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Daycare Center and Family Home Forum>How Would You Address This With A Parent?
HappyPennie 01:17 PM 05-25-2012
My son has been into tripping some of the kids lately, he doesn't do it to be mean, he is playing around, but we have told him already that it is unacceptable and shouldn't be doing that to the children. Well today he came out to the kitchen while I was getting things ready for lunch because he wanted to tell me about his dream that he had but he was frustrated because the baby was crying and one of the other DCK was whining ad he felt like he couldn't tell me about it because it was so loud. Then all of a sudden I heard a thud and turned around and saw that DCK had fallen and hit his head on the cupboard door. I looked at my son as asked him what happened as just by tw look on his face I already knew he had tripped him. I feel horrible and don't know how to tell DCK's mom. I don't want her to worry about her son coming here or his safety. This is the first time anything like this has ever happened and I feel terrible that it was my son that caused it. Any advice on how to approach this?
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CheekyChick 01:22 PM 05-25-2012
I would just be honest... Tell her that your son is having some issues with tripping the children and you are diligently working on it. Apologize for the boo-boo and reassure her that you will do everything within your power to prevent it from happening again.
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SunshineMama 01:24 PM 05-25-2012
I would not call your son out, I would just say that he tripped over another child's foot into the cabinet. Privacy rules apply to your family too

Once you call out your own child the parents will have it out for you and him, even though it could have been anyone. DCP's always want to blame our own kids first.
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jokalima 01:29 PM 05-25-2012
My son is only 20 months old but he has a very hard time with DC, been a bully since he was able to move on is own. Last week he bit for 1st time on DCK and I told DKD what happened, I felt terrible but had to tell them anyways, for me it was almost the end of the world, for DKD was no big problem at all
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MarinaVanessa 01:37 PM 05-25-2012
Considering that DCB is probably old enough to tell on your son then I would just be honest as well. Actually me personally ... I'd tell them the truth no matter what, it would just east at me KWIM? I would just say something like

"Hi Mary, today DS was horsing around and tripped Johny and he fell into the cabinet. I'm pretty sure it wasn't an official accident but he didn't mean for Johny to get hurt. DS is in BIG trouble and I can't wait for all of the daycare kids to be picked up. He and I have a serious conversation and some serious consequences to discuss"

Most of the time parents are pretty good about understanding that kids horse around even if they aren't supposed to. Hopefully this will be your case too. At least now when you talk to your DS more seriously you have a "SEE!!! SEE!!! THIS IS WHY YOU AREN'T SUPPOSED TO DO THIS KIND OF STUFF!!!"
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Crystal 01:53 PM 05-25-2012
How old is your son?

This does not sound like an incident of him "playing around" and he needs to be disciplined for it. It is completely unnaceptable behavior....behavior that I am sure you would not allow a DCK to get away with without some sort of discipline. Honestly, since it has been continuous and you chalk it up to "playing around" as a parent I would be very upset that your child's "playing around" caused an injury to my own child. I understand that you already feel badly, and I am sorry for sounding harsh, but you made the mistake of considering his tripping of the children to be "playing around" when you should have nipped it in the bud from the get-go. It doesn't at all sound like he has been playing around by doing this.....it sounds like an act of aggression and you need to consider WHY he is doing it and try to make adjustments to end the behavior....To me it sounds like he is jealous of the DCK if he gets frustrated so easily because he thinks you cannot hear him when he is talking to you due to DCK making noise.

Personally, I would not allow him to be around the dck at all. At least for awhile, so he realizes that this type of behavior does not get him more time with Mommy, but less.....

Be honest with Mom. Tell her exactly what happened and let her know what the consequences are for his behavior. You cannot assure her that it won't happen it again, so don't try....just let her know that you will be diligent about working on the behavior with your son and hope she is okay with it.
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Michael 02:41 PM 05-25-2012
I am also wondering his age. While it may only seem like tripping it seems like aggressive behaviour IMO. He seems to be expressing his frustrations in a physical way and needs to come to understand why his environment is what it is.

I think he may resent that his space/home is invaded and he needs help redirecting his actions in a more constructive manner.
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HappyPennie 04:25 PM 05-25-2012
Thank you all for your suggestions. It didn't seem right to me to fabricate the truth, if it were my child I would want to know exactly what happened, so I told DCM about the incident and how DS tripped DCK.

Originally Posted by MarinaVanessa:
At least now when you talk to your DS more seriously you have a "SEE!!! SEE!!! THIS IS WHY YOU AREN'T SUPPOSED TO DO THIS KIND OF STUFF!!!"


That's EXACTLY what I did.

Originally Posted by Michael:
I am also wondering his age. While it may only seem like tripping it seems like aggressive behaviour IMO. He seems to be expressing his frustrations in a physical way and needs to come to understand why his environment is what it is.

I think he may resent that his space/home is invaded and he needs help redirecting his actions in a more constructive manner.



Originally Posted by Crystal:
How old is your son?

