Nursery worker speaking harshly to child

[FanofLeaves]

Just to give some context-

I’m a former nursery worker myself. I mainly nanny now, but still temp in the same nursery one day a week through an agency for extra income.

I’d not come across this woman before but she works at the same agency, seems she’s been at the nursery a lot just not when I’ve been there.

Child in question is whinging a little bit but only because it was his turn with a particular toy and the other boy wasn’t giving it up. She said ‘Benji (not real name obviously) get over it love! Your whining is going to give me an earache!’ She said it fairly loudly and brusquely.

I tried to catch the other nursery worker’s eye as it made me look up sharply from what I was doing as I’m just not used to hearing the children being spoken to like that. They are only 2-3 years in age. However she kept her head down but then she’s only a young trainee.

The worker in question kept asking if the boy ‘just needed a cuddle’ the boy understandably keeps shaking his head and her saying ‘you’re rude’. Same as when he wouldn’t answer a question about his baby sibling, he was told he was rude.

now obviously I only saw a snapshot and nothing else happened apart from her being a bit stricter than what I’m accustomed to in the way she was with the children. But more things like ‘listen to this story sitting cross legged or go and do something else’ sort of thing. Whereas I pick my battles a bit more, if they’re listening but not necessarily sitting in a certain way I’d let it go because they’re little and I like to try and meet them halfway. That might just be different approaches.

Anyway, no management around to speak to yesterday before I left so just debating whether to email, wait and speak in person next week or just wait and see and potentially not do anything. It doesn’t sit right with me but then again it’s nothing major, just an uneasy feeling. I’ve never spoken to a child like that in 15 years of working with them. I’m a mum to a little boy of that age too and maybe it’s just clouding things a bit imagining him being spoken to like that by someone. I have worked with the boy in question lots of times and he’s not badly behaved or challenging in the slightest, just perhaps quite sensitive and doesn’t have too many words yet to express himself.

just wondering if I’m being a bit silly really and if not, what to do about it.

Also, she should have been trying to help the 2 children to negotiate about the toy and support them to come to a solution. That’s part of her job!

This is nothing like how I parented my children! How you got that from my post I don't know! My DCs are now in their 20s. Throughout their school life I was told how polite and considerate they were. I must have done something right. They were given boundaries, taught manners, and helped to build resilience and know self-worth.

I might well ask a child to stop whinging, but I certainly wouldn’t say ‘get over it love!’ the way she did. That’s just unnecessary directed at a very small child. And I’m by no means ‘soft’ in either my approach to professional childcare or parenting.

Telling him he gave her earache was also rude (he wasn’t) just makes it worse. I’m all for teaching children resilience but verbally abusing them in what is supposed to be a safe, familiar setting where they spend a lot of their time learning really isn’t the way to go about it.

Yes she is, 45-50ish.

The worker in question kept asking if the boy ‘just needed a cuddle’ the boy understandably keeps shaking his head and her saying ‘you’re rude’. Same as when he wouldn’t answer a question about his baby sibling, he was told he was rude.

Did you miss this?

A children refusing physical affection / hugs from anyone is not „rude“. And I‘d be very wary of anyone with that kind of mindset!

You need to safe guard. Follow the nursery policy on safeguarding and thank you. I've had to report something I witnessed when a member of staff at a home I visit sometimes hit a resident. The owner of the home phoned up to thank me as they knew something was wrong but no one had said anything. I still visit the home and this was a few years ago now and the resident is still there. No one but the manager and owner knows I reported and that staff member is not working for the company now. Please always report something you worried about.

While the incident sounds trivial, tone is difficult to convey in text and if you have concerns reporting it is the right thing to do. Trust your instinct is often advised in this type of case.

I understand a few concerned parents, sure that asking a child to stop screaming really doesn't sound like a big deal. I think it's true that you've got to be smart and sensitive with your words. I'd try to never speak to any kid like the woman in question. I don't think there's anything wrong with you having raised this point.

If this made you feel uncomfortable,there must be a reason follow your gut instinct rather than leave it.

This ☝️☝️☝️ 100% agree

Report.

You sound like you have a good few years experience of working in this sector. Surely you can trust your gut and know what the best course of action is.

You need to remember most of the girls in a nursery are children themselves. Just mention it quietly to the manager and move on.

