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?

Removing clothes as a form of punishment regardless of if another top was put on her is horrific.

And I have worked as an EYP.

Tbh they probably remover her costume because she was the only one wearing one and it saved all the other kids asking about costumes. You are overreacting regardless.

Her behaviour needs sorting, work with them instead of looking for a fight, even if you changed nursery, her behaviour will still be the same.

Sometimes the clothes children have on changes their behaviour. I have often told children to remove their batman outfit for example because you can't be hitting and pushing because they are batman today.
Normally they have other clothes on but if they don't they are re dressed.

When I worked in a nursery the children often really embraced the character they dressed as. Think superheroes jumping around or policemen arresting other children. Maybe your daughter went down the cat route and was meowing in people's faces and scratching them. I could imagine a scenario where she was warned that if she couldn't be a kind cat she couldn't be a cat? Obviously I don't know, but if I were you I would ask about the specific circumstances.

I’d be concerned too. Take her out of there. Absolutely bizarre.

Op it's sounds like an incredibly hard situation.
Personally I would have her at home for a year.
She's struggling and she's also being forced into an institution.
Have her at home whilst you investigation what you think is the matter. She needs the love a parent can give before she's fhe forced into school age 5.

From what we've seen of the child's behaviour, I think the question of whether or not she stays at the nursery is not going to be up to her...

Will your conversation with the nursery concentrate on your desire to work with them to address your daughter’s challenging and harmful behaviour, whilst also covering your concern that their behaviour management policy is not always being followed?

Perhaps you would have more success if you focus on future strategies for managing your daughter’s behaviour, rather than making it all about the punishment and positioning your daughter as the victim.

I genuinely do feel for you both as it sounds as though you’ve been having a really tough time and I understand that you want to help your daughter, but it’s clearly not working quickly enough and other children are being hurt in the meantime. Your daughter’s behaviour is the root issue here.

Oh well done 👏 Do you feel good about yourself now? This is a preschooler we’re talking about.

The justice boner some MNers get for punishing misbehaving kids really is something to behold.

DGD had some similar problems at nursery, but it was the pre-school attached to the primary school. Lots of issues with emotional regulation, getting overwhelmed and acting out, couldn't stand lots of noise etc. Now in Year 1 and things are much improved though not completely resolved. Nursery/School have been brilliant at dealing with her/liasing with mum and dad etc. I think they suspect some SEN which would not surprise me. They certainly never punished her by removing clothes or anything else although she gets 'time out' from time to time to help her calm down. The worst that ever happened was a phone call home to come and collect her early. This nursery don't sound very competent to be honest.

@Jellycats4life.. It's just ignorance pure and simple in its truest sense.

I was a VERY prudish and self aware child who insisted on dressing myself in private from a very young age and even I don't think being topless would have bothered me that much (if they tried to take my pants off HELL would have unleashed).

My toddler constantly undresses herself... just this morning she toddled into the dining room pants less just 15 minutes after I dressed her thinking it was hilarious. Took me an hour and a half to convince her to wear them (she will eventually learn pantsless = chilly lol).

I have more issue with being punished by being excluded from halloween than I do from her possibly having her nipples out.

As a child I had a lot of issues from PTSD to learning difficulties, at that age I could lash out quickly... exclusion like that NEVER helped and only made me far worse. As a kid if you feel like everyone's against you you have no reason to care if you (physically) hurt them like they are (emotionally) hurting you.

The teachers that really helped never excluded me, they made sure to always check I was included (and adjust if I was struggling) and their inclusion made me FAR calmer.

Its almost like bullying children doesn't work but being nice does.

The punishment wasn’t being stripped. The punishment was having the treat of dressing up removed. There is a key difference.

My guess is that they understandably assumed there was something underneath and dressed her immediately. If she ran off she ran off. It is what it is.

Honestly I would be far more bothered about her behaviour than this incident.

How is saying 'I don't want nursery to strip my child as a punishment' excusing a child's behaviour? It's two entirely separate issues.

And three year olds do actually deserve more grace than 30 year olds. A dysregulated three year old may hit and whilst it isn't ideal, it's also well within the bounds of 'normal'.

I agree with all of this.

Perhaps you would have more success if you focus on future strategies for managing your daughter’s behaviour, rather than making it all about the punishment and positioning your daughter as the victim.

Success with what, may I ask? Are you suggesting the OP doesn’t have the right to be upset, and instead should be bowing and scraping to the nursery staff in contrition for her child’s bad behaviour?

They're small kids. A cat dress is a very normal sort of things for a 3 yr old to wear. Barely even dressing up, unless they're normally in uniform or something.

Let’s not frame the behaviour described as normal. It is not.

If they think your daughter's difficulties may be due to SEND, then punishing her at all was iffy and punishing her in this way was particularly stupid. They should have been getting guidance before now about strategies to support her, and should not in effect be punishing her for the effects of a disability. It is particularly daft anyway to impose a punishment which she simply won't relate to the behaviour in question.

I'd be looking seriously for a nursery which is better attuned to providing for children with SEND.

It’s two separate issues that BOTH need addressing. Positioning the child that is going around hitting other kids as the victim is not addressing the root issue.

Another child regularly hitting other children is unsafe and unacceptable. The other three year olds deserve to feel safe at nursery.

It may well be if the nursery are right in believing she has learning difficulties or neurodiversity.

Yanbu - they should not remove clothes (fun or otherwise) as a punishment.

Worse still is the inconsistency between staff accounts. One of them must be lying.

Find a new nursery.

Not read the whole thread although did see your last post OP, am sorry you're having a tough time. Totally unacceptable to remove her costume as punishment. It's humiliating. You don't improve behaviour by humiliating a child. Her peers have seen her in costume, behave badly, and then out of costume as a punishment. I'd be fuming. If I found out the result was that she was unsuitably or partially dressed as well, hell wouldn't know what hit it. Behaviour management needs to be action = proportionate and relevant consequence. Not humiliation by a person who holds power of you.

This is an inappropriate punishment. I would absolutely remove her from the nursery.