Miss DayCare
Charlotte, NC
Female, 30
I work in a highly respected, franchised Day Care Provider. I have taught in Toddler classrooms as well as Pre-Kindegarten classrooms. It's a wonderful and rewarding profession and I love every minute of it. I have become friends with many of my parents and they all ask questions which is why I want to open a dialogue here so I can be as honest and open as possible about your most prized posession's early childhood education and what really goes on in the classrooms and hallways!
That's something that I am so interested in and look for in every class I teach. You most definitely see which ones are more introverted and which are more social. Sometime they surprise you though, the most attached toddler can blossom at three or four and become a totally different person so it's really fascinating to see them go on that journey of self discovery and finding who they are.
No there's no "hazing." Whoever gets hired knows going in what position they are getting (infant teacher, toddler, pre-school, etc.). If someone is hired for the infant room, they know they're gonna be changing diapers and all that stuff so they know what they're getting into. The turnaround in this industry is pretty high and every teacher in the center I am at has pretty much worked with every age group at the other facilities they have worked in so people who get hired are pretty well rounded.
I've had kids in my class that were absolutely unbearable and there's only so many timeouts and trips to the director's office that you can give them and they still just don't care. That's when we need the parents to intervene and help us figure out what's going on. Sometimes it's a problem at home and they're simply acting out, a lot of times i've seen it be a behavioral problem that has been undiagnosed and once it's recognized and a treatment plan is in effect the behaviors get exponentially better. I have never seen a child be "kicked out" of a daycare center but I know teachers who have. In those instances they said the child became a physical threat to themselves or the kids/teacher around them. Like I said earlier, there might be some things going on at home that can cause behavioral problems, that it why communication is so important between teachers and their parents. I know it can be difficult to "air your laundry" to your child's teacher, but once we know what's going on we can help with the child's behavior.
I know you have to be accredited and receive permits for either a franchised or private in home day care. There are a lot of things that can get you decertied. One of the main ones is having to many kids and not enough teachers. I know where I work, our director and assistant director are sticklers for this one. Each age range has to have a certain ratio that you must stay in so you can't just slip out for a second and leave one teacher with 6/7 2 year olds. You must get a floater in to help for the few minutes you need to step out. The ration problem you see more in a private in home day care than you would in a public facility.
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Do you occasionally get a little turned off by wine snobbery?I've dealt with pretty much everything to a mom coming in every hour on the hour to make sure her child who was potty training got her chance to sit on the toilet (and she did with or without her mother being there). Parents would come in at lunch time to sit with their kids while they ate. I've even had a mom (it's usually the mothers) accost me at a restaurant on a weekend day because she didn't feel her son was getting enough attention at school...mind you this mother was a stay at home mom with only one child and he was in our school mon through fri 7 AM to 6 PM....I'm thinking he wasn't getting enough attention at home but i'm not a licensed psychologist....When I was in an infant classroom I had a mother come in and stay with her baby almost all day and not allow us to build a relationship with her daughter so when we went to go near her the baby would scream and the mom would blame us because we weren't acceptable caregivers and didn't know how to act around her daughter. I do welcome over protective parents and accept their neurosis to an extent, but when it interferes with my job and my classroom, I need to have an open and honest conversation with them usually with a director present so it's documented. I've found that an open dialogue is key with these types of parents and they tend to back off and trust you a bit more once everything is out in the open....this is only the tip of the iceberg....I could write a book with this question alone!
in the infant and toddler rooms you are obviously changing a million diapers a day but around 2 1/2 years old we start putting them on the potty even if they are still in diapers. By three years old, in order to move up to the pre school classrooms, you must have your child be fully potty trained....of course there are still occasional accident but for the most part, they must be self sufficient in the potty area. sometimes parents get offended when their child hasn't moved up because of this reason and then we find out they aren't potty training at home at nights and on weekends. They're just leaving the work up to the daycare teachers and that just won't suffice when it comes to potty training!
Placing a 2 year old in a time out his first week? That seems kind of crazy to me too and as a mother myself I wouldn't be happy either! As much as I want to answer a stern NO to your question, I cannot. The reason why I say that is because timeouts are a simple and effective way to dealing with a problem (especially at 2 years old). I personally do not use a timeout method for disciplining my own child or the kids in my classes, so I have had no complaints in this department. I only answer this way because I have seen this in every facility I have worked in when parents are unhappy with a disciplinary measure taken in the classroom. The director is always going to side with the parent (after all they are paying for the service), notify the teacher, and it's up to the teacher to uphold the agreement of not using the time out method (in your case it seems a bit extreme, I cannot believe they did that to a two year old!). Until your child can communicate with you and tell you every aspect of his/her day in the classroom, you must trust your teacher (and that builds over time) that they aren't going against your wishes and if they are find somewhere else to go because there are plenty of places that are fantastic and wouldn't do that to you or your child. I can understand making a mistake once but if it happens again and you've already had an agreement in place, that's unacceptable. I hate to sound negative or put you on edge, and I wish I could have a more definite answer for you. My gut is telling me that they are continuing with the timeouts because I have seen it over and over again even after a parents asks them not to.
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