My DS (2.6) attends nursery two mornings a week. He has been doing this since January.
We've had the usual and expected teething troubles. Some days he has been upset at being left, others less so. Some days he is a bit wild and gets put in time out for pushing and snatching, others not. Last week his behaviour was apparently good and he came home with a gold star sticker. He was calm and happy and they seemed pleased with him. I asked for a progress report after 4 weeks and while they did comment that he was a bit more challenging than some of the other children in terms of sharing/snatching etc, overall the feeling was that he'd settled in well for a child who was only doing two mornings a week. I have always backed them up when he has been put in time out for unacceptable behaviour and have always talked to him about it afterwards. I know he can be difficult at times, so I'm certainly not taking the 'oh no, surely not from my little angel' line. Far from it. I'm well aware of the fact that he often needs a lot of supervision and can appreciate that from a nursery POV that can be tricky.
It's a small nursery - two staff both in their 20s and the owner, a lady who had no previous professional experience of childcare until she decided to start up the nursery last summer. The two younger staff are always frank with me about his behaviour, good and bad, constructive in their comments and generally helpful. They clearly like my DS and accept that toddlers don't just come from one mould and that some present different challenges to others. They also seem to get that just because they are fine one week, doesn't mean that they are going to be completely settled and easy the next week. In the poor kid's defense I should say here that in addition to snatching diggers and running round a bit manically he also does lovely drawings, listens to stories, makes me crafty things and plays nicely - all of which has been reported back to me by the two staff - and for the most part he looks like his usual jolly little self when I collect him.
My issue is with the owner, who frequently answers the door to me looking like a woman on the edge, and without even a hello launches in to "He pushed another child!", "He doesn't stop moving! He's so energetic he needs one on one attention", "I do have 8 other children here you know. I have their parents to think of". "He needs to learn how to interact more calmly with other kids! It's crazy!". I always take on board what she says and agree that my son is at a point where he needs to learn how to interact with his peers in a less crazy way BUT BUT BUT she is meant to be a childcare professional, isn't she? I am starting to find her comments and negativity grating, and wonder if I would now be justified in saying "Yes, he can be quite challenging and I fully support the structures you have in place for disciplining him, but ultimately I am paying you for childcare as a professional nursery and you need to either be able to manage him or tell me you don't want him here because you find him too disruptive." From the way she acts you'd think she'd never met another 2 year old who didn;t just do as he's told and I think this is her problem ratbher than mine.
Basically, I guess what I'm asking is am I being too sensitive or is she just unprofessional? I am trying to disengage my frustrations with her from my opinion of the nursery, but that's getting increasingly hard. I certainly don't want to disrupt his 'routine' unless I think he's unhappy there, and overall I don't. But as much as I like the other staff her comments and manner are slowly making me lose confidence in the place and I am worried that she is labelling my DS as a problem child when really the problem is that she has unrealistic ideas about what professional child care involves.
Thoughts please? I'm thinking myself into a stupor over this one and want very much to remain objective for my DS's sake.
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How would you react to/interpret these comments from nursery owner?
15 replies
BR44 · 19/03/2013 14:25
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TheSecondComing ·
19/03/2013 15:01
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TheSecondComing ·
19/03/2013 16:07
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TheSecondComing ·
19/03/2013 19:49
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