My sons teacher was awful to my toddler and I’m still a bit confused and upset about it

[headlightshiningbright]

My ds (5, in reception) has not had a good week at school and got into quite a bit of trouble. His teacher wanted to speak to me about it which is fair enough. I am supportive of the school and I have hopefully made it clear to ds that there cannot be a repeat of this behaviour.

However, in the meeting, my nearly three year old kicked off a bit. There was a club going on next door which she wanted to join in and she ran to the door and started crying and saying she wanted to make what they were making. My DS’s teacher spoke really sharply to her, saying her name and very firmly ‘no’ - I can’t honestly say it was shouting but wasn’t far off. She then carried on telling her off.

To be honest the whole meeting felt very confrontational and while I sort of understand she wasn’t pleased with ds it felt like my parenting had been tried and felt lacking and that she needed to step in.

I don’t even know what the point to this post is! I guess I’m just wondering if others would feel a bit peculiar about it? Intentionally or otherwise it was incredibly undermining and felt horrible to be honest.

I disagree. She was right to tell the misbehaving child off. All adults have a collective responsibility to all children. One of the reasons children are becoming so feral is because the village is no longer raising the child.

She should have been sat on your lap playing quietly with a toy. Or sat at a desk quietly colouring

Shes 3. She's old enough to understand simple instructions and she's old enough to sit quietly for 15 minutes

Sort out your parenting for both children.

😆
Teacher acted completely inappropriately telling off a child who is not even in her class…OP has to apologise…really?!

Oh do give your head a wobble!
As if any parent would accept someone else telling their child off!
Meanwhile in the real world…

It was at the end of the day and she was in a meeting about your child's behaviour and snapped when your other child started being an issue. She probably was judging your parenting, but you only have to deal with her for half a term and then everyone can move on.

I have to say I laughed a bit at this. It sounds like you were a very organised Mum who was never caught off guard. I most certainly am not and have been know to forget the bag with essentials like nappies / water let alone thinking about crayons in case a situation should arise that required it 🤣 I’m cool with being a type B Mum.

In this particular situation the Mum was going on a planned pick up on their child - I personally don’t know many other Mums who have your approach of prepacking these - in case of meltdown bags - for a trip to the school gates. It may have been a 5 minute journey/ she may usually drive and only get out for 5 mins to collect her child. Fair enough if Mum was having a full day out with her child - but we don’t know context of that yet.

Even if Mum is similar to you in her preparedness for meltdown you can surely remember how quickly toddlers go from normal to overwhelmed by big feelings over the most mundane thing - it’s literally textbook toddler behaviour. Mum may not even have had the chance to offer all the items you suggested as she was trying to focus on the information she was being give about her eldest. It sounds like things with the 2 year old changed quite quickly as is common with toddlers

I know that if my child had water/ her favourite snack / crayons/ or Miss Rachel personally had attended the room to play with her once she decides she wants something it can be difficult to roll back from this. We were on a flight yestersy and an announcement was made that there was someone on the plane with a nut allergy. Ofc my dd decided the only thing she wanted to eat was nuts - despite there being several over snacks to choose from >> meltdown.

Hindsight is 20:20 and it’s so easy to criticise others. I’m sure despite your wonderful preparedness there were times when your children, had what could be seen as poor behaviour or things just went wrong unexpectedly out in public. We all as parents do our best and I think leading with empathy rather than being like “it’s your fault your child had a meltdown because you didn’t do x,y,z that I would have done” - because 1) those statements just make mothers feel awful and 2) we all know that toddlers are an unpredictable breed. It’s not like she had a 10 year old whining to play with hedgehog - the child is 2 - I think some grace can be given to both Mum and child here. (But also if you read my previous posts I don’t think teacher has been awful)

So, of course you weren’t unreasonable to have your toddler with you on the schoolrun.
However, a sharp “no” to a disruptive and playing up toddler is also not unreasonable!

I'm a teacher (not primary) but I've had to have meetings with parents with younger siblings in town, there have been toddler kicks offs but I wouldn't dream of telling someone else's child off.

I have, however, engaged in distraction before 'Ooh, I've got something you might like...' and let them at my sticker/ coloured pens and paper stash. Perhaps the teacher made a judgement, perhaps they didn't but they thought it would be helpful, perhaps they thought your parenting needs firmer boundaries but then in the moment, overstepped and realised it's not that easy and she inevitably made it worse. Either way, it seemed like a high stress situation.

Perhaps you could ask that any future meetings are booked in advance so you can arrange childcare? Then you won't be caught off guard and can deal solely with issues raised.

