Miss DayCare
Charlotte, NC
Female, 30
I work in a highly respected, franchised Day Care Provider. I have taught in Toddler classrooms as well as Pre-Kindegarten classrooms. It's a wonderful and rewarding profession and I love every minute of it. I have become friends with many of my parents and they all ask questions which is why I want to open a dialogue here so I can be as honest and open as possible about your most prized posession's early childhood education and what really goes on in the classrooms and hallways!
That was worded wrong, I meant that I had known teacher who have known kids that have been asked to leave the center because of their behavior. Sorry for the mix up!
in the infant and toddler rooms you are obviously changing a million diapers a day but around 2 1/2 years old we start putting them on the potty even if they are still in diapers. By three years old, in order to move up to the pre school classrooms, you must have your child be fully potty trained....of course there are still occasional accident but for the most part, they must be self sufficient in the potty area. sometimes parents get offended when their child hasn't moved up because of this reason and then we find out they aren't potty training at home at nights and on weekends. They're just leaving the work up to the daycare teachers and that just won't suffice when it comes to potty training!
I hate to admit it but I do, there are always one or two kids in your class that make it worth your while to go to work! And any teacher that tells you otherwise is lying. I don't treat them any different than anyone else in the class, and in most cases your "favorite" child started out as your favorite parent/family. The parents you have the most communication with, the parents that treat you like a person not just a full time babysitter for their children, those are the parents of the children that become your "favorite."
I've had kids in my class that were absolutely unbearable and there's only so many timeouts and trips to the director's office that you can give them and they still just don't care. That's when we need the parents to intervene and help us figure out what's going on. Sometimes it's a problem at home and they're simply acting out, a lot of times i've seen it be a behavioral problem that has been undiagnosed and once it's recognized and a treatment plan is in effect the behaviors get exponentially better. I have never seen a child be "kicked out" of a daycare center but I know teachers who have. In those instances they said the child became a physical threat to themselves or the kids/teacher around them. Like I said earlier, there might be some things going on at home that can cause behavioral problems, that it why communication is so important between teachers and their parents. I know it can be difficult to "air your laundry" to your child's teacher, but once we know what's going on we can help with the child's behavior.
Programmer
Is Mark Zuckerberg really a genius programmer? Or was he just lucky?Zookeeper and Animal Trainer
Are a lot of people in your line of work vegetarian/vegan?Bodybuilder
How prevalent is steroid use in pro bodybuilding?I've dealt with pretty much everything to a mom coming in every hour on the hour to make sure her child who was potty training got her chance to sit on the toilet (and she did with or without her mother being there). Parents would come in at lunch time to sit with their kids while they ate. I've even had a mom (it's usually the mothers) accost me at a restaurant on a weekend day because she didn't feel her son was getting enough attention at school...mind you this mother was a stay at home mom with only one child and he was in our school mon through fri 7 AM to 6 PM....I'm thinking he wasn't getting enough attention at home but i'm not a licensed psychologist....When I was in an infant classroom I had a mother come in and stay with her baby almost all day and not allow us to build a relationship with her daughter so when we went to go near her the baby would scream and the mom would blame us because we weren't acceptable caregivers and didn't know how to act around her daughter. I do welcome over protective parents and accept their neurosis to an extent, but when it interferes with my job and my classroom, I need to have an open and honest conversation with them usually with a director present so it's documented. I've found that an open dialogue is key with these types of parents and they tend to back off and trust you a bit more once everything is out in the open....this is only the tip of the iceberg....I could write a book with this question alone!
There's really not much you can do. There are centers that have a policy that for each minute they are late after closing time, they owe one dollar. Unfortunately, that doesn't deter parents from being late, they just hand you cash when they walk in to pick up their child. If you have a chronically late parent, and you have to stay past close, you just have to grin and bear it and wait for that child to graduate to the next classroom so that parent can become another teacher's problem!
Placing a 2 year old in a time out his first week? That seems kind of crazy to me too and as a mother myself I wouldn't be happy either! As much as I want to answer a stern NO to your question, I cannot. The reason why I say that is because timeouts are a simple and effective way to dealing with a problem (especially at 2 years old). I personally do not use a timeout method for disciplining my own child or the kids in my classes, so I have had no complaints in this department. I only answer this way because I have seen this in every facility I have worked in when parents are unhappy with a disciplinary measure taken in the classroom. The director is always going to side with the parent (after all they are paying for the service), notify the teacher, and it's up to the teacher to uphold the agreement of not using the time out method (in your case it seems a bit extreme, I cannot believe they did that to a two year old!). Until your child can communicate with you and tell you every aspect of his/her day in the classroom, you must trust your teacher (and that builds over time) that they aren't going against your wishes and if they are find somewhere else to go because there are plenty of places that are fantastic and wouldn't do that to you or your child. I can understand making a mistake once but if it happens again and you've already had an agreement in place, that's unacceptable. I hate to sound negative or put you on edge, and I wish I could have a more definite answer for you. My gut is telling me that they are continuing with the timeouts because I have seen it over and over again even after a parents asks them not to.
-OR-
Login with Facebook(max 20 characters - letters, numbers, and underscores only. Note that your username is private, and you have the option to choose an alias when asking questions or hosting a Q&A.)
(A valid e-mail address is required. Your e-mail will not be shared with anyone.)
(min 5 characters)
By checking this box, you acknowledge that you have read and agree to Jobstr.com’s Terms and Privacy Policy.
-OR-
Register with Facebook(Don't worry: you'll be able to choose an alias when asking questions or hosting a Q&A.)