Anonymous wrote:This is him responding to school starting. Have you cared for a new kindergartener before? It is ROUGH! The schedule is really intense and especially for active kids it is a lot of rules and expectations and not enough movement.
Figure out what he needs most. One boy I cared for was worn out and needed to sit on my lap quietly for 20 minutes (he was a "touch" love language kid 100%), another girl needed to play with toys alone for 20 minutes (classic introvert), another girl was starving and needed a snack right away, another kid needed to have some rough play/physical outlet, so we would go outside for 20 minutes and get really wild.
Figure out what he needs and do THAT before starting rest time. Then, follow PP's advice and explain that a) rest time is happening, b) it starts when he is on his bed and quiet, c) if he won't stay on his bed or won't be quiet then the clock starts over. I would say something like "how would you like to spend your time? You can run around and yell right now, but will still have rest time after and will miss out on playing X with us later, OR you can rest queitly and then you will have 2 whole hours to choose what to play."
Not op, but I just started with a 3 and 6 year old and this makes SO much sense.
I have never considered applying love languages to this job but rather focused on it with my partner.
You sound like a superb nanny!