Do you 'sit and chat' at toddler groups?

[MessybutHappy]

I do a bit of both too. Some children need me, some don't. If you are busy with another child you may not see an incident, so even if you aren't sitting chatting you can still miss stuff and be seen to be in the wrong! I do whats best for each child and, sometimes, for me. If I need a sit down and the children are all happy, I'll sit. You often don't get much oppportunity, so grab it while you can!!!!

[oxfordshirecm]

I do both too just depends on which group I'm at and what mindees I have.

[little chickee]

the toddler group i attend is based in one room.
I can at all times see all my mindees ( I take 3).

I do sit and chat. I'm watching my mindees ( and other peoples kids) at the same time.

I also have a hot drink at snack time when all the kids sit down at the table.

It is possible to be supervising children without having to be following them around the whole time.
If i see they are needing help with something i go over. If not i let them get on with playing.

kids need to learn to be independant without having an adult leading their play all the time.

I used to mind a boy who was an only child who was with me one day a week, one set of grandparents 2 days, the other set 2 days and parents ( divorced) at the weekend.
He had parents and grandparents undivided attention the whole time. They were with him the whole time to the point that he could not play on his own.
If in a room full of toys he would just stand there not knowing what to do until someone would say " play with this " or " go over there and do that".

I would take mindees to the playpark and everyone would rush off to play and he would stand by me the whole time competly unable to know what to do or where to go until i said " go play on the slide".. He would then play on the slide constantly, ending up in tears. I would ask why was he crying and he would say it was because he wanted to play on something else. He was totally unable to just move to something else without an adult telling him to.

So i am a great beleiver in free play and that is what my mindees do most of the time.
I am obviously there to help if needed but they chose what to play with, how to play and for how long etc.

[MessybutHappy]

Golly, how sad And well done you for spotting the problem.

[zippy]

I think it's wrong when you can't work out who a child belongs to, when there's a group of childminders sat down chatting & theyre one of their Mindees.

The EYFS says to give them time on their own but you're still meant to be supervising and being close enough to help scaffold their learning or provide subtle support in their interactions with others

Childminders sat down chatting for 80% of the time drives me nuts at my local groups and it gives childminders a bad name.

As either rightly or wrongly the CMs give them the impression they sit on their bottoms all the time, even at home.

Sprry everyone but It's not a good advertisement for CMs

Sorry, it'a something that bugs me...

I sit and chat, I can still supervise. I feel sorry for the kids that don't get a moments peace from a hovering adult. At home I often sit at the bottom of the stairs listening to mindees in front room doing their role play. I get tons of communication obs from it and you can bet your life as soon as I walk in they go silent. I expect some parents make judgements about me at groups like the time when my mindee was protesting as she couldn't get down from trampoline, in fact one parent even came over to tell me, I replied that I was well aware of her struggling to get down, (it would be hard not to notice as she was littlerly 5 feet from my chair) I asked her to just sit back and watch for a couple more minutes, and what do you know she did it herself, looking extremely proud of herself, then a quick glance to the parent who informed me of her struggle, well she was beaming ear to ear as she had witnessed what i had. That child learnt more in those few seconds than anyone in that room apart from us could have possibly seen, she learnt about perseverance, about trusting in herself, she gave herself confidence to push herself even when she thinks she can't do it herself. She would have learnt nothing if I had gone to her or been hovering behind her, well actually she would have she'd have learnt to give up and I'd have reinforced a fear that she couldn't do it herself. So I guess I must be one of those lazy childminders you talk of, except I'm not I just choose to give my kids the space they need and deserve to develop, and I am certainly not going to hamper their development as I'm scared of how it looks to people who don't have a clue. Maybe next time you see them being lazy you could try looking outside the box, you never know you might just see something that surprises you.

[Sweetpea]

Zippy, it's fine being alert to your child's needs but week after week not showing hardly any interaction?

I do care about what parents think and assume from seeing this. It's not a true reflection of a childminder and breeds the attitudes we see on places like *****.

My Mindees rarely play in the same area so I float between all of them and this keeps me busy enough without affecting their freeplay as they get plenty of time between my interactions. This is without sitting drinking tea and chatting for an hour

[zippy]

They show no interaction at all, if that's the case that's horrendous. I do sit back at a toddler group I go to, but so does everyone else it's set up to be like that, but certainly wouldn't switch off, I get a lot of obs from sitting back and watching them there, interacting in their little groups.