Who would Terminate if this didn't improve?

[Mamma_Mia]

I agree about the babying thing...I see some of the kids at my son's preschool get carried into the school and it seems ridiculous to me...I haven't carried my son since he was under 2 unless he is hurt or something! Anyway, I am wondering about the child in your care who is three and not potty trained, not talking, etc. Have you ruled out some sort of developmental problem? 3 seems awfully late to not be talking. I know a lot of kids potty train later these days and I see that you are dealing with parents who baby him, but the talking would concern me.

I'm not sure about it. At first it looks like he doesn't have to speak because he would just cry and be asked 500 questions until one suits his needs and then he nods. I was trying to test him earlier and he would just repeat what I'd say....not actually answer me.

me - can you say car?
.........
me - say c...c...car
.........
me - ******** are you listening to me?
.........
me - yes?
yes

(face palm!)

[mom-in-alberta]

Just out of curiosity, what could the parents do to help if her behavior was not like this at home?
Thanks in advance!

For me; when a parent says "Oh, they NEVER do this at home!!" I don't really believe it. I know that kids can act somewhat differently with parents vs other people, I do. But there MUST be some of the same behaviours, they just don't SEE IT.

And Sarah; I hope we aren't being too harsh on you. There is obviously just a difference in opinion. The challenge with this little girl seems to be that she is defiant and emotional over EVERYTHING. If it were just an issue of "I don't want to do a craft, today", I am sure that our original poster would not have this much of an issue. But as I mentioned, the little girl is refusing to do pretty much anything and everything asked of her. We have to draw some boundaries and rules somehow, right? Nobody is saying that we need to turn these kids into some kind of rule-following-automoton-robot-people. But in GROUP CARE, sometimes we need to do what the GROUP is doing. Even if it's not exactly what we want to do at that precise moment. We have to function as a unit. So if circle time is upstairs and the playroom is downstairs, then I guess free play at that time is not going to work.

In any case, I hope that things get better with this family real soon!!!

[Momof4]

Just out of curiosity, what could the parents do to help if her behavior was not like this at home?
Thanks in advance!

In my experience, the children are the same at home and daycare or even better behaved at daycare. Why? Because they cannot manipulate us the way they can wrap their parents around their cute little fingers.

We expect and demand good behaviour from all the children at the same time because if we don't it would be chaos. And we've all experienced chaos at one time or another while transitioning or going through a particularly difficult phase with a little one.

So when I see a behavioural issue happening I ask the parents if they are seeing the same thing at home. Usually they say, oh yeah, he/she has been doing that lately! Then I ask them how they are handling it at home. Usually they haven't been doing anything because they are all first time parents and still learning and need a tiny bit of guidance from someone with a whole lot more experience - me! Then I tell them how I am handling the issue at daycare and stress that it is not their parenting, but something that the child is just trying out as they grow and learn and stress even more that we must take charge and help the child learn good behaviour.

[Sarah]

Well I have to say that this particular discussion made me think a lot today.

My cryer is sooooo annoying me today. So I thought about you and what you wrote. We are not totally opposites in our opinions, but it got me to see that I might be bending a little bit too much for this dck

Today, mom arrives (and she knows her child is a huge cryer, I've told her numerous time) and he is crying. He wants to get of the toy he is playing with, and needs my help, and also needs to put his shoes back on. So he comes to me, and I sit him and say:"now lets put your shoes on" and there he goes crying and throwing himself on the ground. I could have forced him, but the situation was so ridiculous, you know, that I told him that he wouldn't get off until he was a happy camper putting his shoes on.

Mom got here, I told her what I was doing. She so wanted to hold him, but I was blocking the way (the way I was standing, not actually blocking her way!). So she went on:"Come see mommy, oh are you ok, I don't understand, he doesn't do that at home, command baby put your shoes on..." BABYING HIM BIG TIME! I told her that her son was throwing tantrums for a yes, a no, a maybe and even a yes but hold on a second!

So anyway, you got me thinking, and I am as of now starting to expect more from this particular one! Few ugly days ahead!

[Sarah]

And Sarah; I hope we aren't being too harsh on you.

Respectfull discussion is healthy!

You all made me realize something!

I still beleive that they all are kids, if not baby (some seem to not like that calling!!!) they are really young and we are there to teach them, by having reasonnable expectation. But our expectations should never be set by comparing to other kids, because they all are differents. Of course, the comparison can be helpfull to finding abnormalities (don't know if this word is the right one to use, sorry).

[sunnydays]

Sarah: I think that is the great thing about the forum...it makes us all think and examine the way we are doing things...or at least it should. I have learned so much through all the discussions on here! We can all learn from each others' opinions and different ways of doing things. Good luck with your little crier! Stay strong

[Inspired by Reggio]

Respectfull discussion is healthy!.

Could not agree more ... I love me good debate on philosophical practices!

I respect that it is very hard to find that balance between supporting positive social emotional development in children - we want to respect and accept their feelings cause they are entitled to have them and we do not want to teach children to 'bury' those like many of us were taught back in the day with messages like 'boys dont cry be a man' and so forth.

We also want to do that while supporting the development of socially acceptable conflict resolution skills and resilience in children ... that message that oh yes it is ok to cry when hurt / sad come here and let me give you a snuggle verses it is NOT ok to throw a tantrum because you did not get your own way or had to wait a moment for your needs to be met - I know your frustrated but lets use your WORDS to solve that problem - when your body is calm down and ready to TALK I can help you.

I have a two year old who is in that 'crying' over everything stage and whenever he starts I just say "Stop! I can see your getting frustrated - take a big deep breath and try again cause I know you can do it - and crying will not ...." get your shoe on/off, will not get that puzzle piece into the puzzle or whatever is causing the start of the tantrum behaviour ... it is working wonders here and if mom and dad could get on the same page it would work at home too - however they still buy into it at pick up and 'bribe' him to stop and well hey if a tantrum will get you a Timmies donut eventually or a trip to the store for a new dinky car why wouldn't you throw one

[Mamma_Mia]

well hey if a tantrum will get you a Timmies donut eventually or a trip to the store for a new dinky car why wouldn't you throw one

haha so true!
in that case waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa I want a starbucks-tall-vanilla-late-140-degrees-two-sugars-chocolate-shakes-on-top-coffee now!!! ((is it coming?))

[Cadillac]

UPDATE! - So I called meeting with the parents. I worded in a way that I thought was the most respectful possible without telling them that their 'babying' is affecting their kid BIG TIME!

So I approached it as needing more consistency between our two houses. We set a plan for how we are dealing with the crying, meal times, structured activities, and so on.

The parents will be doing on structured activity every day that she is not here.

We talked about how hard it is to refrain from doing things FOR the children as it is easier and babying feels good to some parents. They agreed and are giving her more to do on her own at home.

Over the weekends, there was a change.

She takes part in activities with enthusiasm, eats her lunch, takes big breaths where there would be tears. she WANTS to do things on her own. TWO DAYS WAS ALL IT TOOK!

She earned COUNTLESS stickers the last few days.

I'm really happy

[Inspired by Reggio]

Oh that is an AWESOME update ... communicating with clients is KEY for sure cause when we are all working on the same page children really DO want to thrive and be happy too!