A bit long winded so apologies in advance, I want to know if I am being precious or if in fact I have a point and also what I should do about it?
Daughter turned 3 late last year. She has been attending a private nursery since March last year for a few days as to not overwhelm and get her mixing with other children. With the view to increase her days when she gets 30hr funding.
Initially all the staff were great, couldn't do enough for us and were an absolute delight, they loved our daughter and it was going well.
Our daughter admittedly can be a handful, she is very tom boyish and boisterous. She has a lot of male family so she can hold her own. She went through a phase of biting, but we managed to head it off after a couple of weeks. However she has taken to scratching! This happens mainly at nursery and she can hurt other children (we cut her nails every other day). She does it at home on occasion but not often.
The nursery think she could be SEN / Autistic etc. We do not think she is at all, she's affectionate with most and she does recognise when people are upset. She often over loves if that is a thing, cuddles other children and doesn't listen if asked not to.
She can be stubborn, have tantrums, scream and imagine disruptive to the other children (is this not standard 2yr old tantrums?). Sometimes she does get overwhelmed with the childrens games/noises and can lose it a bit so she does require some time out, often with an adult on a 121 basis.
We've worked together with the nursery and come up with plans to replicate how they manage her so we are being consistent at home and nursery. We have set up reward charts at nursery and she enjoys that, it does help.
We know she is no angel but they've asked to refer her for SEN/Autism assessments which we've said no to as she is far too young to assess, they recommend about 6yrs for Autism.
I have asked to up her days to use the 30hr funding I enquired in October just after her 3rd birthday and said happy to wait for space as in no rush. However they have come back and said no they can't and made several excuses.
We are actually really quite upset at this as she's done so well, been there almost a year and formed bonds with the staff and children alike.
I feel that as they have made this diagnosis that she's SEN and claiming that it is unfair to others because of her additional needs when in fact I think it is that they dislike her and cannot cope with her behaviour? In my opinion this is poor on the part of the nursery that they're not willing to continue to support, and a shame for our daughter that we may have to start all over again.
Like I said at the beginning a long post and am I being precious?