I have a 3 yr old boy who has been coming since he was 18 months.
He is very babied at home (just out of the crib last week, carried to my door, overprotective/cautious parent) and he has always been "hit or miss" when it comes to drop offs. He sometimes goes a week or two just fine, then go in a stage for a week or so when he throws a full blown tantrum at the door, sometimes when my own kids and husband are still sleeping.
He gets so worked up and takes a while to calm down when Mom leaves. She talks loudly to him "its okay, xxxx Mommy will be back soon, can you try to calm down xxxx?" and she goes on and on and on.
I have had the talk with her like tomorrow I want her to pass me him over the threshold, I explained that he is only doing it for her. But she never does this, she just says he will do better.
Lately he has even had completely baby-like tantrums at pick up, if someone opens the door for his mom, or if another child gets to the door first. Just ridiculous. I try to intervene at both drop off and pick up saying "xxx please stop this right now, lets act like a big boy etc". I absolutely hate it when other children are there to witness this act. Then low and behold, they ALL start having little fits when their parent walks thru the door, if they aren't first in line. arggg
I have spoken to her several times about his behavior, and I see no need of it since he has been here for so long.
On other occasions, when he has misbehaved at daycare, I try to explain what happened. I expressed to her that I need her on 'my side' when I tell him the rules at my house. She needs to reinforce that with him in front of me. "xxxx, you know that Miss xxx told you we don't hit, grab toys, talk during naptime...etc" but he looks at her, and she gets up to leave, never says a word. She says she will try to work on this.
Anyways, after this mornings tantrum, I messaged her saying if he is so unhappy here (she told me he was fine this morning then when they pulled in my driveway, he started screaming "I don't want to go to daycare!!") that maybe he should find a new daycare. I said I need to keep my sanity and having a 3 yo throw fits for no apparent reason and she cant control him during pick up and drop off that it totally puts a damper on my good morning I was having and sets the mood for the rest of the day.
Her defense is that "kids have moods". Well yes, maybe the odd time they are having a bad day, but this has been consistent and I am getting tired of it. Even when I know mom will be here, to try to lessen the time it takes her to get him dressed (he insists he dress himself with her help and it takes 10-15 mins to leave my house some nights!) I try to dress him myself. "Nooooooo I want Mommy to do ittttttt!!" I have also expressed to her his constant feeling of 'his way or the highway' attitude. If we are going to colour, he whines and complains about it. If we are going for a walk and he has to sit in the blue seat of the wagon, he whines about it. This kid is the ultimate whiner.
Anyways, do you think this is worth losing a family over? I am not desperate to keep them, there are plenty of other families on my wait list. And my other families support me 100% and always express their utter gratitude for me and what I do.
Or do you think I am just overacting and that there is nothing Mom can do to try to change her child's behavior? Kids just being kids?
The other 4 daycare kids never seem to have a problem, except not wanting to go at the end of the day!
WWYD?