aibu to ask what you really think of nurseries and their staff

[questioningmouse]

honestly

Having done some work experience in a private day nursery I vowed then and there my dcs would never attend one.

2 of the many things that stick in my mind were one of the staff members suddenly becoming animated at 3pm , saying 'we start playing with the kids now, the parents like to see it'. And them laughing when they put suntan lotion on a little black boy because 'it's the only time he will have white skin'

Oh AND I got a bollocking from college for not sorting my placement out, they hadn't even checked up on who I was [shocked]

Oh and then there was the 'creepy' boy (who I later came across at the ASD specialised nursey my two DID attend ) he was left to spin bits of jigsaw all day

My children never had to go and thank God....I've never understood why it's 'good for' a child to experience separation distress, unless parents have to work. The staff I've seen when collecting my dcs from nearby make me feel very sorry for the children, always babies crying, children with snotty noses too young to wipe their own and very young staff who would rather talk to eachother. For some staff I think it's a case of finding an easy job as opposed to really wanting to work with children.

"children with snotty noses too young to wipe their own" - so that doesn't happen in SAHM world? How do you keep the snot away?

I have been using my nursery for 4 1/2 years now...and it is great

Yes, they seem to have quite a high turnover at times but there are a core group of staff that have been there all the time - plus obviously the students move on fairly quickly anyway. The staff aren't perfect but they seem to care for the children and that is all that matters.

There is now a male nursery nurse who is probably in his late teen's - and the children absolutely adore him Everytime you go in, he literally has kids hanging off him!!

My 2 boys have loved their time at nursery - they settled well, have made some lovely friends (DS1 is now at school with his friends that he made at nursery and they are still as thick as thieves)

Flattening of emotion - pah! I would defy anyone not to fall in love with my 2 boys

at snotty noses not happening in SAHM land

Crapola - why are you assuming a) that all children suffer separation anxiety and b) that a crying child is due to separation anxiety?

Did your children never cry (nor have snotty noses) at home? DS2 had to cry this morning for a bit as I was setting up the paddling pool for DD and he wanted to be held

My DC go to their key workers with open arms and smiles. I can literally count on one hand the time any of them have sobbed and not wanted me to leave the (DS1 went for 3.5 years, DD has been there 2 years and DS2 has been there 3 months).

Why would they have separation anxiety if they have settled in well and are cared for?

Ah ceebee - fancy seeing you here...

My nursery is so wonderful. I see the girls start, often a bit awkward, and within a few months they develop great warmth and ease with the children. It is brilliant and my kids have learned so much there.

peppa I did see your post and should have just put that I agreed with it...but thought I would try and be original and say something different

Agree though that not all children have seperation anxiety - and even if they did, and you have to work, what can you do about it?? You have to leave them somewhere whilst you are at work and they are going to get upset whether that is a childminder or a nursery.

Young nursery nurse can actually be very good nursery nurses, mature nursery nurses also can be very good nursery nurses. Or they can both be crap. I do not understand how people can make such sweeping statements and judge people and peoples career choices so harshly. It drives me insane. We all have to start some where we didn't instantly become mature nursery nurses that had been working for 5-10 years

I really do like the posters who have said they have a great nursery but the nursery nurses aren't the brightest, how do you know? Yes because being stupid and working in childcare go hand in hand, never mind the fact that almost all nursery nurses have to be level three trained and now we are progressing to 4 and 5 level training, which roughly translates to the beginnings of teacher training. Oh and 4 staff in my nursery are that high trained and 4 more are heading that way.

Crapola - What does young children with snotty noses that they are to young to wipe mean, how does that link to child care, we do wipe noses you know, we do comfort crying children of all ages.

Good nurseries don't employ bored teens who think that childcare is an easy job, this is why people should look around for a nursery that will meet their and their childrens needs.

i loved dd's nursery at first. they really look amazing care of her as a baby. i was less keen as she progressed through the rooms. there was one serious incident where she was injured by another child, and i was upset none of the staff spoke to me personally although i can't fault the owner - she made every effort to work through and address the problem. there were several staff i am not keen on, but we managed to avoid having them as key workers for dd.

we made the mistake of hiring the people there as babysitters, thinking it would be easier for dd as she knew them. we ended up paying way over the odds for it, plus it started a whole political "this is MY babysitting family" thing amongst the staff. we couldn't hire who we wanted, as various people felt they "owned" us. solved the problem by finding an agency where we paid a bit less but got more qualified people. it wasn't the cheapest i hasten to add - we picked an agency recommended on here by the sitters that work for it as an agency that treats them fairly.

what i was stunned by was the criminally low levels of pay they got! we had one of the ladies over to babysit, and she told us what they got paid - apparently it's ok to pay lower than minimum wage if it's training. given we were shelling out top £££ in our area (central London), i was more than a little pissed off to see them working for so little. i had naively thought we paid more because of the higher employee costs in central London.

made me even more determined to get a nanny now we have 2.

