Ok so I quit my job of 10yrs to open a in-home daycare so I would be able to stay at home with my kids. I've been doing this for 3yrs now and my own kids are driving me insane!!!!!! I have girl 10 and boy 9 and they fight NON STOP!!!!! Every morning it's like a whine fest when I wake them up, one has to irritate the other and then the whining and bickering starts. It's constant all morning, "she's looking at me!" "he touched me!" WHA WHA WHA WHA!!!!!!! And they do this in front of my daycare parents too! It drives me absolutely nuts! Then in the afternoon it's the same drama when they get off the bus!!! I have 7 dck 12 months - 3yrs and combined they don't fight and whine as much as my own kids do!!!! It's really making me rethink doing this or sending them to before and after school care! It makes me so short temper in the morning and afternoon, when they aren't here I am fine! I don't know what to do anymore, I feel like I am constantly yelling at them (which I am) but I don't want to be like that in front of the daycare kids! And I feel like when my daycare parents see them acting like that then they think if I can't control my own kids how can I control theirs! HELP!!!!!!!!!!!!

Reply

I'm having the same problem with my 7 year old daughter!!! I am so mad at her right now to the point I didn't even kiss her goodbye before school today! I too am questioning if it's worthy to continue to do all the sacrifices I do keeping the daycare working : the only reason I'm doing daycare is so she can stay home after school and during school breaks... but when I can no longer tolerate her behavior in my daycare, why keep struggling with the daycare??? Just really frustrated right now!!!

Reply

At the risk of getting slammed here I am going to say that I would send them to their rooms, every.single.time. They are not toddlers or preschoolers, but kids who are old enough to know better. They are behaving that way because you are allowing it.
I know how hard it is, because I have two school aged kids also. You get caught up in everything you are trying to do that stopping/correcting behavior can feel like ONE more thing. I might even tell them "I've noticed that we've had some bickering and poor behavior(arguing, fighting, etc). From now on, you will go to your rooms during dc pick up time, and any other time you are fighting, bickering, etc. If you give me a hard time over this, there will be a loss of priviliages (hit them where it hurts here - no video games, computer, phone, etc.) if you can not play nicely, talk nicely, etc. this is what will happen." Stop yelling, which you know isn't effective and just escalates a bad situation. I will say that you are right that dc parents will get a bad impression if they see your kids behaving poorly, especially older kids who can do some damage if their fights get physical

And at the risk of getting slammed again, I do like 1-2-3 Magic for older kids. I also tend to be an ineffective "yeller" with my kids and I like that this takes the emotion out of the issue. I say older kids because typically we have already talked about our behavior expectations and they *know* they are on thin ice. I also love "how to talk so kids will listen and listen so kids will talk."

I also want to be clear that even though they are older I would be making sure to praise them when they are being nice to each other, not whining, etc. I would try to make sure I was spending good quality time with each of them when dc was over - just like with toddlers poor behavior by older children can be a cry for attention. So make sure they are getting plenty of positive attention throughout the day
Good Luck!

Reply

I do send them to their rooms when this goes on but they just scream from their rooms. My daughter has a shreak that can shatter glass and I honestly cant remember the last time she didn't whine about something.........it's everything I think her natural voice tone is whine! LOL My dck's start getting here around 6:45am my own kids don't get up until 8am (god help me if I had to wake them up a second earlier) from the moment I get them up it's whining, then they start banging on the wall that divides their room just to annoy the other one. When I get them up I start an activity with the dck's so that they are busy while I deal with the drama. From 8am - 8:45am it's non-stop fighting and whining, pushing, hitting, drama drama drama!!!! I have to play referee in the hallway so no one touches anyone, same with the kitchen, same with the bathroom (we have 2 and they use seperate ones and still bicker) I do this every morning for 45 minutes! They have my complete attention! Then once 8:45 hits and I kick them out the door to the bus it's peaceful until 3:45 when they get home. They fight the whole way from the bus to the house, pushing eachother cause one has to be first, then when they get in the house they drop everything on the floor, whining cause they are starving, then they have to whine cause one touched the other when they were at the refrigerator, it's a fight to get homework started, then they whine cause they don't want to do homework, whine whine whine whine whine! I swear I could tolorate the fighting it's the whining that like fingernails down a chalk board and it's constant ALL the time it's like they don't know how to speak w/o whining!!!! I've decided that when the daycare kids lay down for a nap today I am collecting all the electronics and all the power plugs on their tv's and computers. And they are going to be forced to get along with each other or they will just sit in their rooms and stare at the walls! They will have this fresh new toy called OUTSIDE!!!!!!!!!!!! I grew up with 3 brothers and didn't act like this! (I asked my Mom and she told me I wasn't ever this bad LOL) I've tried spanking, that doesn't work, I tired yelling, doesn't work, I tried talking to them in a calm voice, doesn't work, I've sent them to their rooms, doesn't work, I've in the past taken things away and they have driving me so insane that I've just given it back just to get them out of my hair! But today I am going to start sending them outside! Let them drive the neighbors crazy!

