The reasons I love my child are not to be banded about in public

[Suz1e2]

Hi, when picking up my 18 month old from nursery the baby room manager said that they are asking all of the parents to write a letter to their children, saying why they love them. The nursery staff are then going to read it to the kids and put it in their learning journals. The thing is, I tell my boy I love him all the time, but I don't understand why I have to write it down for the nursery staff to have a look at! And isn't it a bit weird that they're going to sit the children down and read out the reasons their parents love them? If I don't write something gushy enough, would my child feel less loved than the other kids? The children are all under 2 so I'm tempted to think that this is actually for the staff to enjoy rather than them. I'm private by nature and don't think it's appropriate to put me in a position where I have to spell out my feelings to a room full of strangers (even if half of them don't understand!). What's going on here? Is this normal behaviour for teachers? I think I'm going to have to politely decline... Or should I get over myself and do it?

My DD's school did something like this, and it was really lovely. They are 11yrs old and it was great for their confidence.

Not sure what it should achieve for 2 year olds, but the staff aren't doing it to have a laugh.

If you have a small family, then I would do family tree including really good friends.

I think the idea of being asked to illustrate a family tree could prove very stressful for many a parent.

Yabu

I don't understand the problem. I think it is sweet and it shows variety of activities at the nursery and shows the keyworkers are trying different things.

I would maybe draw/cut and paste photos next to each line to make it more personal and so your dc has something to look at on the letter.

For the family tree. I doubt they want a very complicated one so I would just do a basic one and include only family members that dc knows. Who cares if it is not a proper one it is for your dc to look at and learn from, so it would be silly to include lots of unknown relatives.

If a child is adopted they have a family tree - from their family, doesn't have to be birth family.

I would hope that if a child was in care they would consider this before doing any such tasks.

My dcs family tree would have around 12 people and I would change it so that some second cousins are 'real' cousins. Who cares if this not actually true, just make it up to make it more simple!

I think family trees are great for some children but I'd like to avoid them for DD3. Your little family sounds lovely Herrena , nothing wrong with a small family. It's just that DD3 doesn't have a small family, I just have to pretend that it's a small family because otherwise she would ask questions that I don't want to answer when she's young.

I agree about using generic 'I love you' stuff OP. Maybe take quotes or sentences out of children's books.

Its not play pretending though really, its just making it with the people who are family to her. I doubt nursery/school care about it being an accurate family history, they just want an idea of the close family.

Lunatic

I work at a preschool and when we ask for family trees, favourite people etc. what we get back it is usually four or five wobbly circles, sometimes rather impressively with stick arms and legs. These are then labelled by a parent with mum, dad, name of cat, next doors dog.

Not masses of detail, and the children love sharing. I would say 50 percent are returned, and when they are not we do not give a fig. There will be plenty of other paperwork, photos and observations to keep us happy.

We had to do the family tree thing and I found it distressing. Lots of questions from dd about why she doesn't have a grandma, forcing me to try to explain painful circumstances repeatedly.

"But why is she dead?" "where is she now?" "doctors make poorly people better, don't they? We can get her a doctor" "my brother is poorly [with a cold], will he die too?" etc.

Very hard.

Isnt it a family tree just so the children learn who the people are and can be in a family?dont get me wrong my son has six grandmas besides ones that have passed away so hes confused,i havent bothered to explain all that yet!

Lunatic hahaha id say.... because all the other kids are losers.

YANBU to be irritated by this. Ridiculously twee! I would probably play along with it and just write something fairly generic, as wouldn't want my DD to be left out. But saying that, they're not even old enough to notice or care!

The family tree thing is on another level though, very thoughtless of the nursery.

Teach them a lesson and bring in a 20 feet scroll illustrating each and every ancestor going back to your 13th century peasant forefathers and demand it's hung up on the wall.

If DD3 was a child who just accepted things then a family tree would be fine, it would be her, me and DDs 1&2. But she is a child who questions everything so a family tree would mean I would have to lie or tell her the truth. I'm not comfortable doing either.

I don't want other children to loose out, I just want teachers to be sympathetic enough to provide an alternative that wouldn't cause any problems.

I would feel very uncomfortable with "I love you because...", as it feels like conditionalising love. Like "I love you because you are fun/ clever/ make me laugh" - what about when the child does something that isn't fun or clever? Are they to feel they are only loved because of certain qualities they have? I tell my kids I love them all the time, and I praise them, but I never link the two.

"I bleedin' love you, dear chubby child, for you are FUCKING AWESOME..."

PLease day this.

PLease. Please. Please.

Ridiculously stupid idea.

Agree with Laura Chant re conditionalising love.

You could say really silly things like;

I love you because there is a P in your name
I love you because today is Tueday
I love you because the grass is green

YANBU, it's really twee. Also I wouldn't have wanted staff talking to my children about my love, I need to do that myself. Also, what if one of the nursery children was in care? I'm tempted by the Dawkins approach myself. Or a diagram of the brain with various structures involved with emotion labelled and colour to illustrate neuron pathways involved with experiencing loving feelings

I hate family trees

But not as much as I hate 'bring in one of your baby photos'. That's a pile of crap. So is (older kids doing Evacuation/WW2) 'write a diary entry as if you were a child who has just been evacuated. Think about how you would feel if you'd just had to leave your family and go and live with another family'. That's fucking crap of the highest order when you have fostered/adopted children in your class.

YANBU. Agree wholeheartedly re nursery's idea conditionalising love.

I received a lovely (and totally out of the blue) card from DSD saying, "I love you just because". She'd not long since learned to write, and that little card melted me, because it didn't list anything specific (eg. I love you because you take me to the park / push me on the swings / play/read/draw with me / buy me toys / make my meals etc).

DC love their parents, not for any specific reasons, so why should parents feel obliged to give reasons for loving our DC?

YANBU - it's horribly twee and also, a bit thoughtless. Children who believe themselves to be loved for particular qualities are children who believe themselves to be loved conditionally. I don't love my children because of anything, I love them because they are them and I am me and I can't help it, there's nothing to be done about that.

YANBU. It sounds very odd to me. The family tree is a terrible idea.