To not complain about nursery handing our daughter off to a man they haven’t seen before

[DefendingPan]

So background: my father in law is a silver tongued fox and very personable.

He was visiting the area and decided to pick my daughter up from nursery on the way in, I arrived at the nursery to see him in the doorway, holding her hand and saying goodbye to the nursery staff.

My wife thinks we should complain because they didn’t know him from Adam but I think if we complain they’ll just say that they wouldn’t have let them leave until a parent got here cos he was still technically in the nursery and the nursery is attached to the school and I don’t think kicking up a fuss is the best first impression with the primary school.

Any thoughts? AIBU for not wanting to complain?

Of course complain. It might have been fine for you and this situation, but think about the kids who are at risk from charming, silver tongued relatives.

Carer gives pre schooler to stranger and waves bye bye.
You could get the nursery closed down over this - and rightly so.

That's very very bad and a safeguarding concern.. it could have been anyone. The nursery my DD went too had a password for children's family member that didn't usually pick up

If he isn't on the list of people allowed to collect your child, and they didn't check his ID if he is, you need to complain. I worked in creches and if a parent did not let us know a grandparent was collecting the child, we would ring the parent to confirm. That's a major, major breech and management need to be aware it happened.

Pressed YANBU. It’s up to you whether to complain.

But it would at v least be sensible to have a chat about what’s appropriate and check their safety procedures. Even if they wouldn’t have let him leave with her, why did they let him in the nursery at all if they didn’t know him? Or let him take her hand? He could’ve been anyone. Up to anything.

Even if she clearly recognised him as her grandfather, you hadn’t informed them you gave permission for him to collect her. It could be a domestic abuse situation or he could be estranged, a family falling out etc.

I’m sure it would’ve been a breach of their procedure.

I'm usually team nursery all the way but for this I'd be making a formal complaint and potentially moving nurseries. Before we even get to potentially allowing your child to leave with him, a STRANGER to the nursery was allowed to enter the building, interact with, and touched your child! How many other strangers can do this? MIL sometimes does pickup for us, but she's not allowed over the threshold unless 1. We've explicitly told nursery she's picking up on that day and 2. Someone from the nursery recognises her. If the door person doesnt recognise her she has to wait outside until someone from my childs room can verify its ok. The chance of something going wrong is vanishingly small but if it does, the consequences are unthinkable

A judgement call? They should of rang OP or the other parent to confirm

It’s literally not. It’s necessary for all children.

A small child cannot and should not have their word taken in these matters. There could be a very good reason why you did not want him collecting her, whether she was pleased to see him or not.

Did they not ask for a password or similar?

You need to report this . Huge Safeguarding fail.

Another vote here for raising this as a safeguarding concern.

Once one of my colleagues at work was stuck with a patient and I needed to pick their child up from the hospital nursery. Even though I also have a staff badge, and my job role means that I have an advanced DBS check, and my colleague's child knew me and was perfectly happy to go with me, my colleague had to phone the nursery and discuss with them that Dr .... was picking up their child and give me a password to share with the staff before I could collect the child.

My DS nursery wouldn't even release him to his Dad until they had contacted me to confirm who it was as he had worked away and staff members on duty had never met him.

Also we have a 'safe' contacts list to ensure young children only go with these people.

With older DC it did in fact stop MIL collecting unauthorised whenever it suited and more so after a huge family fallout prevented unauthorised access to child.

Absolutely mad.

You 100% need to discuss this with the nursery, what if next time this happens it’s someone collecting a child who is not allowed to do so and who doesn’t have good intentions

This cant be real. If so it needs reporting massively. You cant get nore of a failed safeguard than this. My dds nursery even made her dad whom they have a photograph of on file and a form saying he has parental responsibilities give them a password before they handed her over to him.

Um yes we do. It has who can pick up in an emergency. Obviously no one else unless they are on the list can pick up, but there is also a section that specifies who can't which I assume is for people who have some issues with an ex or something. I assume it's to give the staff an extra layer of precaution and a heads up there is an issue. That's not insane, it's smart.

Also, the nursery should have a strict policy in place on this. Please report.

Likely your kid ran up to their grandad and articulated a desire to go with him and they made a judgment call in the circumstances.

Anyone who makes a 'judgement call' to go with the wishes of a nursery age child, rather than follow correct procedure, has no place working in a nursery.

Your child probably recognised him and said "Grandad!" which would have reassured nursery staff, however they should have called a parent to double check it was ok.

I would certainly complain. Our nursery had keypad doors on entry and only if you met criteria were you allowed in. The criteria was - mum & dad as they got to regularly know you were let in no problem, in our case it was also grandparent. Anyone out of the ordinary (emergency, one off) you had to notify about on the day and you had a password set up you would give to said person. Then the door would be unlocked.

You need to alert whoever is in charge that their systems need reviewing. You can say that fortunately there was no problem this time, but this could potentially have been very serious. You're not so much complaining as alerting them to a potential problem - before they do get a complaint, or worse still, an abduction.

"Ask if you can set up a password for your child"
It's not a question of what should be in place for this particular child - it's the system for the whole nursery that should be reviewed (and/or staff instructed about any existing protocol).

Can you explain how a random man had access to the nursery children in order to be recognised by one of them?

I don't understand this at all - when my kids were in primary over 20 years ago, they wouldn't even let neighbours collect each other's kids (who were in the same class) unless they'd had a phonecall prior to request the pickup, even though they knew both sets of parents. It drove me mad at the time but 20+ yrs on this is just beyond odd, and yes I'd be fuming in your shoes.

Certainly needs addressing
2 options

1. raise safeguard and formerly complain

2. email saying you are concerned that they let FIL collect them without knowing who he was

sane thing but ether all guns blazing complaint or just ask for an explanation

Seriously?? HUGE safeguarding fail! I cannot believe they just let any old person walk off with one of the children - because any old person is what he is to them. Of course you need to raise this as a complaint - for the sake of all of the children. Unbelievable.