ste_noni | Mean Kids

Ok, I clearly need advice. It's our second day at the daycare. I was there for a hour yesterday morning and an hour this morning. I'm overall very happy with how the place is run and how the kids are treated/cared for. However, I have an issue and I'd love some advice/suggestions on the best way to deal with it.

There's this boy in Ellie's class named Axel. In the two hours I have been in the room, I have seem him push Ellie down on the ground three times and shove her once. He has pushed another little girl down 3-4 times and pulled another little girl's hair twice. He sent this second girl flying by running into her (on purpose). She didn't just hit the ground, like she got knocked over. She actually flew a little bit before she hit the ground. In my opinion, the teachers were actually working to avoid this. They clearly know this kid is a problem and keep an eye on him but there is breakfast, diapers to change, and so on. There are only two teachers and 7-8 kids in the room. Ellie and one other girl (Emma) are both a lot smaller than this boy (he probably weighs 30-35 lbs) and he has no trouble knocking them over.

This boy is not leaving Ellie's room any time soon. Two of the bigger boys are, but not Axel. Also, the teachers don't seem to do much ("Axel, no" and then pick up the kid who is crying), but I'm not sure how much they can do. At one point, he started to knock Ellie over right in front of me and I raised my voice at him, which stopped him. As a point of comparison, I saw one other boy and one other girl do something bad (like push or forcefully take a toy from someone) the entire time I was there.

I had a long talk with the secretary at the daycare who basically told me to speak up and say something. I feel a bit awkward making waves on my second day, but since it deals with Ellie, not nearly as awkward as I might normally.

I'm not overreacting, right? I mean, I'm okay with a little pushing/shoving/biting and I'm sure Ellie will do her share. But that much in such a short time seems like a problem to me. Any ideas on how I approach the director? Anyone know what options are available to daycares for discipline? I'm guessing they are limited by federal law, but I'm not too sure how.

I feel bad for Ellie knowing she's back there crying but at least when she's crying someone is holding her and this kid can't push her down. I felt the worst for little Emma - she didn't have a mom to run to like Ellie did. She just looked sort of stunned sprawled on the floor and I felt so bad for her.

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No, you're not over-reacting. It is going to happen. Toddlers are so quick, and they do things out of the blue. It seems though, that there should be some consequence for this little boy, putting him in a time-out or something. I mean, based on what you've told here, even if he's otherwise the best kid in the world, I can't see why he'd ever consider changing his strategy.

Maybe you can ask the teachers what their strategy is, when a child acts out against another child, in a physical way? It seems they ought to have some un-fun time-out chair/corner/spot, or something, and that he should be moved to it, immediately. Let them know you're concerned for both for Ellie's physical safety, but also for her sense of emotional security. You want her to think of daycare as a fun place she gets to go, rather than a scary place she has to go. They should, too.

Good luck, Stephanie, and three cheers for not tripping the little boy.

three cheers for not tripping the little boy.

Joe's response was, "If your way doesn't work, my way will be to teach Ellie to trip him. Or trip him myself while standing next to Ellie so he associates her with being tripped." It did make me laugh.

I don't have any advice, except to note that when my former boss had her 4 year old in daycare, there was a mean boy there too, and she found out he's always been like that in daycare... but as he got older he was able to get groups together and stuff. So, speaking up about it now may help shape behavior down the road? I don't know... I'm sorry though.

Thanks. I saw his mom this morning. I was tryng to judge whether she looked like the type to discipline her child, but her boobs were so far out of her shirt that I got distracted trying to tell if I could see areolae or not. (i know how bithcy that sounds, but it's also totally true.)

I'm assuming the boy is Ellie's age - i.e. just at the beginning of knowing that what he's doing is wrong. I think my kids' daycare would be really pro-active about this, based on what I've seen with 2 year olds. They have required incident reports for physical violence between kids, and a written report goes to both parents (though I'm not sure to what extent shoving would be covered - mostly it seems to be if skin is broken, or other big boo-boos). The "wild boy" in Casper's old class was the only kid who ever had incident reports written on him, and the teachers worked really closely with him to keep him under control (maybe partly because it's a pain in the ass to do paperwork!) They paid extra attention to him (because acting out is often a result of not enough attention - gos knows I know this from home!), made sure he always got to play outside if only half the class was going outside (a lot of his problem was abundant physical energy), and if necessary made him sit in a chair. I am sure there are federal laws against physical discipline of kids in day care, but I know they can be put in time out type situations - Casper has been (there was a recent shovel incident). Speak up. Ellie can't defend herself against this yet, and you need to be the one to make sure she is defended. And it will help the other kid, too, to learn control and appropriate behavior.

I was sort of surprised there was no "time out" consequence to his shoving. One of the comments I got from another parent with an older daughter is that, in her opinion, there is a cultural tendency here to let boys get away with a lot. I will definitely mention/ask about time out when I speak to the asst. director.

The other thing I thought of today after I posted was that I suspect there is a benefit to speaking now in that it starts building a paper trail. I'm not out to get this kid, but I would be really angry if I saw stuff, said nothing, and then down the road I was told "well, this is the first complaint we've ever had."

I wish my parents had said something when I was being bullied. Even if it hadn't had much effect, I would have liked knowing they at least tried to have my back. So I'd talk to the director. If this sort of thing escalates--as if can do, when not addressed--someone could end up badly hurt. All the bully has to do is shove Ellie or Emma down onto something with corners and you could be looking at stitches or more.

That's a good point about the stitches. I hadn't even thought about that. The way he pushed Emma definitely would have resulted in a cut of some sort if she had hit anything.

Absolutely say something. If this boy is a problem, and the teachers and school know him to be a problem, maybe a parent speaking up can help in having him placed elsewhere for daycare. Either way, I would bring it to their attention ASAP. If he's doing it to that many other kids, he's a bully and needs to be dealt with.

Thanks - I'm going to talk to her tomorrow.

I agree with a lot of what's been said already... while toddlers will do their toddler thing (which involves a certain amount of grabbing and not-yet-completely-gentle touching), that kind of aggressive behavior is NOT okay. I wouldn't worry about being firm about your expectations, no matter how recently Ellie enrolled. Talk to them about the problem, ask them how they plan to handle the discipline issue in the short-term (e.g., time out) and longer-term (e.g., have they spoken to the parents?). Keep checking in on it regularly to see how it's being handled... if they know they're going to have to answer to you, they'll probably be a lot more motivated to make this right.

Mean Kids

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