Would this comment heard in a nursery concern you

Erm...what a strange reply. No, she didn't say it to my toddler however my toddler is a a child in nursery and I gave my opinion on what I would think if it was my toddler she was saying it to.

Exactly! But you know it’s all about shit behaviour being acceptable these days. Instead of focusing on the naughty child let’s focus on this.

and you are complaining that they were making a threat?
yet the bad behaviour was throwing a fork!

this is unbelievable.
dont let your offspring throw cutlery

Completely agree

why on earth was a fork being thrown!

There are so many of these threads where mums who rushed back to work asap because they found full time parenting so tedious and stressful, then expect serene perfection from young working class women being paid less than a Lidl cashier to spend an entire day in one room with 20 toddlers.
Complaints that they snapped at my child, they shouted, they emotionally manipulated my child by saying their behaviour made adults feel sad, they didn't stop another feral toddler biting child etc etc.
Nursery workers are human at the end of the day. How many parents can say they never raised their voice or became irritable with their child and that was with only a couple of children that you love.

If that was all they said it sounds like a threat. If the sentence continued it depends what else was said. My three year old waves her fork around at mealtimes. We tell her to stop, it's dangerous, if it hits someone it will hurt. If she doesn't stop I will often say "if you wave your fork around again I will take it off you and feed you like a baby/you won't be able to eat anymore (depending how much she's actually eaten and whether she's clearly waving it around because she's eaten enough and is bored)". She usually does do it again and the fork is removed.

Could be tone and eye contact to let the child know it wasn't acceptable? It would concern me if I'm honest, but then repeatedly throwing a fork is not great behaviour which needs to be resolved, I'm assuming it will be a child who has generally poor behaviour

hmm am almost on the fence. How did you hear this. Am thinking sometimes they are just at the end of there tether that day. we all cant be st theresa everyday. also we think its horrible for her to say this until sweet little jimmy throws the folk at our lovely little chloe then its all "my dc came home with an injury caused by a boy throwing folks and I have reported nursery to police because they didnt stop this assault. aibu?".
so yeah its not always easy
do i wish nursery worker hadnt said this? of course. but i also wish it qas always easy for them

It’s not ideal, but it’s the sort of thing said by someone who is feeling stressed. Possibly could do with some extra support/training.

Yes, I worked in nurseries for years.

We would have finished the sentence with saying the fork would be taken away or they would need to leave the table for 5 mins to go and sit in the calm area.

It is absolutely unprofessional to not finish the sentence and leave the poor child wondering what will happen. You also never know whether other children around have come from abusive homes etc.

I find nothing wrong with that wording. It would not concern me in the slightest.

Well quite. They’re human, not Mary Poppins. Welcome to the reality of nurseries

What happened next?

Throw that at me one more time and I’ll take it away as you clearly don’t want it strikes me as a perfectly reasonable comment.

Staff member was irritable at having cutlery thrown.

Not ideal language but no it wouldn't concern me.

Me too so I'd take it off the child rather than issuing a weird threat that they're probably too young to understand

It would worry me yes, first of all as it's threatening but they're not exactly going to follow through with any threats while at work and second of all, it's confusing - toddlers don't understand sarcasm and 'I dare you' so they might take it literally.
No throwing, keep our forks in hands or on the table /taking fork off child

It wouldn't particularly bother me, and if it was my child I would mainly be horrified that they would throw a fork at someone. It's possible that the staff member had already encountered the fork throwing by the same child during the same meal and already explained what would happen. It's not the best way to phrase it of course, but some children exhibit extremely challenging behaviour and perhaps they were just really stressed,

Yes. That would absolutely concern me and needs reporting. Poor little child.

Definitely not on

But she didn't say it to your toddler.

She was unprofessional not to explain what the consequence would be.

That said on its own is not appropriate at all. It does sound like a threat.

“Throw that one more time and I will have to remove” etc would not be so bad if said in a calm tone.

It sounds like the staff member was getting frustrated at having a fork thrown at them. They should still respond appropriately though and should be supported by other staff to manage it effectively if they are not able to.

I am not excusing the behaviour whatsoever but it is very very hard working with children’s behaviours these days. Staff are overworked and underpaid and are frequently left to deal with increasingly difficult children without proper training and support.

It depends. If you overheard 'if you throw that at me one more time' but didn't hear the remainder 'your mealtime will be finished' then it could perhaps be appropriate. But if that's all that was said, that sounds like a threat. As in don't you dare throw that at me one more time or you won't like the consequences. That's really not acceptable for a childcare worker to be taking out frustration and anger on a child. It isn't a helpful way to manage difficult, age appropriate behaviours.

In what context did you hear this? It's impossible really to advise without knowing. Are you another member of staff? A parent that walked by? Someone else?

Well I mean throwing a fork at someone is pretty awful behaviour, I'd be more worried about nearby adults and children getting hurt by a flying fork tbh.

To be honest, my toddler wouldn't think too deeply about what the rest of the sentence may or may not be, she'd simply know she was in trouble and hopefully stop. Then focus on the next thing that she's concentrating on.