Pulling up sons nursery? Am I wrong ?

[Glitterzzz]

So my son 22 months has been in nursery two mornings a week for around 4 months. I’m very happy with his general care and his key worker.. there are some worries about his development which is not a shock to me, in fact I made it clear upon him starting what my initial worries were...

What I have noticed though is they are quick to jump the gun. For example they tried out messy play with my child.. he was resistant as this was his first time doing so ( shoot me I
Don’t do messy play art and craft) they automatically deemed him ‘ to have issues with messy play/ possible sensory to textures ) this made me worry when they told me this
But low
And behind the next time they tried he did it and has joined in ever since with every kind you can imagine :-)

Last time I collected him he hadn’t been himself that day which I warned them when I dropped him in. Upon collecting him I’m told ‘ he clearly has struggles with unfamilr people in his environment and we could really see that today ‘ again I felt this was a super strong statement to say... turns out 3 students went into the baby room today and my child wasn’t impressed... given their strangers and he wasn’t him self ... again does this mean they can say ‘ clearly struggles with unfamiliar people in his environment ‘

It just made me feel uneasy. It also clearly contradicts a SALT report we got in just last week. I emailed the manager and said that I didn’t think it was fair to give serious statements like that about my child
Or any child. That feedback or concerns should
Be based on typical repeated behaviour that they might display a number of times not just once ...

We batted emails back and forth and I was told that I had misunderstood what the keyworker had meant by ‘ struggles’. I don’t think I did. She clearly said ‘ he struggles very much with unfamiliar people in his environment ‘ after one off day with 3 strange students in the room.. I could understand if she said he found it hard today, wasn’t sure about the students, it was her wording ...

Am I wrong or right to say to them they need to think of how they are feeding back to parents? And that if they wish to raise issues then I would ask it’s based on a behaviour he is showing typically and on
More than one occasion ?

Feeling weird about taking him back later this week ...

The thing is that these staff won’t have specialist knowledge about autism and other conditions. They will however have a gut feeling and some knowledge of what’s NT and what’s not. It’s fine for them to flag concern and it would be wrong if they didn’t make observations - they will be doing this with all the children. Yes they need to be a bit more considerate in the way they express these observations as it must be difficult for you to come to terms with the possibility that your son might have SEN. It might be worth you questioning further when they make these statements. So in the same conversation ask questions ‘has he been wary of strangers before then? When? what happened in details?’ Is this a one off or typical of his behaviour?’ Try to get to the bottom of what’s being expressed and try not to be easily offended. They see more of him then the play specialists, so I think their observations are valid also. Just as your observations are valid. All children have their quirks and strange moments. Children are crazy creatures. You might meet proper specialist knowledge as your son travels through the system, he’s still very young now. They all develop differently.