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.

Well done for speaking up OP. It's not rude to decline a cuddle. This person is really crap at understanding child development too. It isn't whinging that they should be told to stop at toddler age, it's learning to express uncomfortable feelings. She should be labelling, modelling and teaching how to cope with his feelings instead of "stop whinging love".

Safeguarding is everyone's responsibility. I've worked in childcare for 23 years and volunteered with young people for around 18 years. Report your concern to her immediate supervisor. I'm more worried about the 'cuddle' aspect, maybe I'm misreading it but it sounds like she was pushing him to have a cuddle which is massively inappropriate. If she behaves like this in front of other staff, I don't like to think how she is out-of-sight.

Thanks all I did speak to the manager and she alluded to the fact that I wasn’t the only person to say something. Anyway, the upshot is, the worker in question isn’t going back to work at this particular nursery as they just won’t request her. They have passed the reason why onto the agency (well I think she said something like she doesn’t really have the patience required to work alongside small children) but what they do with that info I guess I won’t know. But if she doesn’t get booked anywhere else I can’t say I’ll be too sorry.

Good on you, from a parent with a child in a nursery. My nursery the staff are very very soppier with my daughter so I’m not worried about her, but I worry for children in settings like the one where the worker left the baby in bean bag and let it cry and die alone. That worker was on cctv saying very off hand and mean comments to upset children. That’s what safeguarding is for, to catch people that shouldn’t be work with vulnerable people

No advice, but you sound like a wonderful nursery nurse, OP.

Thanks OP. You may have set the wheels in motion that go on to protect a child in the future from when this woman has had a particularly day and takes it out on her charges.

Absolutely
Report it and record that it has been reported.

Thank you, it’s quite a challenging industry at the moment in the main, I really hope things get a bit better in the future. Childcare and care work in general should be treated and valued so much more than it is, and paid accordingly with proper training. I realise you still get bad apples but the above would really help.