Really concerned about incident at nursery

[EvenLess]

Hello, I posted a thread a few weeks ago about DD (nearly 4) and her poor behaviour at nursery. I went in and met them, and we agreed some behaviour management strategies. Her behaviour at home is much better than it was a few months ago after a difficult start to the year for our family (bereavement, inquest into my DF's death, redundancy and more...). We've been working hard on emotional regulation.

DD was misbehaving and hitting/pushing other children - I am not excusing this, I continue to make clear our expectations of her behaviour and have spoken to her about this. However, the nursery decided to punish her by removing the Halloween dress my husband allowed her to wear to nursery that day... And she had no top underneath. I have heard 2 different stories about whether she was immediately dressed in her spare clothes or was going around topless. She did have her leggings on.

I'm really unhappy- I don't want her hitting others, but this seems humiliating and not a good message to her from a safeguarding perspective. I have told nursery I never want this to happen again, and have rung the HV for advice, who was also concerned. What would you do? I'm about to start a new job. Do I take her out of the nursery and keep her at home?

@Tonia16 it's the message it could give to her- that an adult has the right to take her clothes off, if she behaves badly. Do I need to spell that out to you?

I'm really sorry you had such an awful experience as a child, but I think it's colouring your views here. It doesn't sound like the staff said "you aren't allowed to wear a top" as a punishment. They said she couldn't wear a costume, which may or may not be ok with you, but I expect they were surprised to find in late autumn that she wasn't wearing any layers underneath. There is nothing inherently humiliating in a 3 year old not wearing a top for a while until the staff member has a chance to fish one out of a bag.

I think regardless of the ins & outs of it, it's an incredibly weird punishment and I'd be reconsidering the nursery as a whole for nothing more than that. I don't want my child being looked after by people with such odd thought processes.

@SummerInSun it probably is affecting my perception. That being said, I don't think I can be too careful about my DD's safety (not just now, but in the messages she absorbs for the future around consent).

The clue is in the word 'could.' As I said, it's highly unlikely to give her any underlying message. She's too young for that.

If you're not happy then you are free to choose a different nursery.

I agree removing a child's clothing regardless of what the clothing was is not a suitable punishment

I think you are overreacting, you would be better working with the nursery, especially as you have said that her behaviour is causing concern.

@Tonia16 as explained above, I am working with them. I want us to work together to improve things for DD, who is very happy to go there each day. That doesn't mean I have to agree with them about 100% of things that go on there.

Some crazy responses on here.

I've been teaching for 20 years.

There are no circumstances in which it's acceptable to remove a child's clothing as a punishment for bad behaviour.

None.

Especially if said child was left partly naked.

Nothing to do with sexualisation. It's humilating. It's cold. It is in no way meeting a child's needs, nor is it likely to result in an improvement in behaviour.

It's a BIZARRE punishment in this day and age, fancy dress costume or not.

If it was me, and it flipping well wouldn't be, I would expect a disciplinary over this. I wouldn't be surprised if I lost my job. The member of staff needs to be taken aside and spoken to, given a verbal warning at the very least. I would report this if it were a colleague, as it's poor practice and concerning.

If it's minimised, as a parent, I'd pull her out and send her elsewhere.

Did the nursery say they took the dress off her because she had been misbehaving or is that your daughters account??
As you have wrote that this is what your daughter said?

If this is what your daughter said... they may have took her fancy dress costume off and put spare clothes on her because it wasn't a fancy dress costume day and your daughter thought it was because she had been misbehaving?

The nursery said it was a consequence for her bad behaviour.

Removing her Halloween outfit for 'bad behaviour' is awful and a massive red flag. I would be really concerned (sorry that is probably not want to hear). I can't believe they did that to her.

@All2Well so pleased you've said this. The responses on this have baffled me. It's so wildly inappropriate.

Even if you park the red flag element you have described, it's a totally bizarre punishment. Unless she was hurting herself or another child with the dress, it's hard to see how there's a link between her behaviour and consequently having the dress removed. I'm sorry you went through what you did as a child OP, that must have been awful. But I don't think this is causing you to overreact in this case, it's really strange that the nursery staff this was appropriate IF her behaviour was totally unrelated to the dress

Thank you- I think my past experiences have led me to wonder if I am overreacting, but I think my instincts are right on this one. I don't think there are any other nurseries around here with space atm, so I'm thinking I'm going to have to turn this job down and go back to being a SAHM until next year. I really don't want to 😢 but I've totally lost trust in them now.

I don't understand people thinking this is ok - if as an adult I am mean, unkind with words, hurt people's feelings, push them out the way or deliberately hurt someone, there are a myriad of punishments that I could receive and not one of them involves removing any item of my clothing. So I see zero reason why we would do it to a child (with much more limited understanding than an adult, and who clearly needs strategies to help her connect her behaviour to the impact on people around her, not punishments). And I say that as a parent of a child who has both been bitten at nursery and who has bitten others.

OP, I'd expect the nursery to be putting strategies into place to support your DD in expressing her feelings in an appropriate way, ones that you can mirror at home. If she is so unsafe that she can't be around other children without hurting them, I'd expect some pretty sharpish escalation for help to the HV and their SENCO (and I'm assuming that's not the case here as you've described it). I'd also expect them to be doing small group work with her to better express herself (is it a language barrier, a sensory issue, is she struggling to understand how other children feel when she hits or pushes, etc)

I don't think this sounds like a very good nursery - I'd be looking at another nursery personally.

The nursery said it was a consequence for her bad behaviour

@EvenLess

In that case, as they've admitted they think it's an appropriate punishment to remove clothing for unrelated bad behaviour, get her the hell out of there.

And report it.

There's something very off and naive at best if they don't realise the danger this sort of message gives to children.

FFS they'll have done Child Protection training regularly. They must be insane to think this is ok. From a professional perspective, I'm gobsmacked.

Removing clothing for bad behaviour is not appropriate
sitting quietly somewhere or by an adult to calm down yes
if that’s the reason they are sticking to find another setting

@EvenLess Are there any childminders locally? or a mix of pre-school and child minder?

You aren't over reacting. Trust your gut. And please report it.

That is completely inappropriate on so many levels I don't know where to start. I would consider that to be a safeguarding issue and would report it as such.
I don't know who is responsible for nurseries, whether it is CQC or Ofsted or someone else, but removing a child's clothing as a punishment is a huge red flag.

No it’s not appropriate and its very odd. Who agreed that as a punishment? The room supervisor? It’s also completely nonsensical for a child as there’s no connection between the two.

To all who have said report it, I will be. I have already spoken to the HV, who wanted the name of the nursery. And I'll be ringing up the safeguarding people at the council.

This is really upsetting OP and it also makes me worry about other 'punishments' they are using. Also, nuseries should not be using 'punishment'. And that's what it is. It is not a consequence.

I can’t even begin to understand why you’d punish a child by taking off their Halloween outfit. OP, I’d be looking for new child care just for that.

That is outrageous, a completely inappropriate response to the behaviour. It is their job to manager her behaviour. My DD is 3 and can push. They now understand what is a trigger point for her lashing out, remove her from being able to do it and discuss the emotions involved.