Shocked at childminder I saw today!

[Demented]

I've just come back from picking DS1 up at School (he has just started so is only going in the mornings at the moment) to see a lady I know as a childminder who minds a number of children who go to the school. At the moment she is looking after a baby (6 or 9 months) and I witnessed her getting into the back of a car with the baby on her knee and putting the seatbelt round herself and the baby. I was right up beside the car so was in no doubt that this was what was happening. She also had a little girl, aged about 5 (she has just started school too) and this girl was in the front seat (the car was a J reg Passat so I'm not sure if it would have a front airbag or not).

Needless to say I am absolutely shocked and horrified that someone who has left their child in the hands of someone who from what I have seen seems to be an extremely experienced and capable childminder probably doesn't know what is happening. I realise this could be a one-off but as someone who is extremely paranoid about car safety to the extent that DH once came to collect DS1 and myself when DS1 was tiny and forgot the car seat we took the bus home instead.

!!!

They may have a local Natioinal Childminding Association Rep or ring the Early Years Department at your local council and tell them they will be able to help you.

I don;t think you wuold pass your offstead inspection or keep your licence to be a childminder if you did this even with the parents support - and you qwould not be covered by your insurance I am sure - childminders have to have different car insurance than the every day public and I am sure this would not in a million years be covered (bloody well hope not anyway!!)

Can you not ask around at school to see if anyone knows her - coud always say you have friend moving to the area who needs childminder!!

Another thought I cannot be 100% sure she is a Registered Childminder although it would seem odd that she would look after so many children on such a regular basis if she wasn't, I can think of four children that she looks after regularly.

Thanks Twinkie, I've just been on the net and saw the website for the Scottish Childminding Association I can e-mail them but I don't think that would let me stay anonymous.

Basically I don't want involved, I would just like someone to pay her a visit/make a phonecall even and remind her of the importance of car safety.

I don't know many of the Mums at School yet as DS1 has been put in a class where there is only one other child that he knows from Nursery (who funnily enough is picked up and dropped off by this childminder) but one of the boys he was friendly with who has been put in the other class' Mum is a childminder and I wonder if I could broach the subject with her, maybe she would even know this lady's name.

I would make an anonymous call to OFSTED - childminders do get inspected by them.

As for airbags and children in front seats - would NEVER do this. Airbags are tested on passengers weighing at least 75kg. Last month, a friend crashed her car head-on with her 6yo DD sitting in the front seat with airbag. FORTUNATELY, the airbag didn't go off but my friend got a severe warning from the Police about her DD sitting in the front.

From the National Highway and Transportaton Safety Administration

From Parentcenter.com

From BuckleupAmerica.org:

The front seat is a dangerous place for children. Front air bags can deploy even in minor crashes and can seriously hurt or kill children. Buckle children 12 and younger in the back seat.

From Edmunds.com:

Avoid the front seat altogether. Never, ever place an occupied child safety seat in front of a passenger airbag. Also, even in older vehicles without front airbags, consider securing your child in a safety seat in the rear (if your car has rear seats), since this seating position is much safer in a front collision.

From the National Safety Belt Coalition:

Q: My children are at ages where they get restless in their car seats and try to move around. I find it very distracting. Plus they fight with each other. I think it's safer to put one of them up front where I can keep an eye on him.

A: No. The safest place is in the rear seat properly buckled. It is critical not to give in to a child's "growing pains" while traveling in a motor vehicle. Bring along some soft toys to keep them occupied while properly buckled up and seated in the back seat. This may sound difficult, but never take short cuts when it comes to children's safety.

From the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control:

Kids in the Back for a Safer Ride

All children ages 12 years and younger should ride in the back seat, the safest part of a vehicle in the event of a crash. This is especially important for vehicles with front passenger-side airbags. Riding in the back seat is associated with at least a 30% reduction in the risk of fatal injury in cars without front passenger side airbags. Placing children in the back seat of vehicles with front passenger side airbags reduces this risk by 46%. Infants in rear-facing child safety seats should never be placed in a seat in front of an airbag. About one-third of children ages 12 years and younger who were killed in 2000 were riding in the front seat.

Airbags and Children
Even in a slow-speed crash, the force of a deployed airbag can injure or kill a young child. Riding in the back eliminates children?s risk of injury from front passenger-side airbags. Children ages 12 years and younger should always ride in the back seat, the safest part of the vehicle in the event of a crash.

Personally I would never put one of my kids in the front seat of the car, unless it was absolutely necessary. Certainly not for a treat even if it was just a short journey.

IMO, one of the costs associated with having children, especially more than one, is the extra cost of having a car big enough to hold them (and any friends who you may also have to transport) in the back seat. We are a family of three, but I drive a people carrier.

I'm horrified at this front seat advice. mainly because my ds (4) has been travelling in the front seat all the time for the last year or so, after developing car sickness when we moved him into a booster seat rather than child seat. We were in France a couple of weeks ago and it's actually illegal for children to travel in the front there so we finally tried out the acupressure wrist bands and they worked a treat.

