Just to give some context-
I’m a former nursery worker myself. I mainly nanny now, but still temp in the same nursery one day a week through an agency for extra income.
I’d not come across this woman before but she works at the same agency, seems she’s been at the nursery a lot just not when I’ve been there.
Child in question is whinging a little bit but only because it was his turn with a particular toy and the other boy wasn’t giving it up. She said ‘Benji (not real name obviously) get over it love! Your whining is going to give me an earache!’ She said it fairly loudly and brusquely.
I tried to catch the other nursery worker’s eye as it made me look up sharply from what I was doing as I’m just not used to hearing the children being spoken to like that. They are only 2-3 years in age. However she kept her head down but then she’s only a young trainee.
The worker in question kept asking if the boy ‘just needed a cuddle’ the boy understandably keeps shaking his head and her saying ‘you’re rude’. Same as when he wouldn’t answer a question about his baby sibling, he was told he was rude.
now obviously I only saw a snapshot and nothing else happened apart from her being a bit stricter than what I’m accustomed to in the way she was with the children. But more things like ‘listen to this story sitting cross legged or go and do something else’ sort of thing. Whereas I pick my battles a bit more, if they’re listening but not necessarily sitting in a certain way I’d let it go because they’re little and I like to try and meet them halfway. That might just be different approaches.
Anyway, no management around to speak to yesterday before I left so just debating whether to email, wait and speak in person next week or just wait and see and potentially not do anything. It doesn’t sit right with me but then again it’s nothing major, just an uneasy feeling. I’ve never spoken to a child like that in 15 years of working with them. I’m a mum to a little boy of that age too and maybe it’s just clouding things a bit imagining him being spoken to like that by someone. I have worked with the boy in question lots of times and he’s not badly behaved or challenging in the slightest, just perhaps quite sensitive and doesn’t have too many words yet to express himself.
just wondering if I’m being a bit silly really and if not, what to do about it.