I have been doing licensed daycare for over 15 years and have never done this before, but today I sent a child home for screaming/crying for too long this morning. He is usually well behaved. But today, he did one thing after another starting with taking other kids' food at breakfast, then taking toys from others, yelling at other kids, etc. Every time I told him not to do what he was doing, he would yell/scream/cry forcefully at me. I would remove him from where he was and tried to get him involved in another activity, but he would do something wrong no matter what I tried. After a couple of times of him repeating the same inappropriate behavior and me telling him not to do so and what he should do instead, I told him to sit down in time out. He would sit down, but kept on yelling/screaming/crying forcefully. I live in a townhouse, and my neighbor actually came over to see what was going on! After that, I sent the child home. One the phone, the parents told me that the child had a bad morning this morning. I didn't ask them to go into detail, so I don't know what happened this morning before he came to daycare.

In a daycare center, they would have probably sent this child into the office or another classroom. I don't have that option here at a home daycare. So I felt that my only option was to send him home.

My question to you all is would you have sent the child home for this behavior? How long would you allow a child to behave this way before you sent them home?

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