Scottish Nurseries

[brucemcconachie]

My daughter (4) has been attending a council nursery and my wife and I think it's setting her back.

I can't speak to what happens in England and Wales but in Scotland, pre and early school operate on the principle of affirmative, positive, encouragement.

This means that badly behaved children are always positively encouraged. This means that disruptive and even violent children are laughed at, which means that my daughter (outside nursery, very polite and well behaved) now thinks it's funny to act like the disruptive children.

My daughter also went to nursery last year aged 3, fully toilet trained. When she goes to nursery she wets herself because she knows they will change her with a smile instead of explaining why it's bad.

Her behaviour is so different at home compared to at nursery and we feel powerless to change anything. The hands of the nursery staff are tied.

Has anyone else experienced this?

Is she in pre school nursery? Will she go to school there?

This sounds very unusual and not my experience or that of my friends/colleagues.

I would move her from the nursery.

I think whilst nursery wouldn’t have shamed my kids for an accident, they would have been encouraging them to use the loo.

I also think this sounds very odd, and I have two in a Scottish nursery. They are definitely capable of discouraging negative behaviour, although equally they certainly wouldn't shame a small child over an accident or childish misbehaviour. Are there other nurseries nearby you could view and ask how they approach behaviour?

I'm not expecting them to shame her at all, I understand that. But the only response at all is "well done, you're so clever for changing your pants". I'm only expecting a "that wasn't very good was it?"

There is another nursery nearby but I'll need to go back in time 2 years to get on the waiting list.

I would expect a good nursery to work with you on something like toileting, so they might be opening to adding something like 'oh dear, next time you'll make it to the toilet, won't you?'. So still encouraging, but encouraging of doing better next time.

The bigger problem sounds like their overall behaviour management, though, which is definitely very different from what I've seen. I'd think that's basically impossible for you to substantially influence as a parent, which really leaves you between a rock and hard place if you've no other childcare options. Any possibilities further from your home but near where one of you works, or on the way to work?

I've not had any issues with our nursery (in Scotland). Fantastic support, DC showing good development and social skills, they provide constructive feedback and definitely don't enable bad behaviour at all.