True there are lots of young women working there but none under 18. But this lady is much older than that.

Ooo, you are brave calling people over 18 years old ‘girls’ on MN 🤣

This is a nursery. The people working there are supposed to be trained in handling toddlers without resorting to telling them to stop whinging. A trained person would instead try to distract the child and deflect the child from feeling upset. To be honest if the child is non verbal it may be the way they can communicate their feelings. Definitely report her she obviously needs further training. I would hate for anyone to speak to my grandchildren in this way. Follow your instinct.

This was a pre school close to me not too different by the sounds of it
www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-news/yate-nursery-children-at-risk-677524.amp

The nursery clearly has rules about turn taking and the little boy waited his turn.

The rules were not enforced by the nursery worker who then blamed the little boy who had been waiting. Of course he was upset, reasonably so, and should not have been called a whinger and forced to suck it up or be forced to cuddle instead of the situation being resolved and then called rude for rejecting a cuddle.

Enforcing social rules like turn taking is required for learning. Being called rude for saying no to a cuddle is safeguarding.

It's terrible modelling for how to deal with conflict and communicate. Small children are often irritating but if you work in early years care you should know telling a toddler to stop whinging because they are giving you earache is not the way to deal with the situation.

Oh my god that is shocking. Imagine behaving towards the children like that when you are being inspected ffs!

Unfortunately in some nurseries I’ve temped in you do see a lot of burnout with certain people and this causes them to be short and snappy. When you’re understaffed, drowning in paperwork and chronically overworked and underpaid it’s not always easy to be consistently loving and patient to all the children (and of course there are some challenging ones to deal with) especially when they don’t feel supported by management. It’s not the children’s fault though, and it makes me really sad to think of small children being treated like that. I think it has such an effect on their little minds :(

When I was looking for a nursery for my little boy, I really did look a lot at the management of certain places to try and gauge how well they looked after and cared about all their individual staff members.

That’s the bit I picked up on too.

I would not be happy if I found out a nursery teacher spoke like that to my child and was saying they are rude for not wanting a cuddle.

I get that kids can be whiney, but at that age, they can have difficulty expressing themselves, the nursery teacher is not modelling very good behaviour, is she?

Precisely. I’m honestly surprised that more people didn’t pick up on this.

Refusing physical affection or comfort is not rude.
That nursery teacher‘s behaviour was genuinely inappropriate and worrying imo.

My son hated a nursery he went to. He used to cry at drop-off etc.. I just assumed it was a problem with him feeling anxious at being separated from me. The staff always used to say 'hea fine as soon as you've left' etc... But when I picked him up one day an agency worker said he'd been crying all day despite the full time worker having told me otherwise. The agency worker told me quietly not to bring him back, it's not a good place.

I listened and I never took him back and I enrolled him elsewhere, where he settled very quickly and actively looked forward to going.

I hope whatever was going on at that last nursery, the agency worker that so bravely gave me the heads up, has also whistle blown.

Well in this instance I think I would give it one more day but keep an eye on it. It’s great you are returning there. I have found it harder to know what to do when I have been in a setting for one day and not gone back as it comes across as very judgmental to complain about other people’s way of doing things the first day we meet them. We all have days when we aren’t perfect in every way and if 95% time she is great with the children and she was having an off day then although it isn’t okay to be like this as a pattern, you don’t want it to become a place where everyone is hyper-critical and looking for fault in each other as this might mean they are all on edge as that won’t be good for the children either.

I see about three problems with this and none of them is massive in itself - I certainly wouldn't describe it as a safeguarding issue - but they aren't ideal and I would want to be told if I was the woman's boss.

1. telling him off for not wanting a cuddle, when we are all supposed to be encouraging children to understand that it's up to them who touches them;
2. effectively telling him off for being upset (never reasonable, but even less so when someone is so young and, as the OP said, doesn't really have the vocabulary to express how he feels yet);
3. (I'm amazed that only one person seems to have really picked up on this one) not doing something about the fact that the other boy wouldn't hand over the toy! He's going to end up thinking he can do whatever the hell he likes at this rate. What's wrong with "Henry, please give the train to Benji now. You've had a long turn and now it's his turn. Let's find you something else to play with!" said in a cheerful and friendly way?