Hi Everyone
I would really appreciate some advice regarding my 4yr old son. I went back to work when my son was 2yrs old and placed him in a local bursery that I had received positive feedback about. For 18mths or so there were no real issues to speak of bar the occasional paddy etc which is par for the course for kids his age. However, about 6 mths ago i started receiving reports from nursery that he was having aggressive and disruptive outbursts and was kicking and spitting at the young girls who were caring for him. I was alarmed to discover this as his behaviour at home is perfectly normal and he has never spit at either his 2 older brothers or myself! Don't get me wrong - he can be a very strong willed child, but we always manage to reason with him and get him to comply without raised voices or aggression from either side. In fact, on the odd occasion when i have shouted at him he has become very upset and told me he doesnt like me shouting at him. I had an informal meeting with the bursery before christmas when they didnt seem to have the coping strategies to control or deal with his behaviour, and we decided to try a couple of strategies, including keeping a diary for him so i could understand the issues at nursery and they could hopefully understand the stark contrast to his behaviour at home. However, i became a little unsettled that there was too much negativity in his diary, even when i was informed he hadnt had a particularly bad day. On friday i picked him up from nursery as usual, and after asking how his day had been, was told he had had a great day and been a good boy. Imagine my dismay then, when on saturday morning i received a letter through the door saying that for the benefit of the staff and other children, i was being given 4 weeks notice to remove my son from the nursery. The letter stated they had consulted ofsted, but i find it hard to believe that ofsted wouuld encourage excluding a child from nursery without consultation with the parents. At no point did the nursery staff or manager ever tell me that exclusion was a possibility. I would have expected at the very least to have been informed this was a consideration, and would have expected them to have included me in any assessment period, but they did not. Now i am left feeling extremely let down by the nursery that has cared for my son for almost 2 yrs, and also wondering if there is something medically wrong with my son if he is exhibiting behaviour such as this in nursery but not at home? Im confused and would desperately like to hear from anyone who may be able to offer any advice. Thank you to all in anticipation.

Hi Crystal,

If there was a medical cause for your son's behaviour, he would almost certainly be behaving this way at home as well as at nursery. I would suggest that the environment at the nursery isn't agreeing with your son.

It sounds to me like they just don't know how to cope with a child of a strong willed nature. If they are being overly controlling, and had labelled him as "bad", then he is going to pick up on this vibe and react badly.

Have there been any staff/management changes at the nursery? I ask because this sounds more personal than practical. How do other parents feel about the place? Is this a privately run nursery or is it run in conjunction with a school? If it is a school-based nursery, they are more bound to play by the rules. I get the impression that independent nurseries are a law unto themselves, although I'm not sure of the legal requirements.

Personally, I think excluding this child is outrageous. It is disgraceful of them to ask you to remove your son without consulting you about this first, and to tell you via mail is very discourteous, not to mention cowardly.

I would be inclined to contact Ofsted myself, to check whether they are allowed to act this way. I would also see if there is an appeals procedure in place, to demand that they review this case properly. Failing that, I would make sure I gave them hell before I left. Write letters of complaint, report them to whatever authority they answer to, local government, ofsted, really make a noise!

The bottom line though, do you really want your son in a nursery that doesn't have the imagination and intelligence to put strategies in place for more spirited children? It sounds like they want to take the lazy way out here. Your son obviously isnt having a very happy time there, so perhaps its time to start afresh elsewhere. After all, nursery will give him his impression of school life, and it will be much nicer for him if he can have a more positive experience at nursery.

Best of luck to you and your son

Liz xx

Hi Liz

Thank you for your supportive words. I do not intend to let them off the hook so lightly and will be writing a letter of complaint to both the nursery and ofsted insisting on a full and proper explanation for their actions.

The nursery is privately run so is not affiliated with any of the local schools, and in my opinion, the girls who look after his group are really to young to have developed any experience in order to have the coping strategies required to deal with young children when they exhibit difficult behaviour.

Of course, I do not want my son to return to that nursery and nor will he. I think he would (if indeed, he hasnt already) pick up the vibes towards him and i would never dream of putting him through that.

My job is important in that it pays the mortgage and the bills, and as a single mother I shoulder that responsibility alone, however my sons are the most important thing in my life, and i will always make sure that their welfare is my top priority!

