About Me
I decided to become a childminder because I believe that early childhood is very important for our later lives and plays an important role in determining who we become.
I have always had an interest in psychology and did three years of pedagogy as an exam subject for my German 'Leaving Cert' (i.e. corresponding to QQI Level 5). After training as a Parent Effectiveness Trainer, doing my Honours Degree in Psychology, and finding it extremely interesting and gratifying to raise three children of my own I felt more strongly than ever that I wanted to use the skills and knowledge I had thus acquired to help bring on other children.
I started working in a (non High Scope) crèche but found that with the pressures of budgets, the minder to child ratio in the crèche situation did not work out to the children's advantage. Moreover, constant staff rotation (it is a very stressful as well as a psychologically, emotionally, and physically demanding job) and turn over upset many of the children quite a bit. As soon as they got used to a minder that minder would be gone.
Besides, I realised that children in usual crèches are raised in very artificial environments. The children are institutionalised at a very early age, a lot of them getting up in the morning, going to the crèche, going home, and going to bed. They don't know anything about 'real life'. A lot of them don't go shopping, they don't know what goes on outside the crèche. I found this very sad because at that age children are at the height of their learning curve.
We actually have most neurons (nerve cells) at ten months of age - after that they start dying. What children at that age need is personalised care. Even though children go through roughly the same stages of development they are also all very different. It is very interesting and gratifying to experience those differences and react to them by giving them different kinds of stimuli. However, this requires quality time with the children. In our modern world, unfortunately, time has become one of the most expensive resources. Whereas, in industry labour can be got cheaper e.g. in South East Asia, it is not possible to send our children there for the day. Besides, we know that we don't get top quality for cheap anyway. It has always been a miracle to me how parents can try to compromise quality on something as important as childcare that will determine their children's future. So I realised that in the crèche environment I could never even get close to caring for the children in a way they deserved to be cared for.
Therefore, I quit the crèche and started working as a private childminder. I trained in High Scope, which is an excellent programme origninally designed for children up to six years of age but which I am now told because of its excellence is starting to be adapted to suit primary and even secondary schools. I find the pre-school programme superior to e.g. the Montessori one despite the fact that I have a very high respect for what Maria Montessori achieved. E.g. in Montessori schools there is a strong emphasis on only using respective toys or materials when the child is at a certain developmental stage. Moreover, the materials are only to be used in exactly the way that they were designed to be used. In my opinion -apart from not being much fun- this teaches children to be dependant on other peoples' instructions and opinions. Besides, it teaches them to think in a tunnel vision kind of way and not to be able to improvise or apply learned abilities to new situations and this is not what I strive to achieve for the children in my care (see my Mission Statement for my aims).
As a professional childminder I can now do all the things that were never possible in the crèche. I find that things like toilet training that are very difficult in a crèche environment are actually quite easy in the real world. I am much more flexible. We can go out when it is sunny and do art activities inside when it is pouring, and (even though we do have a daily routine, which is important) are not bound by some rigid time table that was thought up months earlier. Also children - like adults - sometimes do not feel like doing one particular activity but just then want to do something totally different. No problem!
I love my profession - it is a vocation for me. I find it relatively easy in comparison with other mothers and some childminders I have met, and who have told me all kinds of horror stories. I don't have problems with children consistently refusing to go to bed or to be buckled into their car seats. They eat alright for me and they don't persist with temper tantrums. I am prodigiously proud of my own children and all three of my twens are very well behaved, mentally and physically healthy, and 'happy out'.
I was a High Scope member for years, and I still use their CORs (child progress assessments) for infants and toddlers as well as for preschool children. I became High Scope certified in July 2010. I strive to implement all the High Scope principles. The High Scope report from the visit of the High Scope Officer to my setting is available on request.
I have done courses with the NCNA and the WCCC, the WCC, the CCCW, the Waterford and Wexford ETB, Early Childhood Ireland,etc. I have also attended the WCCC play mornings, library mornings and arts and crafts mornings, Forest Walks, Easter Egg Hunts, and some of their other activities with minded children in my care.
I am currently attending a Parent & Toddler group with the children in my care once a week.