This does not sound like an incident of him "playing around" and he needs to be disciplined for it. It is completely unnaceptable behavior....behavior that I am sure you would not allow a DCK to get away with without some sort of discipline. Honestly, since it has been continuous and you chalk it up to "playing around" as a parent I would be very upset that your child's "playing around" caused an injury to my own child. I understand that you already feel badly, and I am sorry for sounding harsh, but you made the mistake of considering his tripping of the children to be "playing around" when you should have nipped it in the bud from the get-go. It doesn't at all sound like he has been playing around by doing this.....it sounds like an act of aggression and you need to consider WHY he is doing it and try to make adjustments to end the behavior....To me it sounds like he is jealous of the DCK if he gets frustrated so easily because he thinks you cannot hear him when he is talking to you due to DCK making noise.

Personally, I would not allow him to be around the dck at all. At least for awhile, so he realizes that this type of behavior does not get him more time with Mommy, but less.....

Be honest with Mom. Tell her exactly what happened and let her know what the consequences are for his behavior. You cannot assure her that it won't happen it again, so don't try....just let her know that you will be diligent about working on the behavior with your son and hope she is okay with it.
My son is 5 years old. Normally, when he had been doing it (which I did get after him about it) it didn't seem aggressive at all. I didn't mean to make it sound like I'm taking this lightly because I'm not at all.This time though, was different and it was in an aggressive nature. I am very upset and I sat him down and we had a talk about it. I do think he is having issues with sharing his space and my attention. I'm new with the whole daycare thing so it's still a work in progress for me to find that balance between being Mom and being DC Provider. I had a feeling this would happen before I started, so we had him pick toys that he wanted to keep as his toys and discussed with him that the other ones were going to be shared with daycare (these are toys he rarely plays with anyway). We told him that his room was his space and he didn't have to share that with anyone and anything he wasn't going to share had to be kept in there while DCK were here. So we tried to still make it so he has his own space. I just don't know how else to go about this. I want him to be comfortable with this and not cause problems. He plays so nicely with the kids most of the time and I try to have him be my little helper with small jobs because it makes him feel important. If you have any suggestions at all on how to improve the situation I am all ears!
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Michael 04:31 PM 05-25-2012
Originally Posted by HappyPennie:
My son is 5 years old. Normally, when he had been doing it (which I did get after him about it) it didn't seem aggressive at all. I didn't mean to make it sound like I'm taking this lightly because I'm not at all.This time though, was different and it was in an aggressive nature. I am very upset and I sat him down and we had a talk about it. I do think he is having issues with sharing his space and my attention. I'm new with the whole daycare thing so it's still a work in progress for me to find that balance between being Mom and being DC Provider. I had a feeling this would happen before I started, so we had him pick toys that he wanted to keep as his toys and discussed with him that the other ones were going to be shared with daycare (these are toys he rarely plays with anyway). We told him that his room was his space and he didn't have to share that with anyone and anything he wasn't going to share had to be kept in there while DCK were here. So we tried to still make it so he has his own space. I just don't know how else to go about this. I want him to be comfortable with this and not cause problems. He plays so nicely with the kids most of the time and I try to have him be my little helper with small jobs because it makes him feel important. If you have any suggestions at all on how to improve the situation I am all ears!
I get were you are comign from. As a suggestion, I would have a conversation with everyone in your family present. Tell you son the positive things of having a daycare; it allows you to stay home and that the money from your daycare families allows you to buy things that are making your lives easier. I think he may see the invaders as helpers.
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Crystal 05:15 PM 05-25-2012
I second Michael's suggestion and also recommend that, whenever possible, you find "stolen moments" to spend one-on-one with your son. Naptime, before kids arrive, after they leave....maybe go get an ice cream cone "just because". He is likely jealous that you have to devote so much time to the other kids. Although most of us go into this line of work to stay home with our children, the reality of it is we are not "really" home with our children. Sharing Mom is HUGE in the eyes of a child, so every possible moment when it can be just you and him, take it and run with it! Does he go to kindy yet? If not, one thing I found that my kids really liked was during naptime, we would sit and have lunch together.

Good luck, I hope his behavior changes and that DCM took things well.
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dEHmom 10:19 PM 05-25-2012
I was going to suggest exactly what Michael had suggested. However, i would also like to suggest allowing your son the opportunity first to express his feelings.

Just gently say something like " I know it's hard for you sometimes when mommy/daddy's busy and you want to talk to us/do this/show me something" etc. Then go on to say "but sometimes, you can just let us know that you have something important you'd like to share with us, and as soon as mommy/daddy has a chance we can sit and ______" or whatever it may be. This is also a perfect opportunity to allow him the chance to express the things he does not like about the daycare AND get him to share the nice things about it, and then that opens it up for you to explain very simply the good things he maybe does not understand yet, like you being home for him if he's sick, hurt, upset.

Then help him see that his behaviour is creating hurt/sadness, and also that you will now be busy dealing with the hurt child which takes away more time from your own child. He can also help decide by throwing out a few options on what a reasonable consequence would be for tripping. This might help him see that it's not ok.

As for dealing with the hurt child's parents, i would just explain that their child was tripped and got hurt. If that child tells the parents who did it, i wouldn't be concerned about that, but privacy policy and confidentiality is still the same regardless of your child or not. YOU shouldn't have to disclose the who's. Don't lie and say accidentally, just say was tripped, got hurt, hope X feels better.
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Tags:aggressive behavior, bullying, injury report, notify
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