My son is being scratched at nursery

[Thefirstime]

Few times past 2 weeks my son has been coming home with multiple scratches on his leg - he tells me who it is..

I know of the mum - should I contact her?? Or go direct to the nursery who seem to be bloody useless!

Go to the nursery and say if it’s not dealt with you will make an official complaint .

Should I contact the safeguarding person too?

why would I not contact the mum? I don’t know her too well but do have her number.

You don't contact the mum as she is not at nursery and therefore cannot stop him doing it.

Nursery is responsible for his supervision.

Do not contact the parent, it never goes well.

It’s a girl who is doing it.. surely the mum can have a word though??

There are or should be proper channels for this at nursery. They should speak to the parent, not you. How old is the child in question?

Aged 4..

OP just speak to the nursery. Do not contact the mother.

As someone who works in a nursery I think it’s definitely best if you speak to the room leader / nursery practitioners in your child’s group and they should be the ones who will speak with the child’s parents! They will need to look into why the other child is scratching and the child’s parents should always be made aware with incident forms.

Oh my gosh, you are going to be that parent at school. 😂

No, you speak to the nursery as it's their responsibility for behaviour management. There will be a protocol. The parents of this child obviously can't do anything really as they are not the ones there supervising the child. Nursery staff should be on top of this. It's very likely that they are already dealing with any behaviour issues, but it's not usually something discussed with you unless they have noticed obvious injuries (they may not have noticed the scratches hence you haven't seen the incident report). But they would discuss with the other parent to let them know about how they are handling it.

That said, this is very normal, and while yes, it should be addressed, it's very common. So nursery will have a plan for managing it and you can ask to have them explain that to you.

Thanks - there are no incident forms.. I will speak to the nursery tomorrow

OP several people have advised you not to contact the mum. What don't you get? Mum isn't at the nursery. The nursery have to deal with it. In fact, the nursery would have or should have filled I and incident report and the mother probably knows. She has probably even asked the child. Speak to the team leader or nursery manager.

Op, the only time I would mention contacting the other mum is if the nursery isn’t doing anything to solve the problem. It’s what I did when one of my grandsons was being bitten by another child and I was told, oh the parents are such lovely people and they are dealing with this at home. So I said, that’s okay then, I know the family well and I’ll go and see them to tell them what’s going to happen if it doesn’t stop - I would have reported it to the relevant authorities myself. The nursery then dealt with it.

I'm a teacher and fairly regularly see parents approaching other parents about something their child has done.

IME they either don't believe you or get defensive. Sometimes they are reasonable initially but mutter about you to everyone.

Honestly, good advice to go to the nursery and pleased you're going to do that.

Don't go in all guns blazing though. It's always embarrassing when parents strop in only to be faced with the fact that their child started it.

Thanks all

How on earth can I prevent my child from being a walkover? He is far too soft!! A few things have happened now

Is this a joke?

I don't he's a walkover. Scratching usually happens when there is a squabble. Either he's taken something another child has first, or they want someone he's got and he's not giving it to them (which he shouldn't do). It sounds like this child at 4 has some issues, however scratching very very rarely happens in isolation so either your son is sticking up for himself or he's provoking. He's not being a walkover though. Something you could look into.

He said she plays a game called cats and pretends to scratch him.. he likes this girl and they are considered to be friends…?

@Skinnermarink no it isn’t - thanks for your sarcasm

Because like you she isn't present at nursery to stop it happening. That's why you tell the nursery staff. .