Getting anoyed with all my parents grr!(venting)

[Inspired by Reggio]

I can empathize with being torn between tough love for the parent and not wanting a child to suffer because their parent is not organized and proactive enough to meet their needs and ultimately you and the program having to suffer because of it.

When I was a young ECE I used to keep extras of everything and so forth and I would just say to them 'that's ok I have an extra XYZ the child can borrow' because I did not want the child to suffer for the parents lack of planning ... I did this until I realized that this helping behavior was 'enabling' clients to continue to be LAZY and not supporting them to develop the skills of organization and planning needing to effectively parent their child ~ and so the behavior never got better cause the parent just assumed that if they forgot than I would step up and do it for them they were not motivated to change because they did not 'need' to change the behavior ... so now I have a 2 strikes policy for dealing with this!

I still keep 'extra' clothes/diapers for an emergency however a client gets ONE bail out to forget something where I will provide the back up item for them that day. They get a reminder at this point that 'next time you might not be so lucky and I might not have what is needed and you will have to go home and get it making yourself late for work ~ please ensure X has what is needed daily. They are reminded to bring what is needed at pick up plus replacement of whatever they 'borrowed' back to the program the next morning.

If they forget AGAIN I am assertive! I feel that it is than becoming a 'pattern' and want the message that this behavior will not be tolerated and so I send them back home to go get what is needed for the day and if I do not trust them to actually DO IT and come back than I send them with their child in tow to go get it. I do this as a natural consequence for their poor planning choice ~ IMO making them late for work aids to help them get motivated to create a PLAN for ensuring that they arrive to daycare with everything their child needs each day than so be it ... because sadly for many people until their behavior negatively affects them they will never GET IT and make change of said behavior because they learn that someone will always 'bail them out so its all cool' .

My long winded point is if we do not like a behavior in either a child or a client than we need to create a natural consequence for that behavior that motivates them to change it otherwise we have to learn to 'live with' the behavior because until they are motivated to change it they will not

[Connect]

Hello,
I agree with Inspired. When I worked in a centre we did have extra clothes to put on children and guess what? some items would not even get returned! We constantly had to put reminders in children's cubbies . . .

I can empathize with being torn between tough love for the parent and not wanting a child to suffer because their parent is not organized and proactive enough to meet their needs and ultimately you and the program having to suffer because of it.

When I was a young ECE I used to keep extras of everything and so forth and I would just say to them 'that's ok I have an extra XYZ the child can borrow' because I did not want the child to suffer for the parents lack of planning ... I did this until I realized that this helping behavior was 'enabling' clients to continue to be LAZY and not supporting them to develop the skills of organization and planning needing to effectively parent their child ~ and so the behavior never got better cause the parent just assumed that if they forgot than I would step up and do it for them they were not motivated to change because they did not 'need' to change the behavior ... so now I have a 2 strikes policy for dealing with this!

I still keep 'extra' clothes/diapers for an emergency however a client gets ONE bail out to forget something where I will provide the back up item for them that day. They get a reminder at this point that 'next time you might not be so lucky and I might not have what is needed and you will have to go home and get it making yourself late for work ~ please ensure X has what is needed daily. They are reminded to bring what is needed at pick up plus replacement of whatever they 'borrowed' back to the program the next morning.

If they forget AGAIN I am assertive! I feel that it is than becoming a 'pattern' and want the message that this behavior will not be tolerated and so I send them back home to go get what is needed for the day and if I do not trust them to actually DO IT and come back than I send them with their child in tow to go get it. I do this as a natural consequence for their poor planning choice ~ IMO making them late for work aids to help them get motivated to create a PLAN for ensuring that they arrive to daycare with everything their child needs each day than so be it ... because sadly for many people until their behavior negatively affects them they will never GET IT and make change of said behavior because they learn that someone will always 'bail them out so its all cool' .

My long winded point is if we do not like a behavior in either a child or a client than we need to create a natural consequence for that behavior that motivates them to change it otherwise we have to learn to 'live with' the behavior because until they are motivated to change it they will not