Older children and daycare

[AmandaKDT]

For those of you with your own kids that are old enough for school (or older) - how do find they are with the daycare being in their home?

My older daughter just started kindergarten and for about the last two months she was spending more and more time by herself in her bedroom because she was tired of being around the other kids. I was relieved that she was starting school because then she could be out of the house more and hopefully be happy to play with her daycare friends in the short amount of time before and after school, as well as on the occasional inservice day. To a certain extent it is better, but she still tires of them easily.

Anyway, do others find their own older kids acting the same way. Should I expect this to continue? It makes me sad to see it because I opened my daycare to be home with her and her little sister, and she spends chunks of her day hiding in her room. :-(

[MonkeyPrincess]

My son does that too, he just wants to get away from the younger kids and be alone. I just let him do it. He is a bit older, he is 7. my daughter is 4 and the dckids are 3, 2, 2 and 1

[Secondtimearound]

My daughter is 6 and went from being an only (basically , older siblings) to having to share mom . I home school her and there are plenty of times she gets frustrated and has time away . I'm very lucky that with my husbands hours , he can take care of her upstairs so she gets breaks from her "friends"!!

[CrazyEight]

My kids are 6, 5, and 2. The younger 2 are always with the dckids but my oldest usually goes up to her room to colour after school. She plays with them, but there's a couple she just honestly doesn't like (and I don't blame her, 2 of the dckids currently can be really annoying) so I let her go. My son is 5 and hardly ever goes up to his room. I think that he likes having the dckids to himself when she goes upstairs. The older they get, the more I think they'll want their own space, so at least the upstairs of our house is off-limits to dckids, they just get carried up to playpens in the bedrooms at naptime.

[mickyc]

Just remember that it was your choice to have a home daycare. I would let her have her own space.

My daughter spends one day a week at grandma's and one morning a week at preschool. She also can go to her room is she doesn't want to play. I want her to enjoy her time in daycare and not resent it.

[AmandaKDT]

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Just remember that it was your choice to have a home daycare. I would let her have her own space.

My daughter spends one day a week at grandma's and one morning a week at preschool. She also can go to her room is she doesn't want to play. I want her to enjoy her time in daycare and not resent it.

I welcome her to go to her room when she wants and her bedroom is off limits to daycare kids.

I keep telling myself that her being in my daycare, where she can go off to her room when she wants to, is better then me putting her in someone else's daycare where she wouldn't have that option. Just my mommy guilt, I guess.

[Rachael]

I will preface this with the fact that my day care didn't open until my own children were 11 and 8 - ish.

From the beginning, I assured my sons that their toys would not be day care toys and that their bedrooms would be out of bounds - and I stuck to that. I felt my own boys needed to feel this was their home and they needed some private space which wasn't occupied by client's children. They also needed to keep their own possessions. It's very different when a child invites a friend over to their home to play with their toys than it is when several children are in their house who might not necessarily be who they would choose for their friends, and they feel they have to share their precious belongings with children they might not particularly like.

When I first opened, I did take some before and after school children and I found for my boys that was too tricky to handle. It wasn't so much that other children were in the house although of course that was strange at first, but it was more so that these weren't necessarily the personalities they would choose to have as friends. They felt that after having to be with a mixed group in school all day, they shouldn't need to have to be nice, thoughtful, sharing etc to a new mixture of children when they got home at the end of the day too. I guess it's like adults in the workplace - although you get on with those you work with, some you get on with better than others and you wouldn't necessarily want all your work colleagues in your home at the end of the day. You wouldn't necessarily socialize with them all. You just want to come in, relax, hang out with the people who matter to you and not have to bother with those who don't.

They had been through some very big changes - losing a parent, moving house, and we hadn't long been in Canada so hadn't really made the sort of life-long friends which are great support in difficult times. Because it really was the boys and I on this continent, I think they struggled with the older day care children. Although they understood that I needed to work and that by opening a day care I was using my past careers to ensure I could still be home for them at the end of the school day, they really struggled when I was caring for children of a similar age to themselves.

I then made the switch to the little ones, and my boys adapted much better with that.

Now at very nearly 18 and 15, they are incredibly kind and patient with the little ones although have limited interaction other than school vacations. If a day care child is upset and the boys are home, you can count on one of them appearing to see if they can help to either sit with the upset one or entertain the others whilst I calm the upset child. They will keep an eye on the day care children if I'm toilet training someone who needs an extra bit of help in the bathroom.

In terms of your daughter, try not to take it to heart.

One of my sons is an outside person - always has been, always will be. He would go out with friends to their houses, to the park, at any given opportunity. He's always respected the age appropriate boundaries in terms of time outside or distance from the house and checking in with me but he's always needed that extended social circle. Home is the soft place he lands at the end of the day. My other son, is a home body. He spends a lot of time in his room, even now. He's chatting on Skype to his friends, he's reading, he pops up and down the stairs for a chat. That's just who he is. Even this summer at 15, he rarely went out and as much as I tried to get him to, he truly prefers just to be home, doing his own thing and entertaining himself. He's a happy young man, has great friends, a straight A student but is just more selective and keeps a closer social circle than his brother. He just needs less social interaction.

So part of your daughters decision, might be that she just doesn't want to hang out with little kids and prefers her own space. That's okay. It takes all sorts to make a World. Part of it might be that the day care children just don't happen to be the type of children she would choose to play with. Part of it might be that she just doesn't want to have to be sharing, and kind, and polite to a group of children that are already taking up most of the space in her home.

As long as she feels that she can participate if she chooses (which she seems to), as long as she knows that day care is just your business but she and your family are your whole World, as long as she knows that at home, she has some freedom of movement and it's okay to choose to escape, then it will all work out.

I think as parents, particularly as mothers, we sometimes worry about things which don't need to be worried over. Most of the things we stress about, never happen anyway! We spend hours, days, nights agonizing over imagined situations which never come to be.

One of the biggest lessons I've learned in the last 8 years or so, is not to worry about something until it's happened.

[AcornsFalling]

My daughter has just started kindergarten too and she sounds the same as your daughter. I think it's a combination of tiring of the little kids and also enjoying being more independent and having her own space to play her own way.

[33 Daiseys]

My children have never had a problem with me running daycare from my home. My daughter was 4 months old when I started, and my son was three

[AmandaKDT]

Thank you everyone for your responses. Like many things in life, it is good to know I am not alone. :-)

Just like it is an adjustment to send her off to school everyday, this new need to have time alone is something to get used to. When she was smaller she would never want to leave my side, so it is very noticable to me this new desire for independence and the change towards wanting her own space by herself.

There are two kids in the daycare that are only 5 months younger than her, but often the interests and maturity levels between my daughter and the others is way off. Sometimes they play really well and other times she wants nothing to do with them.

So I will just leave it be and remind myself of the fact that she is maturing and asserting her independence. My little girl is growing up!