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.

!!!

Sounds sensible, Demented.

Have read your message but haven't read the rest of them so appologies if i am repeating or speaking out of turn. We had a similar situation except it was our children who were being transported incorrectly! To cut a very long story short, the case went to court and the childminder won. Despite the fact that transportation is listed in the contract it is considered a 'quality of care' issue in law and doesn't constitute a breech of contract. The NCMA, whilst appearing to be very helpful, do absolutely nothing as do Ofsted who claim they have to witness the rule breaking issue. My advice is to be open and honest with who ever the parents are. They have a right to know and act accordingly. No one has the right to compromise the safety of the children and they should be made fully aware of this.

That's really awful looloo. Nobody gets to take our children in cars without proper restraints and I would be absolutely horrified if I thought anyone was taking them unrestrained in their car. One incident recently was when some friends took our DS1 with them for an hour or so, my DH took our booster seat out or our car to put it in theirs and our friend took it off him saying "It's OK, I'll see to that". What she hadn't told us was her car was overcrowded and she was going to sit DS1 on her knee, we saw this as they drove off, DH jumped in our car and drove off behind them flashing his lights and beeping the horn until they stopped. As it was the couple were very apologetic and they hadn't thought things through, they said they were just going to drop someone off round the corner then DS1 would have had a seat, we did however explain that even in these circumstances we would prefer to know and would make alternative arrangements for DS1.

Anyway back to the childminder the biggest problem with alerting the parents is that I don't know the parents at all, in fact I don't think the parents of the baby have any children at the School. I haven't contacted the Childminding Association yet as I had to work this afternoon/early evening but will do now.

Sorry, didn't read all the details! But my thought are that if the c'minder has done it once she probably would do it again. In our case, the c'minder had our 3 year old sharing a seatbelt with a 4 year old child in the back of the car. And a 2 year old sitting on her 14 year old sons knee! I witnessed this myself. She denied it in court, but like I say there is actually very little you can do about it anyway. This particular childminder is still childminding and someone else is oblivious to the fact that this happened. It doesn't seem fair. However I still feel that you have to do something and if you don't know the parents then reporting the childminder is the next best thing. Quite how they would follow it up i don't know though, speaking from our experience! Could it be that somewone knows the parents?

looloo, that is really awful I would be fuming , I've never employed a childminder but woudl imagine you trust them to look after your children to the same standards as you would yourself (in fact I would expect better standards, I wouldn't put up with her/him being as grumpy as I am at times).

I have now been and reported the incident on the SCMA website and hopefully they will do something about it.

I am very reluctant to go speaking to parents as I have been on the receiving end of albeit a different situation/although in some ways similar recently when someone falsely accused my DH and I of something, reported us to the authorities (but didn't do this on her own but chose to involve the nursery) then proceeded to blab all over the place about it, adding arms and legs to something that was merely a figment of her overactive imagination in the first place. I swore at the time that if I ever had any reason to suspect someone of anything that needed reporting I would do it without involving anyone else other than myself and the relevent authority.

I can understand your reluctance, i suppose i write from a slightly emotive point of view!

Sorry about the rant at the end, that wasn't directed at anyone just a release of some pent up emotions. I think I really need to start a thread about that incident but I don't know.

I can totally understand looloo, I am frustrated at the whole situation too.

Glad you have reported it, and hope that there is a positive outcome. I'll keep checking and would be interested to know.

looloo, I don't know if I'll find anything out, I don't know how sensible it was but I was able to leave my name and e-mail address blank so I did. I feel I have done all I can and if I've provided them with enough info (I'm sure a quick phonecall to the school from them quoting some of the details I have given them would reveal her identity) then I just hope they act on it.

Sorry again about your situation, must be frustrating.

Demented - when ours were getting dropped off at the CM this morning I asked my CM what she thought about this and her jaw dropped! I know I have a very very good CM and she actually bought a bigger car to safely transport her own children plus the ones she childminds (mine 2 days, someone elses the other days) and she got a grant from the council to get car seats for everyone.

We're in Scotland too and she said that the SCMA are different from the England/Wales body and VERY strict about things like this - when she was last inspected she had the car inspected too. SHe would expect a CM to have registration suspended immediately for somehting like this and probably to have it removed permanently if it was proved.

HTH. How is DS1 enjoying school?

Sounds like the SCMA are more 'on the ball' then. As I said before she seems very capable in other ways and I would hate to think she would lose her registration (especially if it was a one-off) but would like to think that they will at least contact her and chat to her about car safety and warn her of the consequences of it happening again.

DS1 is having a fantastic time at School, he seems to have settled in really well. The biggest problem is DS2 who is missing him like crazy and having huge tantrums every time we drop DS1 off, I hope he gets used to it soon as DS1 will be going all day in about 10 days time.

Has your DD1 started School? From memory I think they are about the same age?