Nursery workers terrifying children

[Hitatiks]

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11288091/Daycare-worker-scares-toddlers-puts-Halloween-mask-SCREAMS-children-bad.html

Has anyone seen this?!
I had to stop watching the video. Its one of the worst things I have ever seen!

The worker deliberately terrifies the children, who are toddlers, by screaming at them in a Halloween mask, they are visibly terrified, screaming, crying, calling for their mothers. At one point she appears to comfort a child by stroking their head, and then screams in their face again. The worker who filmed this said her colleagues had done this previously and she told the managers but no action was taken so she recorded it when they did it again so she could send it to parents.

So here is my AiBU. Am I BU to think that if we valued early years workers more, and they were properly trained professionals with an understanding of child development (like understanding that such young children can't separate fact from fantasy so think a monster is really screaming in their face, or that young children are not 'bad' they are just young and its your job to cope with their behaviour - that is literally your job) then abuses like this would just not happen (yeah I know its America but there are lots of badly paid and poorly trained early years workers here too. I mean, this is not one bad apple. This was done in open sight of colleagues.

I've been a nursery nurse for 16 years, yes I'm poorly paid, but I have never once come across this sort of behaviour. Those poor children!

I also agree that you don't need qualifications or knowledge of child development to know that this is not how you treat children.

I don’t understand why the other adults did absolutely nothing. I’ve worked in a Nursery school and have never seen anything near approaching that sort of behaviour. That woman needs to be put in prison.

TBH someone with a sadistic bent could be trained and do this sort of thing anyway.

They’d reported it before and nothing happened.

Filming it was the best thing they could do in the circumstances as they’ve protected kids from her going forward.

Just watched the video of her apologising after being sacked, it's all "poor me, poor me" 🙄

Being a fantastic early years worker has nothing to do with qualifications. You can’t learn love, care and nurturing from books. Iv working with under 5 for over 4 years. I have in-depth knowledge of the eyfs through experience but absolutely no qualifications. My knowledge of child development is often better then those highly qualified members of staff and often even my managers. I love children and as a parent it comes naturally to me. I treat the children as I would want mine to be treated and comfort and teach them as I would want my own. Unfortunately I have witness some disgusting behaviour by staff and management and companies as a whole. Thankfully I work with a fabulous team and are children are well cared for and loved by staff. I’m pregnant with my second and have wondered if I would put this one in to preschool. Thankfully I know what to look for when viewing a nursery, but you just don’t know for sure 😞

It's horrifying, isn't it? Not only this incident, but so many even just on this site, saying they've witnessed similar many times. That parents have no idea what could go on at the nurseries they send their children to.

YABVU

Those videos are fucking disgusting. She was laughing at children’s trauma.
I couldn’t have stood by and watched that happen

The “apology” video…where she said what she did was no different than when the had someone dress up as the grinch for photos at Christmas.

Do you have a link to the apology video?

All I'm going to say is that if someone scared my child like that...

Just seen that apology video. Wow. She really doesn’t get it. And she really doesn’t understand children. She kept saying ‘ they reacted like that because they are children’ as if that justifies it. As if it’s ok for children to be scared, as if their emotions are not as big to them as adults are. She appears to have a complete lack of understanding of the emotions the children were experiencing.

It actually made me wonder what has happened to her in her life that she thinks like that.

Aww those poor children, they looked so frightened 😢 … Why would anyone even do that??

So here is my AiBU. Am I BU to think that if we valued early years workers more, and they were properly trained professionals with an understanding of child development then abuses like this would just not happen

The situation in the UK is very different to in the USA though. I genuinely cannot imagine this happening in a UK nursery.

Nursery practitioners in the UK are trained professionals. Quite a lot of them are degree educated (in specialist degrees that do include child development training). Staffing is organised to ensure more experienced, more highly qualified staff are able to support more junior staff (there are legal requirements but it’s what any sensible nursery manager would do anyway). There is an inspection regime, just as for schools.

