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?

I assume the manager knows it is a safeguarding issue to undress a child as punishment and so I would be very suspicious if a manager's account of what happens is different from staff.

@EvenLess Thanks, that's good to hear that you've got the ball rolling.

To be honest, it sounds like it could have been done in a fit of temper by the member of staff because it seems totally irrational. The only way I can see it happening is if they snapped and went "right! dress off now!"
or something because as a punishment it makes zero sense. Not an excuse, and not any less concerning, but shows that maybe the member of staff can't deal with challenging behaviour and needs further training, stress management help...or a change of career!

Bizarre and wildly inappropriate. Removing a child’s clothing as punishment is utterly ridiculous. It is 100% a safeguarding issue - not because she was unsafe in the moment, but because it’s teaching her that being told to remove your clothing as a punishment is ok. I would make an official complaint along those lines and consider copying it to the LA and Ofsted.

Quite apart from the nature of the punishment, your daughter has been through huge emotional upheaval, as you say she’s entirely emotionally unregulated at the moment. You can’t punish that behaviour out of a child, and you need a setting which understands that. (This is different to, for instance “I’m not going to let you have these blocks because you throw them and that’s not safe”).

Oh come off it - not if she was dressed again in other (more boring) clothes.
Look at prisoners - they don't get to wear the clothes of their choice as part of their punishment but they are not forced to walk about naked. It's not humiliation, it's a removal of privileges.

You're getting some odd replies. It’s not ok and I’d want a clear account of what happened. If you’d posted saying you’d done this as a key worker and thought the parent was wrongly upset, all the same people would be tearing you a new one.

I agree with you.

I'd like to say I'm surprised that there are people on this thread minimising this, but sadly I'm not!

Even if you don't think it's a concerning incident (though FWIW I think it's very clearly hugely inappropriate), it's a totally rubbish consequence for bad behaviour. I'd not be leaving my child to be looked after by people who clearly have poor knowledge and skills in managing children. Never mind the actual nature of the incident which is bad enough imo.

With regards to the differing stories, the fact that her key worker herself said she was unclothed for a while would tell me that that's the truth of the matter tbh. Vile. I'd be spitting feathers.

You really thought prisoners were a reasonable comparison to a child?

And this thread is why we need to do so much work on safeguarding. Many many posters ready to accuse OP of being over sensitive.

It’s not ok to remove children’s clothes as a punishment.
It’s not nursery equipment, it’s personal clothing.
It’s not a prison, it’s a nursery, and the child isn’t a criminal.

She's a 3 year old - taking her costume off her isn't going to make her understand and it just seems like an adult being petty, I woudn't be happy at all about that. Consequences need to be relevant and something that the child can understand.

They removed a fancy dress item. It's a bit like removing the privilege of removing a toy If they can't behave.

A top less child aged 3 os neither hear nor there imo

They wouldn't have realised she didn't have a vest in until after they had taken it off

Disciplining children is a minefield. Sometimes you get it right sometimes it's a bit off but if it helps your daughter to behave then all good

I had my clothes removed at a nursery aged 4 for ‘misbehaving’ this was in the 60s. I remember it to this day. It was humiliating and I didn’t understand why they did it. I would have hoped we had moved on from treating children like this since then.

I think it's an odd consequence unless the behaviour was related to the costume eg she was 'being a cat' by biting and scratching other children, then I can see why a staff member might give a warning, then say ok no more being a cat for today and change the clothing. If it's not related it doesn't seem effective in any kind of behavioural learning way.

I think your past is colouring your view and the type of inappropriateness though

Were your clothes actually removed, or were you changed into a different outfit? This seems to be the case here. The child was not left without clothes.

Apparently it was a dressing up day, the child misbehaved and the consequence was that she couldn't join in with the dressing up.

I can't see where all the outrage is coming from.

WTAF?! Please have a serious think about your comparison. This is a nusery.....for little children. Really hoping you do not work with children, in any capacity. Also, even if there was no intention to cause humiliation, I imagine it was very distressing for this little girl.

It’s an inappropriate punishment on so many levels, most importantly as you say safeguarding, it doesn’t match the meeting you agreed on and how it will stop her pushing again is anyones guess. I would remove her immediately and report

Read the OPs posts properly @Tonia16

The child's own keyworker reports she was left to wander around topless. As a professional, I'd believe the keyworker over the manager who will be in damage limitation mode, this is all very within the boundaries of what meets a cause for concern in terms of Child Protection and it will be the manager who will be the person most affected by any procedures.

Also, it was not a dressing up activity. OP has clarified that. It was the outfit the child had been sent in for the day. She wasn't being taken out of a dress up activity that the nursery were doing at that point. There was none.

She was taken out of the dress she'd been sent in wearing as her clothing for that day. It just happened to be that dress was a fancy dress costume.

You can minimise all you like, and I hope to God you don't work with children, but the fact remains - this is not appropriate in a childcare or educational setting. It goes against everything we are taught in teacher training and ongoing professional development in keeping children safe in education. It's professional misconduct.

It’s an odd thing to do by the nursery and seems very ‘power tripping’ if it was supposed to be a punishment. I’m not sure I would move her elsewhere over it though particularly as you’ve all had a rough year and a change might unsettle her further.

Obviously the nursery manager realises they are going to get into shit for this, and lied to you.

Key worker naively told the truth.

If this is how they treat your daughter, are you not starting to wonder if this is at least part of the cause of her behavioural issues?

Who knows what else goes on that you don’t know about.

I am now emailing different childminders, just to see what is available locally. I am worried that the change will unsettle her again, but I feel I need to at least look into what's out there. Some people's responses have been very odd (particularly the comparison to prisoners...) but I'm very grateful for the good advice I've received.

At the end of the day, like any parent, I want my daughter to be happy and safe, and to know I can trust those looking after her when she's not in my care.

We’re they allowed / encourage to wear Halloween outfits?

was she walking about without a top on because she wouldn’t put the new top on? Was she offered a new top immediately?

I would change nurseries because even if she had a top underneath removing a child's dress as "punishment" is a completely age inappropriate way to deal with a small child. Wtf

Wishing you all the best with finding somewhere else. It sounds like it's been a tough year for you and this is the last thing you need 💐

I agree not appropriate. As others have said safeguarding wise I would not want my child being taught that it is okay for someone to remove your clothing if you misbehave. Equally, it seems totally unlogical as a consequence never heard of it as a punishment before and what does it actually teach her in relation to the behaviour that was undesired?! You would never do this with normal clothes as a punishment. Just seems to have been done to do 'something', and to assert their control. Had perhaps there been bickering over it with another child then it is her property so can't see why that would be a reason to. Very odd and I would not feel comfortable with my child remaining there when they clearly cannot manage appropriate strategies for behaviour.

I have worked in the NHS for decades and have had safeguarding training more or less throughout my career.
It is quite shocking how many otherwise supposedly educated people (parents) from all walks of life have absolutely no understanding of safeguarding. (Or first aid, which is another area of great concern to me).