CM Club: How honest are you with parents?

[PositiveOutlook]

For those of you who are regulars, you will know my full time mindee is a screamer. Since he returned from christmas he has had the worst tantrums ever but he is only 21mnths so to be expected and handled. i decided not to tell mum as i dealt with them and through consistency they are getting better. this morning mum told me that he had a terrible weekend, lots of screaming and slapping and she felt it only fair that she should tell me.

i feel terrible, she thinks that when he is with me he is a dream. which is far from the truth. he does slapp me, he used to slap everyone including my dd but he doesn't anymore and when he raises his hand to me i look directly into his eyes and tell him that 'if you slap me you will go on time out' and most times he stops and if he does slap me then he goes on time out, simple. i have told mum in the past that i am a professionl and it is my job to deal with these situations, that she is not to worry but now i get the feeling that by not being honest with her i am making her feel like a bad mum.

when she called today i told her that he does have tantrums with me and, no, it isn't a bed of roses as she thinks.

i just wanted to know how much other cm's tell parents? it cannot benefit anyone to tell parents of every tanturm but what if mum starts to feel like a bad parent who can't deal with their lo's as well as the cm's?

I tell them about any behavioural problems, but I try and sugar coat it a bit with what they do beautifully (which they all do to a certain extent). When they take their diary notes home, they have smiley faces for good points and sad faces if they have done any hitting, biting, tantrums, etc.

As a parent, I would like my cm to be very honest with me regarding DS' behaviour. I will not become upset or think the cm has done anything wrong. I just want to know truthfully, how he is when he is not with me. I trust my cm completely, so if she said he was tantruming, biting...etc., I'd want to talk to her about how she is dealing with it so that we can have some consistency, if possible, if it is already or might soon happen at home, too. As she has many more years of experience caring for toddlers than I do, I appreciate her advice so much.

I extend the same courtesy to the parents of my students (particularly after having DS ). Whenever I have to report not so nice news about behaviour, parents always say "thank you so much for telling me"... and let me know that they want to know about this stuff. I tell them all of the good stuff, too, of course.

I hope anyone caring for DS is always honest with me regarding his behaviour.

Oh and I have seen through the window and through the gate without DS or cm noticing that DS is much better behaved for cm than he is for me . I have no problem with this because I know that children do just do this.

And I know that if he behaves well for others, then I have brought him up well enough to know that he knows how to behave even if he tries it on sometimes at home with me :) My DS is generally a well mannered/behaved 2 year old, but is a 2 year old and can try stuff out with me that he would never try with cm. At first I was but then thought about my students and it is the same with them. Children feel "safe" trying out their worst behaviours with their parents, who they know love them unconditionally.

Totally agree with Star!! I often tell parents 'it's nothing special about me and nothing wrong with how you parent, it's just you're their mum!' - and then I remind them how my own 2 children are nightmares for me quite often (Dennis the Menace & Kevin the Teenager!! ). I've seen it from my ds1's y3 teacher too - she has an older son who misbehaves when he comes round at the end of the school day yet she has the whole class of Y3 students under control - tis the way it it being a parent but yes, I'd always want to know (but not the every day, he went in time out today because XYZ....and the next day etc - as long as I'm aware of the new behaviour/phase, that's enough for me :))