Yes, there are better and worse practitioners and nurseries. Yes, there are questions that might be asked about the content of the child development training etc (this will always be the case in any professional degree - the content is always reviewed and updated because we learn more).

And yes, they are most definitely underpaid and undervalued. absolutely. But that’s because of structural issues around how childcare is funded in the UK.

But they are professionals and many of them are extremely knowledgeable and experiences and make an enormous difference for many young children. It’s easy to pick up on some media tale (from
a completely different context) and start worrying about early years practice. But that does great injustice to the reality of the many caring, hardworking, knowledgeable professionals who are already undervalued. Claiming they don’t have child development training etc actually exacerbates that. It fixes nothing.

WTAF?

Surely looking after scared crying children is a much more difficult job than looking after happy calm children?

What the hell must be going on in that place for the staff to think this is anywhere near acceptable?

You don't need to be trained in early years to know this is not the way to treat children.

The situation in the UK is very different to in the USA though. I genuinely cannot imagine this happening in a UK nursery.
I can. Most workers aren't this uncaring or stupid, but some are. And it only takes a few in the same room to make things horrible for the children. And if the room leader is a personal friend of the manager they can get away with stuff. Who is there to complain to?
And if the good staff are very young/shy/worried about getting a reference when they leave, they might keep quiet.

Nursery practitioners in the UK are trained professionals.
Knowing what you should do is different from doing it. Clever does not necessarily mean nice. And a lot aren't qualified.

There is an inspection regime, just as for schools.
Which means you have to be good at your job for a day every 3 or 4 years. That's why some nurseries have an 'Ofsted box' of decent toys (Multi-cultural toys/books, pens that work, etc) ready to go if there's an inspection.
I worked in one understaffed place that trained their own staff in a classroom on-site. On inspection day training was cancelled and all trainees worked in the room.

And yes, they are most definitely underpaid and undervalued. absolutely. But that’s because of structural issues around how childcare is funded in the UK.
There may be reasons for it, but it leads to not having enough good staff so nurseries are forced to hire poor staff. You get what you pay for.

The standard of childcare in this country is very varied. Much is very poor. Ofsted does not do much. The funding method for free hours is a cap on income which leads to it being a cap on quality. A lot of staff shouldn't be in their jobs.

Wow - she is an awful person and should never have been working with children.
Childcare in the USA is very poorly regulated. Whilst I am not saying there are no 'bad apples' in the UK system, we are generally properly qualified and un qualified staff are supervised. However, I'm not sure being unqualified would mean you would do stuff like this! Some of the best early years carers I have worked with have been unqualified and some of the worst have had early years degrees.....I think this comes down to her being a terrible person

I really thought that people were being a bit ott until I watched the video, it is downright disgusting. Those children are terrified. I have worked with loads of childcare workers in different settings and no one I know would think this is less than horrifying. Most settings I am familiar with haven't allowed masks at halloween for years because some small children are frightened of them, and halloween is really big in Ireland. The risk of frightening even one small child in a setting where they should feel safe isn't worth it. It is just shocking.

Also disgusted that so many people who commented on the article just wanted to have a go at working mums.

I just wanted to scoop those poor terrified little babies up into my arms 😢😢 That is just dreadful.

I'm with @Mysterian here.
As I mentioned upthread, I have worked in some terrible nurseries. Ones which have an extremely high staff turnover, impatient and bored staff, ones who shout a lot at kids etc. When I look at the excellent parent reviews for these places it makes me feel really sad. I remember a time when a crying little girl came in and one of the nursery nurses was all lovely and friendly to her and the mum. As soon as the mum left, she said 'Oh get off me now, you're annoying.' I've seen other workers shout constantly at the kids and when confronted they reply with 'That's just my culture and how we are.' Honestly, doing agency work in nurseries is so depressing. I wish a suitable nanny role would come up so I can get the hell out of it all.