Another article to make you feel bad

[lazyeye]

Anyone read the 'Nursery Crimes' article in the Telegraph on Sunday?

Reporter got job in London nursery to benefit her chances of adoption. Terrible tales of neglect & bad standards of care.

This article really upset me - my 2 are in nursery p/time and I hate leaving them there, but I don't have much choice. I really wish they would think about how they can upset pple before they write, but I suppose she was thinking she was exposing the nursery. She ended the article with " I, of course, won't be sending my child to nursery"

I agree with You KS..

DD2 is currently at Nursery and she rushes in every morning (have to call her back to get a kiss!) if you also take into account she is not a naturally forward child it confirms my feelings that she is happy in nursery!.

Like all things in life there are going to be good nurserys and bad nurserys......
I would also imagine that as a reporter she could freelance from home if she needed to work - lucky her eh?!!

I don't even get a kiss, sonnet! (dd pretends she doesn't know me once she is in the door. and she's only 18 months).

I agree anyway - I think you can tell a lot about a nursery just from your child's reaction and from what you see at pick-up /drop-off times.

saying that, here in Spain the rules re staff ratios are very much more relaxed than in the UK and I might have been worried if it weren't for dd's independent streak (about 1:8 for under 2s, 1:12 for older kids, but hard to tell).

Ds loves his nursery! There are bad nurseries and good nurseries and the same can be said for childminders, nannies and also for children who stay at home with their mums. I certainly would not wish it upon anyone to stay at home with me all day. Poor souls.....

Sonnet, I am a writer who freelances from home - and I send my ds to nursery! Believe me, you cannot do a proper job of any kind without childcare - any more than you'd take your child to work with you every day. It's hard interviewing the leading expert on heart disease in women with a two year old pulling at your leg and begging to watch Peter Pan and asking to talk on the phone!

I did read the article and I actually think it is no good pretending awful/miserable things don't happen to children in all sorts of childcare - but I don't think they are the norm. It's like programmes that show the neglect of the elderly in old people's homes - I'm sure they upset people but if the alternative is pretending it doesn't happen, then I can't agree that's right.
A friend of mine had a horrible experience with a nanny that she discovered was slapping and bullying her two dds. She then decided never to use a nanny again, which I can understand, but I was very happy with ds's nanny when he had one and now I am happy with the nursery. I have spent several half days there while ds was settling in and as there are a constant stream of parents picking up and dropping off their kids at all times they would IMO have a hard job making the place seem friendly and caring if they weren't being nice to the kids. I don't think they get the same love and attention they would get at home, but they get a different sort of affection, stimulation and opportunities to do things. I think the issue of staffing IS an important one. My ds's nursery seems very well staffed to me and ds has never had an accident there (touch wood!) though he has with me!

I didn't mean that Aloha - I also work from home at least once a week and I totally agree you cannot work from home without chidcare. It was suppose to be a tounge in cheek comment re her comment about how she wouldn't be using a nursery..

I suppose the article (sorry can't find ref on Telegraph site) played on my own fears about the nursery I use. Its a lovely nursery (or seems to be) but both mine still cry at drop off and don't seem particularly settled. Eldest has been going almost 2 yrs p/t now. So, I admit that.

Of course articles like this should be written, but I don't think her moral high ground 'I won't be sending my child to nursery' grand finale added anything. Its nice she has the choice. I still think she could have balanced her argument a bit more......there are some good nurseries out there & she made no mention of this. She also seemed to hold childminders as the answer to good childcare - not sure about that one.

As another work-from-home journalist, I do use a childminder, and she's absolutely wonderful and I trust her implicitly. I think all forms of childcare have some stars and some really awful practitioners. Playing on our fears is pointless, cruel, and generalises from some bad examples.

I do think it's a pity childminders have such a crap image, myself.

Oh Gawd ,sorry, not slaggging childminders. I tried for a really good one myself but she was full. I was just trying to say her argument didn't seemed balanced at all to me. Agree about praying on fears.........

Lazyeye, I think you should trust your instincts. with my first childminder, I really liked her at first, but then came to sense she didn't really like my ds (they didn't seem to click iyswim) and I started to feel very unhappy about the relationship. I was working up to telling her I was moving him when she gave up childminding anyway and moved away. If you really feel the nursery isn't right for your kids (not because anyone is being cruel to them, but maybe it just doesn't suit) perhaps you could look at another kind of childcare? My ds has taken a while to settle at nursery but actually asked to go this morning - mind you he hated full days there so it's just mornings at present - nightmare.
I do agree with you that the assumption that all nurseries are just the same as the one she worked in is a stupid one. I think they should have had the courage the name the nursery.

God, I hope that doesn't make you feel worse. Just that i sensed you were uneasy, and I know that feeling. I never thought his childminder was mean or cruel to him, just that it wasn't the right fit. I was much, much happier with his nannyshare and now his nursery.

