Is this normal for a childminder?

[slurpee]

I went to the playground with my DC (18m) and there was a childminder there with two assistants looking after 7 or 8 small children, I didn't count how many exactly. I know they are assistants as I know of them locally.

One of the small toddlers was crying and unhappy and one of the assistants said to her 'you're fine'. I went off after my DC and we were playing for a few minutes, she was still upset and walked off a way away and sat on the ground, crying. This went on for about 15/20 min, the childminders ignored her. Eventually she came back over and seemed ok.

Where I was playing with my DC I noticed that one of the older kids (maybe 4/5) had wet themselves and kept holding themselves like they needed to wee. This wasn't noticed by the childminders until they were leaving a half hour later, and I heard them say "X looks like he needs a wee! Oh he's gone already!' And then started discussing amongst themselves how annoying that this child keeps doing this.

I'm asking because I will soon be sending my DC to a local childminder, is this normal?? It's my first child, PFB etc, am I overthinking or being judgemental when I think this isn't how you treat kids.

Also half hour crying on their own from a child is very unusual - do you think you may have over estimated this?

It’s why parents and childcare workers often prefer to use / work for a nursery

@Ozanj not all nurseries are perfect either unfortunately - parents have bad experiences there too.

Definitely not normal. My girls have both been at a childminder since I went back to work and she's brilliant.

@Loubylooooo

How on earth did you notice that a child had wet themselves from the other side of the park!?

Also, a 4 or 5 year old (most of which would be in school) should be able to say when they need the toilet and control it. As you overheard them (from the other side of the park?) discussing how they keep doing it this sounds like a problem rather than normal child behaviour.

I was on one side of the park with the child who needed a wee and a few other kids. My Dc had followed them there and was running around them. The childminders were on the other side of the park with the crying toddler a few metres away from them. I saw the toddler from a distance.

It was definitely half an hour, I was keeping an eye on the time for various reasons.

Like I said - rightly or wrongly I didn't feel confident enough in my judgement to intervene. I feel terrible about it now.

Not normal. The childminder we used was far more attentive in the park than we are as parents - constantly looking for extra learning opportunities like what is that flower, why do we take turns on the swing etc.

You can feel terrible about the situation but please don't listen to the subset of judgemental posts on here suggesting you are a bad person for not intervening.

In reality we all have our moments but you do have to choose carefully and make sure your childcare providers actually care about your kids.
Our childminder gives daily updates and from those it is clear they love their work, so while I'm sure they aren't perfect, neither am I.