Unregistered 07:07 PM 04-13-2011
Hello i need help. A few weeks ago a child was injured will playing at my daycare. This is what happened: The kids were playing around and were getting a little to rowdy so the teacher asked them to stop and play a little less roughly. While this was going on one of the other teachers was changing a infant in the other room. The infant was crying non stop while the teacher was changing him so the other teacher went in to get his pacifier leaving the kids alone for less than two seconds in the other room. Two seconds later the little girl comes in crying saying her sister jumped on her and hurt her arm.
The teachers checked her arm and it seemed ok, we told the director and the mom what happened. It all seemed like a minor accident. A day passes and the mom is complaining that the little girl is not using her hand properly. So she takes her to the ER and to our shock she has a hairline fracture in her hand. This is when all hell brakes loose. Now the mom wants compensation, the sister is saying that the other girl jumped on the little girls arm while the teacher watched and basically the mom is blaming the daycare when it was her daughter who accidentally hurt the little girl. The older girl is scared of her and is lying about the incident. What can and should we do? This mom is not reasonable.. The director even tried settling this whole thing with some compensation but she doesn't seem satisfied.
nannyde 04:18 AM 04-14-2011
It sounds like the Mom has a pretty good case. Leaving a group of kids unattended to get a pacifier for a crying infant is going to be a problem with the Licensors.
It's okay for babies to scream bloody murder during diaper changes. It doesn't require a third party to intercede to get the baby to stop. The Staff member should have just stayed with the kids and supervised them. Five minutes of crying would have been way better than a broken bone.
It's going to be a tough one to sell to the Licensors. They are used to stories where the staff was doing the "best interest" for one child and then another child got hurt. To them, the only part of this story that could ring true was that the kids WERE left unattended. Doesn't matter how long and why.
They are also going to investigate to see if indeed a small child could step on and break the hand bones of another small child. They are going to want to find out if the child who was accused of doing it had hard shoes on and what position the child was that was harmed. It's going to be a HARD sell to get them to believe the story.
They will be able to tell a lot on the xray to see if it was a blunt force trauma injury or an rotation injury. With the kind of injury you are describing there should have been bruising at the point of impact the next day. If there was no external bruising to match the injury that will be suspicious.
Looks like you have a road ahead of you. Good luck.
countrymom 05:06 AM 04-14-2011
I had a kid last year like this (this is why I don't watch older children anymore) the younger brother blamed my dd for kicking him in the eye while I was outside. Hmmm there was never any mention of this, no crying, nothing. 2 days later mom calls and says that S has a black eye and is saying that A hit her knee in his eye. When i saw it I knew immediately that it wasn't from that. I started questioning the 4 yr old and the brother would interveen right away so I knew something was up. So since he didn't want to tell me what had happened I tried another approach. I asked him what he did at his aunts house, well low and behold, apparently no one was watching them and the aunt built these dirt ramps that the boys (she has 2 boys) could race and ride over, well S fell off his bike and the handle bar hit him in the face, and it was the older brothers fault because he pushed him. I didn't say anything to mom, but I was so mad for my dd, she didn't do anything wrong and she was being accused. I was bitter the rest of the summer, the older brother was a trouble maker here. I hate children who lie, and if your gut is saying she is lying, you need to make her tell the truth. Are there cameras at the center, and what is the younger child saying.
youretooloud 06:39 AM 04-14-2011
I'm sure the director already self reported. So, if she's done that, and she's offered some compensation, I don't think there's anything more the director can do but wait.
The ball is in the Mom's court now.
I do agree having two adults deal with one diaper change was a bad idea.
I don't have to be in the room with the kids at all times. So, I believe kids can manage to play without too much intervention. But, If the kids were already being rowdy, they needed more attention than the one crying infant. That's when you change the diaper faster and pick the baby up. But, you don't leave a group that's already out of control to help another adult tend to one infant.