I haven't read all the responses, but I did read nannydes and I agree 100%. As a seasoned childcare worker, I have seen this multiple times. It it boils down to two things...
1) The child has been keeping it "together" all day and melts down when the parents arrive.
2)This usually happens when the child is in control of the parents.
And this happened when I was a nanny and as a daycare provider. Funny, now I have my own two boys (ages 7 and almost 2), they have never acted like this in childcare, but I'm the one on control (and guess what, they are happy well-adjusted kids! 😏
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As a nanny, the family that the children were in control had two girls. The older girl would show her control by telling me that she "just wanted to show me one more thing" and I would be stuck watching her next "show". The mother thought it was adorable (the girl was around 7 at the time). I just wanted to end my shift. After all, I was there for 11 hour days! The mother never once took control, or tried to stop it. More than once, the girl even hung on my car.... 😳
Now, here I am older and wiser. Ha!
I now provide childcare in my home. I'm in the same boat with two siblings and then another family, who has one boy.
With the two siblings, they scream at their parents. They don't really do anything to me and the parents do get them dressed to leave...So, it doesn't really hinder me, although I am appalled by the behavior. but, they know I don't tolerate that behavior here, so up until the parents leave they act like this and when they return, they act like this. No wonder the mother told me she could never stay home with her kids...
Again, the parents get them out the door quickly, so I just watch the circus show (they are my last family of the day).
The older child is also allowed to interrupt constantly... The children are both great here though.
And the one other child doesn't scream or cry, but he dumps toys, throws tables over, etc... Anything he can knock over, he will try.
The mother doesn't reprimand him, or make him clean it up.
She just laughs and says, "what a jerk". And we are talking about highly educated people here... 😏
So, I now tell him, we aren't going to dump anything when your mother arrives and he usually listens. To stop the behavior I had to be the one to pick him up and tell him no and hand him over to his mother though.
This ties into being older. I don't have the time to deal with nonsense anymore, or really care what people think of me. They should be embarrassed for putting me in that situation. I wouldn't allow my children to do that....
My children are by no means perfect and I get it to an extent, I have had a lot of experience with different families before having my own. I saw things that made me parent the way I do. I am so grateful for that. My kids know I set the rules and they are truly happy and content. And others say they are very good kids to watch.... I say I don't know why parents would want their kids to run the household, but I do know why (or I can take an educated guess)...
They aren't with them much during the week, so they give into them to make it easy. And the parents are too tired to parent... It is mind boggling really.