I took my 7 month old son to his first taster day at the childminders last week. It was bad weather so we drove there and when I took him out of the car I thought I better put his coat on just in case I’m standing outside talking to her for a while with it being his first day. You have to knock on the door, input a code into the gate and then wait at the door for her to answer and as she already had children in I thought I could be waiting a couple of minutes. No issues on drop off everything was fine. When picking him up I parked around the corner and went to collect him and she said “do you want to come in and put his coat on” so I did and then we left, again removed the coat and put him in his car seat. No issues again.
One week later, a message gets sent into the parent group chat by the childminder about car seat safety and how coats aren’t allowed. Completely fine, but my issue was with the wording…
“If we notice children are still coming into the setting wearing coats / seeing them exit cars with it on we will need to speak with you privately. I would be required to write down each incident and potentially need to speak to social services if no change is made”
Few issues:
- If this is how they deal with issues, i.e. in a group chat, I just think this is a completely unacceptable approach for a professional setting
- If the issue was about me personally and the coat why not mention something on the day instead of waiting a week to post in the group chat? They also would have seen me take him out of the car and put his coat on when I did the drop off
- Is a threat to social services not a bit extreme? I understand safety issues but “we would need to speak to you individually” would have sufficed
My little boy has only been in for 1 day so far and is still only doing settling in sessions until feb so I don’t want to get him settled somewhere I’m going to have issues with as he will be there for a good few years!
Thoughts please?