I have been working for about a month now at a daycare center. I am the teacher for the preschool/pre-k class which has about 20-odd kids. My ds is in the older toddler class. I have his teacher's dd in my class (she is 2 almost three) and she has my ds in hers (he will turn 2 next week). I like her and I want us to have a good rapport since we spend 10 hours a day with each other's kids.
Yesterday during naptime I was just coming from my lunch break, and my assistant was getting ready to go on hers. We were standing by the cubbies about a room's length away from the (mostly) sleeping children. Ds' teacher's dd (I'll call her A) was still awake, which is not unusual for her, and so were a couple other kids, all several cots away from each other, and all pretty much quiet but fidgety. I had my back turned to the children for a moment because the other teacher was handing me some papers that needed to be filed in their cubbies, and showing me which cubbies were left to be organized, etc. At that moment, A's mom happened to come out of her classroom and walk past her dd's cot and I hear her say, "you need to be watching your kids better because I don't like what I just saw." Another little boy, almost 5 years old and much bigger and stronger than her petite dd, was on top of her, kissing her on the mouth. I guess my initial reaction coupled with hers was enough to let him know he had crossed a line because he ran to his cot crying. This little boy has a looooong history of being physically inappropriate, but it has always been aggressive behaviors or invasions of people's space (like knocking over someone's water cup, sitting in their chair). This is the first time anything like this ever happened.
Anyway, I brought it up to my boss, who played it down, telling me that he could have seen it on TV or at home and was just imitating what he saw. To a certain extent I agree with her, but to me (and I could be wrong, that's why I'm posting here!) it seems like this little boy is crying out for attention and help in more and more desperate ways. His behavior has gotten more and more out of control to the point that his screaming and aggression sets the tone for the entire class, all day long. I'm worried that next time perhaps he will do something that could be even more traumatic to someone else's child. I feel like he needs help, but that what he needs may be beyond the capacity of our staff to fulfill. even though he has repeatedly kicked and btiten certain staff members, he has not been suspended or asked to leave the center. I find myself just letting him lay on the floor and scream sometimes, because trying to engage/redirect/encourage him ends up with him getting physically aggressive. The directors are ok with me doing this, because I'm pregnant and lord knows they don't want THAT lawsuit if he hurts my baby, but I feel like if it is to that level, then perhaps he needs to be removed. It also seems to me that a HUGE apology is due to that child's mtoher for letting it happen, whether she is a staff member and knows the child's history or not, her dd was upset by what happened and I know I certainly was. I mean, I apologized like 100 times to her; I felt SO bad, even though realistically with all the things that have to be done during naptime, sometimes I do have to take my eyes momentarily off the group (never out of my line of sight though).
Am I being too harsh? Is that reaction overboard? I would love to hear from you more gentle, patient, tolerant mamas (I am feeling short on those qualities these days, maybe the hormones!) on what your reaction would be if this happened to your child, or if your child was the kisser? How would you want it handled? I'm also thinking about this from a parent perspective. If the directors are going to handle these kinds of incident with such laisse-faire attitude, maybe I don't want my child there either. I would be livid if someone assaulted ds and nothing was done about it. For sure, he would not go back to a place where that was tolerated. But like I said, maybe I am overreacting.
Yesterday during naptime I was just coming from my lunch break, and my assistant was getting ready to go on hers. We were standing by the cubbies about a room's length away from the (mostly) sleeping children. Ds' teacher's dd (I'll call her A) was still awake, which is not unusual for her, and so were a couple other kids, all several cots away from each other, and all pretty much quiet but fidgety. I had my back turned to the children for a moment because the other teacher was handing me some papers that needed to be filed in their cubbies, and showing me which cubbies were left to be organized, etc. At that moment, A's mom happened to come out of her classroom and walk past her dd's cot and I hear her say, "you need to be watching your kids better because I don't like what I just saw." Another little boy, almost 5 years old and much bigger and stronger than her petite dd, was on top of her, kissing her on the mouth. I guess my initial reaction coupled with hers was enough to let him know he had crossed a line because he ran to his cot crying. This little boy has a looooong history of being physically inappropriate, but it has always been aggressive behaviors or invasions of people's space (like knocking over someone's water cup, sitting in their chair). This is the first time anything like this ever happened.
Anyway, I brought it up to my boss, who played it down, telling me that he could have seen it on TV or at home and was just imitating what he saw. To a certain extent I agree with her, but to me (and I could be wrong, that's why I'm posting here!) it seems like this little boy is crying out for attention and help in more and more desperate ways. His behavior has gotten more and more out of control to the point that his screaming and aggression sets the tone for the entire class, all day long. I'm worried that next time perhaps he will do something that could be even more traumatic to someone else's child. I feel like he needs help, but that what he needs may be beyond the capacity of our staff to fulfill. even though he has repeatedly kicked and btiten certain staff members, he has not been suspended or asked to leave the center. I find myself just letting him lay on the floor and scream sometimes, because trying to engage/redirect/encourage him ends up with him getting physically aggressive. The directors are ok with me doing this, because I'm pregnant and lord knows they don't want THAT lawsuit if he hurts my baby, but I feel like if it is to that level, then perhaps he needs to be removed. It also seems to me that a HUGE apology is due to that child's mtoher for letting it happen, whether she is a staff member and knows the child's history or not, her dd was upset by what happened and I know I certainly was. I mean, I apologized like 100 times to her; I felt SO bad, even though realistically with all the things that have to be done during naptime, sometimes I do have to take my eyes momentarily off the group (never out of my line of sight though).
Am I being too harsh? Is that reaction overboard? I would love to hear from you more gentle, patient, tolerant mamas (I am feeling short on those qualities these days, maybe the hormones!) on what your reaction would be if this happened to your child, or if your child was the kisser? How would you want it handled? I'm also thinking about this from a parent perspective. If the directors are going to handle these kinds of incident with such laisse-faire attitude, maybe I don't want my child there either. I would be livid if someone assaulted ds and nothing was done about it. For sure, he would not go back to a place where that was tolerated. But like I said, maybe I am overreacting.
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here though. I assumed you'd already talked with him about respecting people's personal space when he'd done stuff before. Have you? And how did that go over?