Kind Regards
Crystal

Have you checked with the other parents to see if you're the only one? I had a similar situation happen with a personal caregiver and when I started asking more questions and probing more, suddenly he wasn't wanted there anymore. A couple of months have passed now and my son is finally opening up with bits and pieces about what their daily routine was, and in no way was he abused but he certainly wasn't entertained or encouraged there. Perhaps this is for the best for you and your son and a chance to find a place that will cater to your sons needs rather than try to stifle them. Good luck - I know it's hard to find quality care now adays.

Hi,
I wonder if you know why your child is behaving like this? Or maybe you could intuit what it is about? It's remarkable how much we know when we are willing to let down our defences.

We go into denial about things because we don't want to feel bad. This, in one go, puts a fence around the very areas we need to go into if we are ever going to find out what is going on for our children - in terms of their experience.

Feeling bad is not a good reason for avoiding a subject. It's actually a very bad reason. Ultimately a parent, or the principal care giver, is responsible for how the children are and how they behave.

When I say this, it is not an invitation to MAKE children behave properly so that we parents look good. It is an invitation to be responsive and curious about what feelings might underlie the behaviour we don't want. This is anti-social behaviour away from home.

How bonded are you to your child? If a child feels at risk of abandonment, rejection and withdrawal of love, they will fear to behave badly. This fear comes from lost bonding where the parents may have very busy lives, be devoted to their work, and secretly know that the child is coming a firm second to work - day to day- but they are not consciously admitting it to themselves. These are the dynamics that can lead a child to seem ok at home but go up the wall away from home.

Where parents create distance between themselves and their children it is only because the parents unresolved pain from childhood would be triggered by being close to the child.

These triggers are not set off in the office, at work.

So, in order to avoid feeling bad, we go to the office not the child.

The fact that you are in the dark about the emotional pain in your child is the msot important factor here and the fastest way to a solution is to get back in touch, real touch. Get close, open and maybe even say sorry for being aqway - that kind of approach maybe. On the other hand this may not fit your circs. I write free reports to help parents at www.childproblem.co.uk
Good luck
David Peet

Hi David

Thanks for your reply. You raise some interesting points, and certainly made me think about how my work could be affecting my child as I do have a demanding job.

However, my son and I are very close indeed. He has shared my bed since the day he was born (downstairs in the living room!) and continues to do so. He has his own bedroom which he knows is there for him whenever he is ready to sleep in it. I do sometimes wonder if it is the very fact that we are so close that causes him to miss me when im at work and behave badly, and yet he never behaved this way until approx 6 mths ago.

I should point out that my son has hearing and speech problems and is undergoing regular visits to audiology and speech therapy depts as an outpatient. Of course his brothers and I understand him perfectly well, but it is difficult for others to fully understand him. Could his aggression at nursery be a result of frustration at not being able to communicate with the other children as well as he feels he ought to be able to?

Either way, I still think it is wrong of his nursery to react this way, especially as they concede that he is n fact "a truly lovely boy" when he isnt misbehaving.

My sons behaviour is not coupled with bad language, just pure aggression, and he always always apologises afterwards.

I dont think my work impairs on our time together - today we have both been very busy and he has enjoyed helping me wash my car and doing some gardening, and we always have lots of cuddles and i tell him all the time how special he is and how much i love him - he has no doubt about that!


Thank you for taking the time to reply to me. Your words have not fallen on deaf ears and i will observe our situation much more closely from now on.

Kind Regards
Crystal

Hi Crystal,
Well I appreciate your maturity! Thanks. I may as well chuck in a couple of thoughts with the health warning it may not be right.
One is where's dad?
Two where do YOU feel like your child? When could you behave like him if you did not have the self-control that comes with age? Just guess. Could you be like this at work? Are you angry with someone and it is not admitted to fully in yourself...

Three The mind is in, kind of, layers so our conscious awareness is not all that is going on in our minds. So we can be totally ok with something consciously but subconsciously we are not happy at all. Can you find a situation which makes you feel the way your child is acting which you may have covered over as 'ok' but it isn't? RU at peace with his 'problems' - esp as far as it effects him in a world that may not be as co-operative and understanding as you?

Regarding point one above - if a child has a parent off the map, especially of the same sex, it CAN mean the child feels they have 'won' mum and they feel very bad about it - either they get knocked out by guilt or have to keep winning/competition.

As I say I do free reports about all this to help parents at www.childproblem.co.uk. I just did a newsletter about the experience of the child as they grow up sop parents can 'get' what they are going through. But you'd have to email me for it cos it's gone out last week - but that's no prob for anyone reading this- david@childproblem.co.uk


David