Agree with most others on here. My 19mo DD adores her nusery (goes there 2 days a week) and couldn't be happier there. It was the best decsion we ever made sending her. We choose the nursery when I was 7 months pregnant and she started aged 20 weeks.

DD has gained so much too. She is so alert and bright. Her nusery nurses adore her and tell me every day how great she is there. She gets to do so many different activities and plays with other children all day long - she is also very sociable with adults and children.

DD also now just runs off into nursery evry morning. I have to chase after her to pinch a kiss. I sometimes get a waveif she remebers - she is too busy getting into her favourite toys by then!

Things ds has done at nursery:

painting
sticking glitter
crawling through flour
going to the pet shop
making choccy biscuits
feeding the ducks
colouring in

And he's only 10 months old!

I think the standard of care there is excellent. I would love to be able to give him the same experiences at home, but he'd get some grumpy old cow hankering after going out to work. Yes articles like this need to be written (if only to remind me to think how good his nursery is and how happy I am with the way things are!)

Aloha, just out of interest, why did you decide to shift to a nursery? Did the nannyshare come to an end? Just trying to decide myself whether to put DS in nursery - as a place has come up at long last in the nursery nearest our home. At the moment he has a nanny who has two kids of her own - an older boy who he adores and a younger child he tolerates! He seems to really like her, but have to admit initially only hired a nanny out of desperation of never ever finding a nursery place! The nanny is not perfect but I do trust her with DS. DS is very sociable and adaptable so I don't think he'd find nursery a problem but who knows???? Any one else with a view?

florenceuk, FWIW, I think first you should check out the nursery thoroughly and visit it. If your son is happy and you are reasonably OK about his nanyshare arrangement, and the nursery is only a bit better than his present care then don't make the move. If you relly feel the nursery is tons better, then move him. If your nanny is unlikely to find another child to replace your son immediately, then you might be able to go back to her in a month of two if the nursery doesn't work out. Could you say your are trying out the nursery because you feel your son would benefit from a nursery environment, ie so leaving her is not personal? probably not but worth a go if you can.

I read the article too. I think that the writer (a) didn't know about children at all and would have written the article differently if she had been a mother, and
(b) she was trying to write an attention grabbing article, not an accurate report from a neutral stance.

Please take it all with a pinch of salt. It is important that you are happy with your decision to work or not to work as this will impact on your children, but don't let this sort of article play on your mind.

Thanks Tigermoth, thought I'd killed this thread! I should go and look at the nursery again, it's been about 18mths since I last went there. I think if everything was 100% with the nanny I'd be happy to keep going, but my last perfect nanny got pregnant and left...

FlorenceUK, my nanny was giving up nannying - that's why I changed. If your child is happy I'd probably stay with the current arrangement, personally. But I also agree that you should visit the nursery. How old is your son?

OK, went to the library and read the article and I can see why it was so upsetting. I think she should have come clean and said which nursery it was though, as otherwise it just seems to be a bit of scaremongering.

DS is 2, so he is of the age where I was thinking about a nursery anyway, but more the kind of nursery where they go for 2hrs in the morning. Part of the problem is, if I give up the place I know it would take another 12mths to get another if I needed it. This place's waiting list was so long, I had to wait a mth to even get an initial visit! Beginning to sound like that article now...

How long is he with the nanny at the moment? Why not start with two mornings a week and the rest of the time with his nanny? I think children can find it hard to change at age 2 - my ds was quite upset at first though not now. I personally think they really get the benefit of nursery at 2/1/2 - 3 as they can then play much better with other children. Having said that Ds is forming attachments to the other children, even if he is mostly focussed on the nursery workers.

I also don't think it would take another year to get a place. My son's nursery also had a long waiting list, but what happens is that people arrange other childcare and quite a lot are happy with their childminder/nanny/alternative nursery so don't want to change. This means even when their place comes up they don't take it, so there are more places than you might think.

lazyeye - I really think it depends on the child as well as the nursery. My DS has been going since he was tiny and runs off without a backward glance, has to be dragged away home etc but some of his peers who've also been there since baby room (ie 2.5 years) still cry on being left. But when I've been late with DS they are happily playing.

Earlier this year my ds's nursery went through a terrible time when an ex-employee made accusations of child abuse against a member of staff, and of neglect against the nursery in general. At the same time my ds (then 2.5yo) suddenly became very unsettled. It later turned out that one of the children had gone through a phase of biting others, and ds had been bitten but the staff had - unusually - missed that incident.

After a lot of agonising, discussion with dh, and talking to the nursery staff and other parents, we decided to keep ds at the nursery because we were convinced that, were the accusations true, it would have been reflected in his and in the other childrens' behaviour. The member of staff was suspended on full pay until the police and Ofsted investigations were over and the CPS threw the case out completely. It was a terrible and worrying time, and the nursery has suffered as a result. However, I am sure my gut feeling was correct - that this is a place where the childrens' needs are put first, and they are treated with love and respect.

Thanks god it all turned out well.