I started to e-mail the Scottish Childminding Association (figured I could ask to remain anonymous) and realised they would be unable to anything without her name. I know the first names of two of the children she looks after but I don't suppose that's enough. I will speak to DS1's friend's Mum (a childminder) tomorrow (hopefully I'll see her the two classes go in at different sides of the School) and just innocently ask if she knows ***'s childminder's name.

Hm - from Kate's post:

So 2/3 of those killed were in the back. [puzzled emoticon]

JanH, I want to put a big grin and say LOL but it might not be considered appropriate .

JanH

Lies, damn lies and statistics...

I guess we are to assume that there were less than a third of children overall riding in the front seat. But you are right, the statistic is meaningless unless we know the overall proportion of children riding in the front seat.

Probably this is the more useful information:

"Riding in the back seat is associated with at least a 30% reduction in the risk of fatal injury in cars without front passenger side airbags. Placing children in the back seat of vehicles with front passenger side airbags reduces this risk by 46%."

Hang on, airbags are tested for adults weighing around 75kg??? In that case a good number of us adults probably shouldn't be anywhere near them!

My partner has a landrover and we are planning to go away in it.Where is the safest place for our nine month son in a forward facing car seat?
In the front or in the back with seat facing the middle? I usually have him in the back of my car.

Behind the driver is supposed to be the safest place, MM.

Oh, sorry, you have those seats down the sides in the back? Can you anchor the babyseat properly in one of those?

If you don't have an airbag (assume you don't) then he may well be safer in the front, I don't know what the advice is re side-facing seats.

Just found this via Google. HTH.

Many thanks!

"Why are airbags dangerous for children?

Airbags were made to protect adults weighing about 75kg. They are very powerful when they are inflated and they are placed so low that a child placed in front of an airbag may suffocate or be severely injured by the impact of a rapidly inflating airbag.

If your child is younger than 12 years, they must never sit in a front-seat with an active airbag in front of them. When your child is over 12 and wants to sit in the front seat, move the seat as far back as possible"

This extract was taken from "http://www.netdoctor.co.uk/health_advice/facts/childrencar.htm"

Slightly hampered here by not being very capable in metric (75kg roughly 11st 8lbs?) but I do remember hearing that airbags are designed to cope with the weight of an average male passengers and do not protect women as well as they protect men ? because we tend to be lighter and shorter. Men design the world for men and forget that most people are women... it's akin to the way that you always get queues in the ladies' loos, because architects always give equal space to male and female loos, even though women's loos are full of cubicles, while men have urinals...

I would be horrified if I saw a childminder doing this.

However I have sat in the back of my mums car holding my then 3 month old dd in my arms.

Before you all flame me the situation was this. We had been to an anniversary party in a nearby town. Dd was in a fixed rear facing seat and we broke down. It was midnight in December and freezing cold. Dd's car seat would not fit in my mums car. I had the option of taking dd straight home with her or waiting about an hour for a tow back home.

I will never do it again though.

I've now realised that I should never sit in a seat with an airbag. 75Kg. Does anyone know of any cars with airbags which are designed for lighter passengers?

Demented, it's easy to suggest something I don't have to do! but could you speak to the headteacher at the school? Without wanting to load responsibility onto them which isn't theirs, they could consider adding a note to next mailing to parents saying that an adult was seen getting into car with baby not adequately restrained etc outside the school, the person who saw it was extremely worried and reminding parents of the law/safety advice. If I as a parent received a note like that I would get onto any childcarer I think/hope.

I would also learn what I have only just learned on this thread about putting children in the back, tho actually my ds has been there for some time. I felt bad about his lack of stimulation - no more!!

I can't sit in the front of our car either! It's going to get very crowded in the back Or I could just eat loads of chocolate..

Look, take "about" to mean "average". What is the standard deviation? I'm sure it's fairly large and the airbag is tested from the tiniest 12 year old (um... 40kg? I don't have a 12 year old, much less a tiny one) to large fat people like me.

The airbag is optimally designed to protect a 75 kg human shaped weight. It will still protect a the 12 year old (prob the average sized 12 year old, so if your child is small..) and do a lesser protection job on lesser (weight and height wise) people. I let my son ride up front sometimes like SD does, I think.

I'm pretty casual with this.... I also let my sons ride around in the back of a pick-up truck during the holidays (only for short rides!). So take it for what it's worth.

Saw the childminder again today and have made a decision. She was on foot today and I think yesterday she very possibly accepted a lift from someone as she generally walks everywhere. I am going to e-mail the Childminding Association telling them what I saw and the information I have, the school she picks children up from and the first names of two of the children she minds, if they want to take it further I'm sure they will make the necessary phonecall to the school to find out exactly who she is.

I decided not to speak to my DS1's friend's mother as from my own experience such things sometimes done innocently can backfire (long story haven't yet plucked up the courage to post on Mumsnet about it).