A situation has arisen at DS2's nursery and I am really unsure how best to approach it, and wondered if anyone has any advice??! I'm really sorry if this is long!!
DS2 is at a nursery attached to DS1's prep school. The nursery is divided into 4 rooms by age, and DS2 is in the toddler room. The girls in his room are excellent, energetic, positive and very warm. However, on 3 occasions now I have witnesses behaviour from staff in the baby room (for the youngest children, aged 3 months to about 20 months) which has made me really uncomfortable.
In short, I have seen crying infants either shouted at or ignored when they are clearly distressed and in need of comfort.
On the first occasion a baby of around 1 was sitting in a highchair at dinner time crying. A senior member of the nursery staff glared at the little girl and 'shooshed' her quite aggressively, and told her to be quiet. When she saw me watching she tried to turn it into a light-hearted 'what are you like' sort of thing, but her manner with the child was really unpleasant.
The 2nd time, all the children were in the nursery garden and a little boy of around 10 months was sitting on the ground by himself crying quite hard. 4 or 5 members of staff were standing near him just looking at him and making no attempt to comfort him or interest him in something. Only when one of the girls from DS2's room came outside, did she pick him up and try and engage him.
On the third occasion (this morning) I was dropping off DS2 and there were two little boys crying in the baby room (just beside the doorway) A member of staff was standing on the other side of the room and shouted at them quite loudly to 'be quiet'. Now these kids were quite little (about 1?) and were obviously distressed at being left by their parents.
I appreciate that staff cant always drop everything, or pick up a child every time they cry, but the response to their distress was just so cold! They weren't being 'naughty' on any of these occasion, so telling them off / ignoring them just seemed like a completely inappropriate response.
I should just say that I am not a parent who panders to tantrums or carry-on's but surely the staff in a baby room especially should be looking at comforting / distracting the children in their care not just telling them to shut it??!
I've requested a meeting with the nursery manager this afternoon to let him know what I've seen, as after this morning I just felt terrible for the children. The two little boys were hanging over the baby gate in floods, holding their wee comforters and nobody seemed to give a stuff about them :(
So the question is, how do I discuss this with him without seeming like the nightmare interfering parent?? Im not looking for anyone to get a bollocking but the attitude in the room definitely needs addressed?
Hoping someone can offer some words of wisdom?
Please or to access all these features
Please
or
to access all these features
Find nursery advice from other Mumsnetters on our Nursery forum.
Nurseries
How to handle this?
11 replies
Allthelittlefoxes · 19/05/2014 11:42
OP posts:
Please create an account
To comment on this thread you need to create a Mumsnet account.