Feeling Guilty over Injury

[AfterSchoolMom]

A child fell and hurt themselves while in my care. I was in no way responsible, but since I care for older children, this is the first time I've had to deal with a somewhat serious injury, and I'm feeling almost overwhelming guilt since it happened while the child was here. Does anyone else deal with this, or am I just being overly sensitive?

[missnikki]

The most important thing is that you were able to get it handled quickly and professionally. These things do happen, and it is always very hard to take. Keep professional about it, document everything, and keep asking about his progress. DO NOT let it eat you up, it is a fact of life that kids will get hurt. If you were responsible for it (provided unsafe atmosphere, no supervision, etc..) then you might need to re-evaluate the way you do things, and learn from it. If it was unavoidable, use it to help teach the other kids about consequenses of not being careful and safe.

[emosks]

They are called accidents for a reason. We recently had an 11 month old crawl into the toy room and he missed the half inch elevation and fell down onto it. He gave himself a black eye. Did we feel horrible? YEP! Was there anything we did wrong? NOPE! We notified the parents right away and monitored him which was all we could do.

[Golden Rule]

Had a split lip here yesterday when one of my 4yos snatched a toy from another and smacked herself in the mouth with it. Sometimes, I think, it is just natures educational/judicial system...

A little talk about sharing, an ice pack and moving onto another activity worked wonders.

[AfterSchoolMom]

Do you find that the parents get angry over these incidences? I love this child and would hate for the parents to decide to leave...

[Golden Rule]

Originally Posted by AfterSchoolMom

Do you find that the parents get angry over these incidences? I love this child and would hate for the parents to decide to leave...

I have never faced parents being angry about occasional accidents, personally. Kids come in on Monday mornings, often, with more scrapes, bumps and bruises than they get here in a month..lol!!!

I am sure if there were inconsistent stories vs. type of wound (ie. obvious bite mark being called a "scrape" from a fall off tri-cycle), or a pattern of injuries occurring on a regular basis, it would be a different story...but I don't think that is anywhere close to what you are dealing with.

[jen]

I've never really had a parent be upset about an injury. Things happen, and I'm sure the kid has his share of injuries at home too! Don't beat yourself up!

[boysx5]

I agree most parents know kids will get hurt part of growing up I always do feel better when its not on my watch but things do happen no matter how close you watch them

[TGT09]

I think as long as you don't play up minor bumps and bruises to the parents then it will make them feel more at ease with what happened.

[MarinaVanessa]

It feels awful, I know. Just on Saturday my daughter picked up a dcb that's 9 months old and tried carrying him. She did this after I walked out of the room to get my dress. I had changed her in her room and the baby was with us and I was getting my dress to take it into her room so that I could change. Dcm asked me to watch him on Saturday and I said ok. We had an event to go to that evening and she was over half an hour late and so I had to get my daughter ready and myself while the baby was there. I walked out and grabbed my dress and on the way back I heard a loud THUMP! I ran in and he wailed!! She had tripped and bonked his head on the carpet then landed on him!!! I picked him up and he had a rugburn on his forehead and immediately it started to get a big knot! Oh it was awful. Just at that second his mom walks in. He wasn't crying anymore but I immediately told her that we had an accident and that it was all my fault. I explained everything exactly as it happened and I felt just AWFUL. She actually smiled!! She said she understood and that things happened and she talked to my daughter (5) and all she said to her was "Are we going to pick him up again?" and my daughter just shook her head. She felt bad also I know but I was about to burst into tears. I just couldn't believe how understanding his mom was. She even gave me an extra $10 for being late which I didn't want to take because of what happened but she refused to take it back.

It still bothers me even if his head is all better but when I think about it, things do happen. It's scary when they do and we get upset but we can't expect nothing to happen. Hope you feel better soon.

[grandmom]

I show concern about the injury with the parents, and follow my policy about injuries. But I was told once to never say I'm sorry. It's the same at a car accident. If you say I'm sorry, you are admitting some guilt.

The biggest thing I think is to talk about it at the interview, and review your policy. Then follow the policy when an accident happens.

Sometimes it happens but the the sole responsibility is for the owner to take care of the child's safety.

[Crystal]

Originally Posted by jamie-laws

Sometimes it happens but the the sole responsibility is for the owner to take care of the child's safety

And, your point is ?