Reply

My kids have been known to use the fact that I am busy with daycare kids to their advantage. They even told me to my face "No" or walk VERY SLOWLY because I was in the other room and could not "make" them move or do what I asked. Umm...that changed REALLY FAST! I took away every privilege...I mean everything! We started on the weekend. TV is a privilege, so is free time of any sort. I told them if they did not stop arguing with each other and with me this would never change and if I went back to work they would be in a center instead of at home with their stuff so....choose wisely.

Things are much better now. If they behave appropriately then the EARN free time or privileges. If not...better watch out! I will make things very uncomfortable. They will occasionally argue, but all I have to do is ask them if they are making a wise choice for them to realize a weekend/evening of hell is coming if they don't shape up!!

Reply

I have a 9 yr DD and while she doesn't do what you are describing we have had our moments lol. Number 1 rule for me was don't back down! If you take away something and they make you so crazy that you give in you have just shown them that you don't always mean what you say! Take away privileges!! Favorite snacks, tv time, computer time, favorite toys. They have to earn these things back with good behavior, make them work for it! Don't just do it for a short time, take them for a week and show them you mean business! In the long run they will see that you follow through and they will learn fast

Reply

Yup! One day I saw my dd not behaving at the bus stop. I got all the dc kids secured (littles in the stroller and big kids on the front stoop), and walked over to her. The first thing she said to me? "You can't leave the DC kids!" So she KNEW that I was probably busy with them and was doing it on purpose! She spent the afternoon in her room, after I had taken out all her toys, books and radio.

Not in MY house!

If your DD is still screeching in her room then the time has come to remove all privilages until she can show you she can earn them. In my school district that kind of fighting/behavior at the bus stop can get kids banned from the bus, so I would want to work very hard to end it or I would be responsible for driving them to school each day.

Reply

Sorry but NEVER let your child walk out the door without a kiss. You may end up regretting that decision someday. I don't care how upset I am with my kids I ALWAYS let them know they are loved and never withhold affection because I'm "mad" at them.

How would you feel if she never came home again???????

Reply

Luckily our bus stop is right at my house but this morning I made one sit at the end of our sidewalk on the steps and the other had to sit on our front porch until the bus stopped at our house. Also I told them the little girl up the street is first until they start behaving (usually they all take turns being first) The bus driver knows us so she knows they are brother/sister instead of just random kids fighting and they don't throw punches they just push eachother so they can be first. I'm so glad that my kids aren't the only obnoxious ones in the world! I try and talk to my SHM gf's about it and of course all their kids are little angels!

Reply

I worked for a provider that started her daycare at least 5 years before she had her own children and when she did have her kids (when they were about preschool age) she would take them to another local provider's program for a few hours (I think it was a friend of hers) even though she did have a preschool program. She did this so that way her kids will learn to become more independent and less clingy about "sharing" mom during daycare hours which would distract her from taking care of the other children. She could also make up the difference of paying for daycare by filling in the extra spot she had.

It is very common for brothers and sisters to bicker. My younger brother and I fought all the time too and I had to watch him constantly because my mom would work atll the time. Some times it is because they dont get enough privacy or personal activities. Maybe look into getting them into some type of after school program/club/sport that fits there interests like baseball/softball, soccor, karate, theater, poetry, nature walking/hiking. Some times they just need a little space away from each other to persue their interests to help mellow them out a bit.

Reply

Both play soccer all year round, currently playing basketball as well and they both belong to Scouts..........all of which is their choice so every night we are running to a different activity. I would love to drop one but they love their sports and scouts!

Reply

My mother raised me and my siblings along side foster children so although not daycare, it was similar since we had kids in our house all the time.

My mother ALWAYS had a rule that if she heard us fighting/bickering, she would say "Head out the door or pick a chore" meaning that we were to take it outside and figure it out ourselves or we had to pick a chore from a list of pre-written chores she had made for us.

The chores were awful ones too like scrubbing the bathroom from top to bottom, stacking firewood, vacuuming the whole house, doing laundry, cleaning out the litter box etc.....

We RARELY fought in her presence.

I am REALLY good at cleaning bathrooms and stacking fire wood

Reply

I forgot about the power plugs LOL my boys lost those alot. I even had this plastic box I locked around the plug for the tv.. The were outdoors alot


by the way as adults they are great friends it passed. luckily they were 3 years apart so that helped.

Reply

LOL I LOVE THIS!!!!!!!!!

I could totally do this! They have their own bathroom that is also the daycare bathroom and it needs to be cleaned daily! My son loves to vacuum so that isn't really a chore but we have 3 dogs that don't get a walk during the day so they poo outside on the family side of the yard so there is plenty of poo to clean up each day!!!! I am totally stealing this!!!!!

Reply