Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

thinking my friend should remove her child from nursery?

28 replies

Ketrick · 01/02/2011 10:16

This really is about my friend, and not me! My friend has a gorgeous 4 year old who started at a local nursery six months ago. My friend has had a couple of arguments with the head teacher/main teacher. Firstly there is a harsh policy in place that parents should go and leave there novice school-starters to cry when they first start school. My friend's little girl had a hard time being left there at first, and my friend needed to stay for ten minutes or so to settle her in, but the teacher wanted none of that and told my friend so. Anyway, that phase passed, then it emerged yesterday that the teacher had shouted at the little girl and made her cry a lot. And she had felt very scared.

The little girl in question had felt very shocked and had been uncharacteristically sleepy and joyless after she had come home from nursery.

I would withdraw her if she was mine, and I would pursue a complaint against the head teacher. But there is the issue that the little girl has made friends at the nursery and gets to socialise and gain the stimulation of a different enviroment. Does anyone have any opinions and does anyone know how to set-about complaining about this tyrannical teacher who, in my opinion, should probably not have a direct caring role with such young children? Thanks for your views,
Ketrick.

OP posts:
Silver1 · 01/02/2011 10:23

I think though that she isn't your daughter, and your friend may have 100 reasons and needs to keep her in nursery.
If it bothers you make a complaint to OFSTED otherwise trust your friend to make the right decisions for her daughter. yabu

jenroy29 · 01/02/2011 10:25

Are other parents unhappy with the teacher? These things are always a bit easier if it's a collective complaint, rather than just one parent.

Original poster
Ketrick · 01/02/2011 10:28

Thanks Silver, you do have a point. I don't want to interfer but my friend has asked me my opinion, and I don't know how to be supportive without also being honest, and my honest view is that she should take the child out of a hostile situation.

OP posts:
MrSpoc · 01/02/2011 10:28

so if the child is naughty, why cant the teacher tell the child off?

BunnyWunny · 01/02/2011 10:28

Depends what the child did- maybe she was very naughty?

Encouraging parents to leave their child when crying is not really that horrible. Most children do stop as soon as parent leaves and settle quicker. A parent fussing often prolongs the settling period.

Original poster
Ketrick · 01/02/2011 10:29

Yes Jenroy, there is another parent who is unhappy with the shouting incident of yesterday. I will suggest that she does collaborate with the other parent. Thank you.

OP posts:
Original poster
Ketrick · 01/02/2011 10:32

BunnyWunny, no the child wasn't really naughty, she was involved in play and didn't listen to the teacher when told to stop the activity. MrSpoc, I do not think you ever need to shout at an individual child unless there is a medical need to do so. Not to the point where you make the child feel scared. Although I do appreciate the need to raise your voice at a large group if necessary.

OP posts:
CrapBag · 01/02/2011 10:33

Feel free to tell your friend what you would do given that she has asked your opinion, but I think YABU really. You can't know exactly what goes on at the nursery when no one is there, especially wrt the 'shouting' incident.

Also if the teachers let every parent stay to settle their children, it would probably be chaos and leave them more unsettled which is why they have a one rule for all and all must stick to it, no problem with that. DS cries and clings to me when I drop him at creche each week. I know for a fact that as soon as I am out of the building, he is off happily playing with the toys. If I stayed longer and tried to calm him down, he wouldn't stop with me there.

ThePosieParker · 01/02/2011 10:34

A child's view is very different from an adults, if I listened to my ds I wiould think he never ever spoke when supposed to be quiet, but the only one EVER to get told off!!

Rannaldini · 01/02/2011 10:39

ht probably right sending the mum packing
easier to settle the child in that way

are you sure the ht "shouted" at the girl?
or did the ht raise their voice to get something done having already asked?

my d1 has started telling me that i scare her when i ask her to pick things up or put things in the bin
she wants a cuddle and for me to do the task
i tell her to do it again and give her a cuddle afterward

i'd assume things were fine and perhaps mention it to the ht and get their point of view

Original poster
Ketrick · 01/02/2011 10:42

I can see that the tide of mumsnet opinions are against me on this one! But I tend to take the point of view of the child as they are the ones who are powerless in this situation, and I wouldn't want to spend my weekday mornings with a woman who shouts at me and makes me feel scared when I would rather be with someone who takes account of my need to be spoken to nicely and with thought and care.

OP posts:
ThePosieParker · 01/02/2011 11:02

Not against you at all, OP, I would be whipping my child out before you could shout Ofsted, but this isn't your child.

CrapBag · 01/02/2011 11:02

Do you always take what a child says over an adult?

I have seen this happen with someone I know. There can be a room full of adults all telling the truth but if her precious DS says different, she will always take his word over anyones.

My DS randomly comes out with "you just hit me mummy" when I am sitting on the sofa reading the paper (I don't hit ever). I would hate to think that someone may believe him over me one day. Luckily he hasn't said it to other people.

galwaygal · 01/02/2011 11:09

You said "it emerged yesterday that the teacher had shouted at the little girl and made her cry a lot. And she had felt very scared.", was this reported by the child / children or was it actually witnessed by a parent present?

