Should I bring this up

[JacG]

Hello,

First post on here so bear with me I'm bound to make a gaff at some stage.

I'm after some good advice which it seems you ladies are famed for. My little girl who is almost 21 months attends a local private nursery a couple of days a week while I work. She is always happy to go in and seems to enjoy it and gets a lot out of it.

On 2 or 3 occassions recently, the most recent being this morning, one of the children has been sobbing their heart out and getting themselves into a right state, but the staff have just ignored them. This morning the little girl was bright red and had her arms up to be picked up and she was just ignored. This was unsettling the other children being dropped off. Granted, this morning they were busy, they were signing children in and they were sorting breakfast but here was a little girl probably about 15 months old sobbing maybe because she missed her mum, maybe she was just tired, maybe she'd hurt herself. I don't know but as a mum, I thought a hug and some comforting was more than overdue. I should have said something at the time.

The thought that this may also happen to my little girl disturbs me too and just because it wasn't her this morning, doesn't mean I should ignore it. Or should I? Am I sticking my beak in where it's not needed?

Any advice as to whether I should bring this up with the room leader or the nursery manager? As I mentioned, it's not the first time I have seen this there, but in the main I am very happy that they do a very difficult job very well and as a general rule all of the children seem happy. Any advice how to handle this?

It may be that they have an arrangement with this other little girl's parent/mother that she cries for a few moments then quickly settles?

I would approach it by asking for a quick word with the staff member. In a low key way say to them that you are well aware that they cannot discuss other children. However you are upset by seeing another child upset and you just want reassurance that they are aware of it and handling it. You could also ask what would happen if your own dc became upset.

I saw something similar once at a baby group, and although I didn't ask, the group leader explained that the child was doing this all the time and the Mum (who wasn't there, the child was with their nanny) had asked everyone not to respond, as they were trying to stop the habbit of always crying to be picked up.

Sounded a bit harsh to me at the time, but I guess if it is becoming a real problem at home and the child is not learning to be a little more independent, then perhaps that is what they felt the needed to do.

So in short, it maybe that the parents have asked the nursery to do this. Or maybe not. If it were me, I think I might mention it and say that while you understand that some parents might ask them to ignore certain behaviour, you personally would not want your child ignored in that way and you would hope that they would always respond to her if she was in the same situation. At least you would have made your own feelings clear then, without making a judgement on the situation with the other child.

Thanks. You are right, I hadn't considered that the parents might have requested this. This is why I needed another opinion before I steamed in there! I will mention it in a low key way, we have a parents meeting next week with our key worker so I will bring it up then.