Major Anxiety about any kind of childcare

[lovingmumhood]

My Eldest Son is turning three in July and we were thinking about putting him into Nursery. I personally don't think we'll necessarily do five half days a week, maybe two or three.

We have three kids under three and are possibly going to have one more. Our eldest is a bit speech delayed, no medical problems to cause it etc (been checked), good communicator, just not really a talker.

I know he is always curious when he sees other kids and I do think he'd enjoy Nursery.

The thing is, I was sexually abused as a child and also am hyper aware (especially due to my OCD, Anxiety and Depression) of the sheer disturbing and sickening number of people around the world who have nefarious intentions towards kids and how often they work with children. Just recently I saw that a guy from my home town was head of a children's protection charity board and worked in build a bear and he was just convicted of multiple counts of child pornography and attempted sexual assault of minors. A local nursery just had a manager fired (who then fleed the country) for being abusive to kids in the Nursery.

I feel utterly sick at the thought of leaving my kids with anyone I haven't picked. If it's my parents, my mother in law, my brother and his girlfriend, my brother in law or very close friends, I feel no anxiety at all.

We have toyed several times with the ideas of home education. I have no intention of returning to an out of home work place as I want to be an author and also have chronic health conditions that make working from home easier, so there is no dilemma of me having to go 'back to work'. The thing is, we aren't super high income (and as I mentioned I have health conditions which do make me very tired) and whilst there are many things that worry me about school (which is relevant because it all sort of runs into the normal way of doing it, nursery then school) like them not getting enough sleep, peer pressure, exam stress and way too much anxiety for kids, I am also aware that there are lots of fun things, time with friends, opportunities, resources and not to mention that even though I had some truly bad teachers, I enjoyed school.

I just don't know what to do or how to get over this anxiety. I cry and feel sick when I think about the fact that someone might hurt them, especially my eldest not really being able to verbalise his feelings yet. I don't know if I'm feeling an elevated (due to my anxiety) version of normal feelings of simply wanting to clutch him to me forever, or if this is something I should get over. I have done CBT and my anxiety is very well controlled atm, so it's not like I'm dealing with PND or Anxiety per se, it's just this one issue. Feels very unnatural to just leave them with somebody I don't know and didn't choose, yet I can see the benefits of it very much so.

Could you try and speak to someone with kids at the nursery for reassurance? I was going to say you could wait til they are old enough to tell you what happens at the nursery, but you said your ds is a good communicator already. I think 3 is the age when they really start to benefit from nursery

Your concerns are understandable. Try and tell yourself how many truly loving caring nursery staff there are out there.

Would you consider a childminder? They have to follow the same early years curriculum as nurseries. You could spend time getting to know them/seek recommendations from trusted friends. They would be the only one in contact with your child as opposed to multiple nursery staff. It could be a way of easing yourself into childcare.

Yeah I could I guess, I just don't really know any mums and the two I made friends with have their children in different ones because we live in slightly different areas so it would sort of be after we turned up. They let you do a stay and play, it's just (as paranoid as this sounds) obviously the people who mistreat children aren't open about it. He communicates well with me and his dad more so (which ironically is why I think a Nursery might be good for him also) in lots of non verbal ways and broken speech, just not so much in a way where he could articulate 'they did something I didn't like' kind of thing.

I would definitely consider it, the thing is I'm not really sure what that's like. Do they have other little kids?

I'd be putting him into childcare purely for his sake, not mine, if you get what I mean, so unless it was a sociable environment with other kids, there'd not be much point.

Could be a good way to dip toes in the water though!

I've only ever left them with grandparents.

Yeah :)

It's nice to not hear 'you're just being paranoid', because the risks are real. I know most are nice though... just how to know.

I suppose you get a gut feeling when you meet someone also, I'm usually quite good with that.

There are two separate issues here:

how do I choose an option that is as safe as possible for my child?

(several suggestions have already been made and you have also come up with some yourself)

how do I keep my anxiety from overburdening me and having a negative impact on my ability to make decisions about my dc?

(have you thought of some CBT-related techniques for controlling your thoughts? plenty of suggestions on the internet. often work best if you have already come up with a clear assessment of the situation- this is what I want to achieve, this is how I am planning to do it, now I will use these exercise to control obsessive thoughts that get in the way)

The truth is with children, we can never keep them 100% safe. The only serious accident a child of mine has been in happened 2 feet away from me and I was watching.

But of course that didn't stop me from making the best decisions I could about whether to allow them to do potentially risky things with others.

You just need to be able to say to yourself: well, I have made that decision now and I am going to accept it until there is evidence I was wrong.

Personally, I felt one way of keeping children safe as they grew up was to make contact with other parents in the neighbourhood, making sure we knew the people around and that other people knew my dc and would be looking out for them. The childminder helped more than anyone here in growing out contact net. Not just the other children she minded and their families: she took them out and about, they attended play events with her, she knew everybody.