I think there are some great nurseries and some poor ones. I think that there are some great staff and some poor ones. I think that the staff do not get paid anywhere near enough for the care they provide when you look at what the parents pay, especially when you're look at the cost of nursery care in London. I wish there were nurseries that were owned and run by the staff, so that there was a direct link between how good the staff were and the money they took home, because so many really great workers end up leaving for financial reasons.

I suffered terrible separation anxiety when I started school, as my mum was the type whose world revolved around us kids and we'd never been left with anyone. She didn't work, and even on rare evenings out, we'd be dropped at the grandparents rather than my mum risk booking a babysitter.
Frankly I think I would have been far more resilient if I'd learned to function in a range of settings rather than being velcroed to my mum until the age of 5. Certainly my own dcs seemed far more confident when they started school than I ever was

Why do you want to know?

agreed cookielove if anyone that enjoys caring for children in a work capacity is thick that means every SAHM or mum on part time hours is also thick for wanting to play with their children, regardless of the careers they had before or degrees they have achieved.

Op seems to have posted and done a runner. Wonder why !

Has crapola come back yet?

I agree with Lynehamrose, where is the OP in all this?

Ilovedora - i agree with many of your previous posts too

My DD loves her nursery and they love her. I can go to visit her at any time during the day and this has been the case since she was in the baby room which hardly supports the "oooh, it's 3'o'clock" perspective. Also, when I was very ill last year (single parent - no family nearby) the nursery was fantastic - collecting my DD and bringing her home, etc. They couldn't have been more supportive.

Like everything, there are good and bad ones which I know is also true of childminders and SAHM/SAHDs.

i am still here lynehamrose i am just reading all the posts and seeing how people respond to the question posed

the impression i always get when i tell people the area i work in is that i must be stupid and therfor had to do a nvq, that i sit around and just play all day, anyone can do that job or that i am paid well due to the fact nurseries fees are high

none of these are true but its what is thought generally and always wondered if parents would be shocked to know

-nursery workers do more paperwork than a standard reception teacher (there are no ta's to help nursery workers either)

-nursery workers go on about 4/5 different training courses a year to keep up best practice as well as having to deal with constant changes in the law/framework from the goverment (so not a lot of nursery workers are stupid just for doing a nvq)

-"play" is the best way children learn but nursery workers have to "play" while supervising other children and planing next steps for them while also making sure that all areas of provision are accounted for and doing the paperwork required

-nursery workers are very underpaid generally just about the minimum wage (unless doing a nvq then you can be paid as little as £50 a month) as the "free" funding sometimes does not cover the cost of pre-school care (insurance, wages, training courses ect)

WidowWadman Sat 04-Jun-11 14:16:27
"children with snotty noses too young to wipe their own" - so that doesn't happen in SAHM world? How do you keep the snot away?

My children don't go unchecked with bright green snot dribbling in their mouths....

I wouldn't make these comments from a one off, this was all of the time. And the crying babies...no mine never cried for long spells when they were babies...unless they were refluxy.

I've seen amazingly good and the total opposite where I feel very sad for the child/children. It's down to personalities like any caring position whether paid or not - sad but that's my view.

I am utterly shocked by those posters who have implied that nursery workers are uneducated or unintelligent! How can you make such a rude, insulting and sweeping generalisation?!

Crapola - do you work in a nursery? Cause you quite clearly stated that your children never have attended a nursery how often would you have seen these snotty children?

And does that mean that all babies only cry for short periods of times because yours did!!! Your points do not apply to nurseries only to your own specific children.

I can remember one parent a few years back that apologised when she brought in her dd as she was a screamer and seemed never to be happy, she said she basically cried for the first 8 months of life. However said child thrived at nursery and of course there were tears but she did have a great time at nursery.

Questioning mouse- you should get validation from your manager and the parents who use the nursery you work in and are no doubt delighted with the service. Not from random people who may have inaccurate ideas about what being a nursery worker involves, or indeed from anonymous MNers who don't know your nursery.
I can't see the value of posting such a broad question on here.
FWIW as a broad generalisation, I think you'll find that nurseries and nannies are the more expensive forms of childcare, and therefore parents wont tend to use them lightly and will expect and demand High standards. Many mums I know who use them only break even financially during those early years, so are hardly going to be using a nursery unless their children are benefiting from it- as often as that point in time there is scarcely any financial benefit to the mum.
Being wholly logical about it, the one form of childcare where parents are perhaps most tempted to use it even though it may not be serving their childs best needs is when parents use grandparents for free or cheap care. I'm not saying those situations are always sub standard, just that saving money is a big motivating factor, whereas when you pay the going rate, you look around thoroughly, and decide on the best care going

Ah interesting - I assumed this was a nursery bashing thread but I see that was not the op's intention.

My opinion - well all the staff at the nursery I use appear well motivated and caring. In the three years dd has been there two staff have gone on maternity leave and one has left to work in a Monetssori setting to further her career (she was doing a Masters degree). I think that represents excellent continuity of care. In conversation with the Ofsted inspector last week I was able to stress how well the nursery staff know my daughter and how much joy they express in her achievements.
(The Ofsted inspector spent the day feeling very under-dressed as she had inadvertently picked a day to come when nursery was holding a special dressing up day )