw' and I knew I couldn't keep sending my child there.

I don't want to detail the other things as a forum is kind of public and I odn't want to get into any kind of trouble. She had him sit at the table for 1 hour and a half because he diddn't wan to eat, she was pressuring him a lot to eat, telling him off and she put her hand on his head and put a fork up to his mouth (he demonstrated to me how she did it) she diddn't force his jaw open and put food there but I feel what she did was unacceptable. He described to me that he kept gagging on the food.

I feel i'm being resonable in offering her half, that a good idea to encourage her to accept my offer and say i would like to keep things amicable.

And yes we do have a contract and it says 4 weeks notice.... I'll also try to get some free legal advice from a solicitor and see what they suggest too.

Surely the CM is in breach of that contract if she's mistreating her child?

report her. Tell her you are reporting her, but you might change your mind if she backs off re the money. I don't think anyone would be happy with their child being treated that way. If she wanted her money this month then she shouldn't be SHIT at her job

The court will deal only with the contractual issues, it is unlikely that any allegations will be taken into account, as they deal with the legal side.

However if you feel that this CM has abused her position in any way you should report the instances. Ofsted will investigate the allegations, if they feel that your complaint refers to a protection issue they will pass the information on to your local child protection team who will investigate and report back to Ofsted. In some instances the investigating officer may talk to your child to acertain what happened, how it made them feel etc, so that they can investigate fully.

You could have a look at the CM's last inspection report, does it indicate areas for improvement that are associated with your current issues or even other complaints.

If you felt strongly enough to remove your child at a great deal of personal, financial and emotional stress to yourself then I do feel that you should report the instances.

If your contract is with NCMA they will also offer advice to you, just because they are a minder association doesn't mean that they won't offer fair and unbiased advice to you as a parent, they are their to uphold and improve standards also.

Good luck and all the best.

If you have concerns about her care of your child DO NOT PAY HER ANY MONEY.
First of all report her to Ofsted.

Next get yourself some legal advice and write back saying that you have concerns about her care of your child - detail them saying what she told you, your childs reaction etc etc.

if you pay her anything you are almost 'admitting that none of it happened' if you see what I mean.

Get yourself some advice and representation quickly.
you could of course counter sue her for loss of earnings.

How did he gag on the food if he refused to put any of it in his mouth?
Please remember that a small child will often exagerate greatly.
How do you know it was an hour and a half? I doubt a 6 year old has such a good grasp of time.
As for the notice, she needs to offer to have him for the 4 weeks to get the money.
If she does offer, you have to pay. Not wanting to send him I'm afraid isn't a legal excuse.
If she won't have him, don't pay.

my 8 year old would not be able to accurately judge an hour and a half; I wonder what happened is something like she asked him to stay at the table until the others had finished even though he had?

wrt the refusing to eat - is he constipated/has he got a cavity?

Tell her you are reporting her, but you might change your mind if she backs off re the money
What, so you'd be so concerned you'd want to threaten her livelihood, but if you got away with no notice you'd forget about it?
Have you any idea how many parents make false allegations against cm's to try to get out of making money legally owed to us.

SenoraPostraphe - she is absolutely not in the right here if she has mistreated a child. This is one instance that that OP has told us about and she's said there are others as well, which I assume can't be good either. I don't know what they are - but if the other instances are serious and she has actually mistreated OP's child, she should get no money - because as someone else said, she is in breach of her contract. If you feel what she has done is serious to your child, please do report her to ofsted (regardless of whether or not she backs off the money owed).

Yes, it's her job, her livelihood... that's the point. Exactly the point. If cm has definitely mistreated a child, she should not be cm. If I were a parent with another child with her, I'd want to know.

Do not make a false accusation. Only tell the truth. It would help us to know if what she has done to your child is mistreatment or not if you told us, but you haven't, so no one can judge that.

If she has indeed, mistreated your ds, she should not be paid at all.
If she has not actually mistreated him, but jsut done things differently than you would have, then she is still owed her notice period.

Oh, report to ofsted anyway - describe the incidents with 100% truth and detail. If you're not sure if it's actually mistreatment, they will help you out with this. If it's no big deal, nothing will happen. If it is a big deal, she'll be investigated and justifiably so.

Moogster - it is not on to make a false accusation about a cm... no one is suggesting she does that.

You need to act quickly our ex nanny got away with assault because there is only a 6 month period from when the incident took place that the police can prosecute.

I would go to the Citizen's Advice Bureau and get some free advice.

Don't pay.

Seek legal advice.

If the other incidences are similar to the force feeding I would contemplate getting in touch with police as well as ss and ofsted.

pressuring a child to eat does not amount to force feeding. You may not like it and that is entirely your perogative, but making a child sit at a table to eat (and I sincerely doubt that a six year old has the capasity to grasp the amount of time he sat there) is not mistreatment or child abuse.

Tbh it sounds as if there's an awful lot of misquotation and misunderstanding going on here. Child tells parent that he was made to sit and eat his dinner, parent then accuses the childminder of force-feeding the child, of course she denied it, because it didn't happen in the way the parent has accused.

If you genuinely believe this woman is abusing children in her care then you have a moral obligation to report her. If it is just that you don't agree with the way in which she deals with your child then it is your perogative to remove him from her care, but you have a contract, and as such you owe her the money for the four weeks notice.

In other words, put up, or shut up,

Wait, wannabe - holding a child's head down with your hand and shoving a fork to their mouth.... that's a bit more than just "pressuring" a child to eat.

alternatively StarExpat, brushing the childs head with your hand whilst holding a fork up saying, " come on, are you sure you don't want to even try it".
I've had a child say I locked them in the cellar. We don't have one!! Sensible parent laughed and told the child he'd be locked in the attic when they got home!

a- report her to ofsted immediatly
b- Send her a letter (do everything in writing) stating you had no option but to remove your child as there was a child protection issue, you felt your child was at risk being there due to examples you had already discussed which were not resolved and the fact she had said she would NOT provide child care during the notice period anyway.

if she has ncma contracts then they do state (dont quote me but its along these lines) immediate withdrawel is acceptable when the parent considers the child to be at risk..

Im actually at court myself soon (im a cm, completely diff story and its parent reusing to come back or pay) and have been assured they only deal with facts and legalities, so the fact you are contracted to give 4 weeks notice is the issue which is why you neeed to put in writing that she has refused care and that you didnt feel she was looking at your child properly.

Best of luck