Nursery incident

[sophiajanexx]

Hi there. So this morning I take my 3 year old to nursery. There isn’t a buzzer at the door you just have to knock, and they open up (it’s a fairly small setting). I knocked but no one heard me at first, there’s a small window by the door where you can see inside the play area. I saw one of the nursery teachers on the floor next to a little girl who crawled into the tent, two little boys come over and some kind of minor altercation happens with the little girl who ended up crying. The nursery teacher grabbed the little boy by his top aggressively and pulled him towards her and proceeded to point a finger at his face and scold him. I was shocked at the aggressive nature of it as this lady has always come across as nice to parents but my daughter never really bonded well with her out of all the nursery teachers and I always wondered why. I knocked on the window really hard as I wanted her to see me and that I saw what she did. She came to the door and had a very embarrassed face. I said my goodbyes and went on my way. Thinking more about it, I feel like the way she dealt with that was inappropriate and am considering talking to management. I am a very non confrontational person and I don’t want to make a massive deal but also my daughter is in their care and I am worried. Any thoughts and opinions welcome before I talk to the manager on Monday

How exactly would you have preferred she handled it?
From what you've said, she done nothing wrong.

Oh this sounds very unprofessional. The confrontation aspect of it may be uncomfortable but I think you have a duty of care to raise/report this. Would you be more comfortable detailing it in an email first? Just think about the parents of the boy. I’m sure they’d be very grateful you did something about this.

@OverlyFragrant
Grabbing a child by his clothes and pulling him is very aggressive.
@sophiajanexx - I would ask for a meeting with the manager.

It was visibly aggressive. I understand the little boy probably did something naughty but he’s 2 years old. I wouldn’t expect nursery to discipline a child to that level, maybe remove the child to sit in a naughty corner, or talk calmly about it to him and then let the parents know. A lot of the kids started new there that week as well, bit scary to witness when they are trying to settle

You should definitely report this. Totally unacceptable.

Yes report, I witnessed something similar when my little ones attended nursery and reported it, nursery owner was very understanding and investigated immediately.

I saw something similar years ago and it was far more shocking than people realise. I think people who haven’t experienced the venom of an aggressive abusive person maybe aren’t realising there is a big difference between cross face chastising a child and vicious handling of another person. And in this case a completely defenceless child who can’t articulate they were essentially assaulted. I was at a HV appointment for my baby and went to the toilet down some corridors to a quiet area. It was the toilets the adjoining nursery used I guess but there was a nursery worker gritting teeth and violently hauling a toddler to the toilet. Spotty nasty comments at the child. It was horrible. And well out of sight of anyone else. I told the HV what I saw as it was so so wrong and she took it very seriously and took a description of the lady to make a report.

people lose their temper. Ive gritted my teeth in temper at my own kids unfairly at times. But a worker who behaves like that, in a professional setting and where they clearly think nobody will see, is indicative strongly of someone with no control who will abuse.