I did have a similar incident once, as a young mum, where a shop owner sharply snapped at my then 3 year old for touching a bag of something on the shelf (I would never 'let' my kids do that but she was wicked fast and I had a young baby too) and this heavily pregnant owner snapped at her and made her cry. I felt it completely unnecessary as I was catching her up and about to swoop and it was in an awful tone.
I was really annoyed and DH could sense it and he tried to diffuse with a 'Toddlers, aye? How many kids do you have?' And she rubbed her belly and said her pregnancy was her first. I left it then because I too was a 'perfect parent' before the kids arrived! Then got a rude awakening, which I'm sure she would experience too.

Perhaps the teacher isn't a parent herself and has ideas about how young toddlers should behave?

Either way, I'd try to let it go now as thinking over whether she was judging your parenting will lead you down a dark path. No matter what wad going on with your DS, toddlers are unpredictable and we all have those moments. It was just a 'perfect storm' event.

Incidentally, the teacher wanted a meeting about the older child's poor behaviour!

Maybe there's a link here that everyone else can see OP?

My dd is a similar age and I also say ‘no’ firmly if she’s doing something dangerous like trying to open the door as your daughter did. The teacher didn’t do anything wrong. Next time, bring toys for your youngest. Meetings are boring for them.

tbh I’d be looking at teachers reaction here and wondering if your sons behaviour is a direct result of her teaching methods. So many very small ones start behaving out of sorts when they’re around an “unsafe” (shouty, sharp, unfeeling) teacher

Sounds like your kid was bloody annoying tbh

This children need to learn that they cant have everything they want And as your son is finding out, sometimes they need to accept the word no when they get to school and nursery

obviously without being there it isn’t easy to determine whether the teacher was too sharp too quickly. We don’t know whether this was a scheduled meeting (maybe if so OP could have planned better for childcare or entertaining the toddler) or if it was just an ad hoc - albeit important/ serious - chat to one side at pick up time.

I think I agree with OP as although she is a teacher, she is not the toddler’s teacher and she does not have the responsibility for the toddler as she does for the older sibling, nor the same role. She is almost a stranger to the toddler. In my opinion if the teacher found the toddler’s behaviour unacceptable she should have either been much softer to toddler or spoken to OP: “I’ll let you handle toddler for a moment, before we continue this important conversation”.

At our school they would have offered your two year old some toys to play with t the beginning! They wouldn't have told her off for acting like she was, well, aged 2.

Unsafe???? Honestly, cop on!

Oh bless you, it was clearly a vernacular description rather than adhering to medical definitions. And conflating a web search with "research" just reinforces the nutjob label, soz about that that.

Wow OP, what a judgy thread.... I had hearing loss until age 7 and my daughter until age 9, both b/o glue ear. It does make things difficult.

The solution for both of us was grommits, but dd only got them after we left the UK (but then within weeks of seeing ENT doc). If there's any chance grommits could help your ds, keep asking about it.

With the judgy teacher, I think you'll just have to keep your nerve, be calm and conciliatory but no pushover. Ask for a proper meeting. I don't envy you, good luck with it all.

Toddler having a meltdown = completely normal. Teacher intervening out of frustration with a meltdown is overstepping and not necc helpful. Yanbu.

I agree with this.

Another time, see if you can arrange to go without the 3 year old or do a phone call. So you can focus on the 5 year old.

Teacher was probably just in 'teacher mode' try not to be upset about it.

Really?
If the teacher is trying to have a conversation with a parent and a child is trying to get out of her classroom and 'creating' you think it's wrong of a teacher to intervene?

It's 'parents' like you that get up teacher's noses!

She was probably short of time, had a busy day and was frustrated the mum wasn't getting to grips with the situation.

Telling a toddler not to do something that's upsetting your meeting is hardly a crime.

Oh give over.
What a ridiculous assumption.

Try not to worry about the teachers feelings towards you and your parenting. She was probably just stressed, or maybe she thinks your DS needs a firmer hand. Personally I don’t think she should talk to your DD like this and she should have left it to you. Some teachers can’t switch off and speak to other people’s children like this all the time. Dont over think it.

I don’t think there was anything wrong with what the teacher said. However, I think you both set the 3 year old up to fail. On a few times when I had my youngest with me for school stuff, the teacher has always said hello and shown them a bit of the classroom they can play in while ‘mummy and the teacher have a chat’.

It is enviable that younger siblings are part of the picture at a primary school. It is also inevitable that left to their own devices, they might not be the most helpful people to have around when you’re trying to have a serious conversation. It wasn’t your child’s fault she acted like a toddler.