[katie]

yes, this happend a couple of weeks ago. Right in front of my eyes my dcg and my daughter were skipping and smacked right into each other. My daughter came out unscathed but the dcg got a black eye! At the moment it seemed like no big deal and we moved on. A couple of hours later I was talking to her and she had a black eye! I freaked out. I dreaded pickup. The dad came and he was fine. He laughed it off. But I felt horrible. It was black for like 2 weeks. But we were not doing anything wild or unsafe, I was right there. It was just in a bad spot. You can't beat yourself up.

[melskids]

i had a two year old ( who normally walked fine), trip over his own feet, and his head landed on a rock. he hit it just right to split his head wide open. of course i freaked, called 911, then mom. mom beat the ambulance to my house, which she was twice as far away..lol. after they all left in the ambulance, i went inside and threw up, thats how upset i was. he got 4 stitches, and mom was o.k. about it. she knew it was an accident. funny thing is, that very weekend, he walked in to a door jam at home and needed 5 stitches on the other side of his forehead. he looked like frankenstein...lol that is the only serious accident to ever happen while i was doing daycare, but 3 years later, it still bothers me that it happened on my watch.

[TGT09]

Originally Posted by melskids

i had a two year old ( who normally walked fine), trip over his own feet, and his head landed on a rock. he hit it just right to split his head wide open. of course i freaked, called 911, then mom. mom beat the ambulance to my house, which she was twice as far away..lol. after they all left in the ambulance, i went inside and threw up, thats how upset i was. he got 4 stitches, and mom was o.k. about it. she knew it was an accident. funny thing is, that very weekend, he walked in to a door jam at home and needed 5 stitches on the other side of his forehead. he looked like frankenstein...lol that is the only serious accident to ever happen while i was doing daycare, but 3 years later, it still bothers me that it happened on my watch.

The paranoid person in me would wonder why this child is tripping and running into things all of a sudden.

Accidents definitely happen everywhere children are. It's a known fact.

ETA: I had 7yo dcg (who is accident prone) step on a bee in my backyard after being told not to go out barefoot numerous times...I felt awful and then she did it a second time. I think she learned her lesson to listen to me....I love going barefoot so I couldn't yell at her too much. Mom said she's been stung so many times it's not even funny....seriously her and her brother are the most accident prone children I have but I still feel super guilty every time something happens here. They BOTH had stitches this summer (not while with me) and they both had black eyes, and bruises everywhere....they just lead an active life and with that comes some injury. You have to let a child be a child some times.

[MarinaVanessa]

Originally Posted by melskids

funny thing is, that very weekend, he walked in to a door jam at home and needed 5 stitches on the other side of his forehead. he looked like frankenstein...lol

This reminded me of the time that I visited my mother at her business (pet store) and my daughter stuck her finger in a rat cage that had just had babies. The rat bit her HARD and DEEP and her wound wouldn't stop bleeding and I drove her to urgent care (down the street from the pet store). 2 hours later and no stiches (just a bandaid and some gauze) and we went back to the pet store to give my mom an update. My daughter immediately pokes the parrot with a stick while I was next to her holding her hand and then stuck her finger into the parrot cage and it bit her hard . You would think they would learn wouldn't you.

Just reminds me that accidents do happen and sometimes there's not much you can do about it. I termed a DCB because he kept jumping on the furniture and hanging on a ledge in the living room and he sliced his hand open on an exposed nail that you can't even see but he jumped on the back-rest of the couch and reached up to hang on the ledge. I was literally chasing him around the room trying to get him to get down when it happened and mom just stood there . Needless to say that was the end of that client but because of me, not my client. Never had a client want to leave because of something happening here.

[kidkair]

I was digging in the garden with a couple 3 year olds and while I was holding the spade with dirt in it to move it to another area in the garden one of the 3 year olds ran around and smacked right into the spade. I immediately grabbed the first aid kit and stopped the bleeding then called the mom. I never said I was sorry and I think that helped me to not feel so horrible about it. The mom's response was "I knew he'd end up with stiches soon." She had no problem what so ever about it. In fact she was envious of my ability to keep him calm because at the doctor's he screamed his head off but right after the accident here I had him calm and hardly crying. One of the other parents came to pick up while I was stopping the bleeding and she said I looked like I was in a massacre with how much blood was on my coat. She also took comfort in the fact I was so calm and had the child calm as well. Instead of loosing clients I think I actually gained more trust in some of the parents because they saw how I was when faced with an emergency.