I was a mum to 4 sons when I decided to register as a child minder.

I attended a course put on by local authority for those wanting to look into child minding; this made me feel quite excited about starting my own child minding business.

3 of my children were of school age and my youngest Adam was coming up three years of age.

I thought that by having some other children for him to play with while his brothers were at school would be good for him too.

As soon as my registration certificate arrived I started to spread the word that I had vacancies for children. Marketing your child mining business here

Obviously I obtained my insurance and first aid certificates first.

One of the assistants in a local shop where I had placed an advert. told me that a woman was very interested and that she was going to make contact!

I was very excited until I mentioned the woman’s name to my neighbour, who told me that this particular child had a bit of a reputation for being a handful and that he tended to go to every new child minder and didn’t stay there long.

I made the decision to not take a lot of notice to what I had heard from her.

Afew days later I received a phone call from the woman. I’ll call her Linda.

We made an appointment to meet.

What to say at first interview/ meeting with parents here

When Linda and her 4 year old son I’ll call Alan visited ,she was very honest by telling me that Alan had been to a few different child minders, but as he was so well behaved during the visit and Adam seemed to like him. I agreed to take him on a 4 week trail that either party could terminate if we felt was necessary.

I wrote out a contract that we both signed to find out more about weriting contracts read this

As it turned out agreeing to have Alan as my first mindee was a grea tdecision.

He was always well behaved and he and Adam became great friends.

When Adam went down for a nap and I did one -to-one activities with Alan he even asked me to wake him up so they could play together!

One day when I was at the supermarket, a woman, who I knew was also a child minder, approached me and said that she had heard that I was Alan’s new child minder. She went on to say that he didn’t get on well with her 3 daughters and that he was better suited to my sons.

I looked after Alan for many years, when he was offered a place at the nursery unit attached to the school that he would eventually attend, his mother asked if I would collect him from nursery at lunchtime as she wanted him to continue coming to me aswell.

This new arrangement also worked well for everyone.

Linda paid me to feed her son a small lunch, which both boys would eat together. Should child minders supply meals here

Adam called Alan Aggie as he found that easier to say.

Many. many years later both lads went for interviews for local employment.

On arriving home Adam told us “Aggie was waiting for an interview too and he remembered me when I called him Aggie!”

I have also seen Alan a few times over the years as he works in a shop that I often go into. He quite oftrn talks about the memories he still has about spending time with Adam and I.

I’m also still in touch with Linda and we sometimes meet for coffee.

As always questions and comments are welcome.

Until next time.

Karen

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