I only ask as children, can often get upset over being told off. Especially if they know they did something wrong. Children will percieve things differently from adults. And the yelling incident may have been nothing more than a slightly raised voice to catch the childs attention and to repeat the request.

But at the same time, my child was in a creche once and as I was suspicious of my little boy not settling well, I hung around outside the building one day, I heard my son asking for his comfort toy, and was horrified to hear the creche leader yell at my son to stop crying being so stupid just because mummy has left. I was so shocked I did not know what to do.

It is hard because children do say things that are not what happened because they don't want to be in trouble, but likewise sometimes removing a child from a situation where they are unhappy is a good thing. It is a tough call, but I think that it is important to be absolutely sure of the facts of the "yelling incident" before reacting. Was it truely a yelling crossly at the child? has it happened on more than one occassion? Is this just the child trying to get mummy not to take her there as she would prefer to stay at home?

PS. The request for mum not to stay to try to "settle" the child is a very reasonable one. It is hard for a mum, especially with the firstborn child, but later you see the way in which it works to the benefit of the child to have a quick goodbye and leaving with confidence.

jeee · 01/02/2011 11:10

I once saw a nursery worker screaming NOOOOO at a child. The child was devastated, crying, screaming.... But given that the staff member had just spotted that the child had a pair of scissors poised over another child's pig-tail, and they were at the other side of the room, I don't think they had a lot of choice.

There might well be a reason why a child is shouted at. It can be the only way to stop a bad situation.

Nothing you have written seems a deal breaker to me - but if I was concerned about the nursery, I think I'd be looking at my options so if I decided the nursery wasn't right for my child I'd be ready to take actions.

Original poster
Ketrick · 01/02/2011 11:12

CrapBag, I have always said to my own child that, although it is a struggle sometimes, at the end of the day it's always better to be as honest as you can possibly be, even if that means getting into trouble, aside from in a rare, life-saving situation. I remember being violently shaken by a teacher when I was seven because another girl said I had been pinching her at school. I hadn't pinched her, but that teacher had decided to believe that kid, and then that teacher had been violent to me as a result. The moral maze of life is difficult to navigate and children do lie, but I think that adults find it easier to deceive themselves and others more than children do.

OP posts:
Original poster
Ketrick · 01/02/2011 11:15

galwaygal, there is no question that the teacher shouted at the child, the teacher happily admitted this to my friend when asked about the incident, and also another child went home and reported the same incident, in the same detail, to her mother.

OP posts:
galwaygal · 01/02/2011 11:33

Ketrick - sorry to hear that you suffered abuse at the hands of a bad teacher.

However, I do not think that it is true that "adults find it easier to deceive themselves and others more than children do"

  • children learn to lie, and some learn it more adeptly than others and it is learnt at different ages by different children. Equally some adults lie more than other adults, but children can live in their fantasy world just as much as adults and decieve themselves and others. Just as that little girl lied to your teacher.

In this case with your friend I would be less worried about it than if the teacher had tried to deny this incident. I take it that the teacher explained fully what happened. Does your friend feel convinced that this is happening repeatedly?

You are using words like "harsh policy" to describe what many would see as a routine policy. Also "tyrannical teacher", "hostile situation" make me think that you have already decided that your friend should remove this child from this situation. I am sorry but from reading this I can only see one incident, that the teacher openly acknowledged (and probrably explained the background to), I would not be calling ofsted on this one-off incident. If however it became clear it was a pattern in the place, then I would remove the child and complain.

ENormaSnob · 01/02/2011 11:39

There are always 2 sides to a story.

Yabu

ENormaSnob · 01/02/2011 11:41

I know someone that sounds similar to yourself.

The school is always wrong, the headteacher a cow, class teacher a bitch, nhs workers always wrong, Gp crap and misdiagnoses everytime etc etc.

Original poster
Ketrick · 01/02/2011 11:45

Thanks galwaygal, your view is valuable to me and levelling. I think, though, that the fantasy world of a child needs to be approached differently and to an adult's deliberate deception, but that's another discussion! We had a different policy at my child's nursery, and there was never a conflict between the teachers and the parents (they had a softer and more genrous approach to letting parents stay on, even for a whole session for the first few sessions), about when a child started. And no teacher ever shouted at an individual child, other strategies were used for behaviour management, so all this shouting and arguing with parents is new to me, and which is why I think it's harsh. Thanks again, Ketrick

OP posts:
Original poster
Ketrick · 01/02/2011 11:45

ENormaSnob,now you're just being insulting, you know nothing about me.

OP posts:
BettyCash · 01/02/2011 12:02

YABU Ketrick, it's not really any of your business...

Rannaldini · 01/02/2011 16:38

I thought the point of AIBU was that you garnered opinion and thus saw that you were or were not being unreasonable

on the balance of the posts you are being unreasonable

MrSpoc · 01/02/2011 16:46

A teacher is acting as a parent and needs to discipline unruly children.

All you have is the childrens version of events of whant happend. In the childs eyes it will be ten times worse that what actually happended.

If you tell a child not to do something that they want to do then they will get up set. Also they will try to play one off against the other like this situation. (Parent against teacher)