Daycare WWYD?

fitmom82

Today when I picked up DD (4) she was eating her snack so I stood a few minutes while she finished up.  The assistant teacher, who happens to be the owners son but is a nice enough guy, was standing in the doorway talking to the teacher in the other room.  He often does this, but he's young, the head teacher is usually picking up her kids while I'm getting mine, and the kids are eating snack, so they don't necessarily need him right there.  Two boys were standing by the tables while the other 8 or so kids were sitting and watching them.  It started out very silly, one boy would say "look at my belly" and pull up his shirt, then next boy "look at my back" and pull up his shirt.  As it progressed the one boy turned around and mooned the class, the next one then pulled down his pants and showed the class his penis.  I quickly told the boy don't do that, I'm never usually one to say something to other children, and a few seconds later the assistant teacher came over and I told him what happened.  I told him what happened and he pulled the boy to the side to talk to him, then brought him to the other teacher and she was talking to him as I left.

I'm very conflicted about how I feel about this.  1st I feel the kids should have been better supervised and the situation should have been stopped before it got that far.  I also wonder if I wasn't standing there how much further would it have gone (touching?).  Perhaps the teacher thought since I was there he didn't need to watch them as carefully.   This is also silly things kids do.

Would you say something to the teacher or director?  This is her son.  I'm going to this boy's birthday in 2 weeks, if the mom is chatty maybe I could say something to her and if she wants to bring it up she could.  I think I'd be pretty upset if DD was showing the class her private parts and wonder why the teacher wasn't supervising her.  But again, maybe it's no big deal.  WDYT?

[Deleted User]

I would mention the lack of supervision. I'd think the Director would want to know if possible violations (lack of supervision).

Maybe mention it non-chalantly of possible so it doesn't come across accusatory.

shakinros

I'd probably mention it to the Director and try to make it non-accusatory too. "Wow DD's four year old class must be such a handful!" Then relate incident.

The director might already know. I've been pleasantly surprised once or twice when I bring something up that happened in my DD's classroom that the teachers have already filled her in and worked out a game plan.

VOR

How far away is this doorway?  For the fact that you had to tell him what happened....  um, yeah, he needs to be more IN the room and paying attention.

To a point, I do feel this is just a silly thing kids do.  My DS, when he and his buddies have a playdate, they all love to take off their shirts and run around.  It's a goofy, funny thing they do. 

BUT this is a learning process and kids need to learn that it's not appropriate to show their privates.  The assistant absolutely should have been in a spot where he can more closely observe what's going on and be able to put a stop to this behavior. 

If you do mention it to the director, I would, at least this time, try to be relaxed about it.  A more casual "So, this happened." and just a nudge that the asst teacher really needs to be more in view of what the kids are doing.  If he isn't able to watch them AND carry on a conversation, then the conversation needs to not be happening.

Maynard92014

As a "veteran" teacher with many young 20something as aides and teachers, I would say mention it to the director as was said above. It is amazing to me how the young teachers don't always notice the small things that could easily become bigger. They need guidance and teaching just like the kids do. A good school will use the opportunity to teach the adults as well.

MickeyM04

I'm on the fence.  I feel like it definitely happens when we are doing drop off or pick up, one of the teachers will sort of step away for a minute...in the morning when we drop off it is usually just DS and maybe 1-4 other kids and 1 teacher in that room.  Sometimes if one of the kids goes to the bathroom or something the teacher will step in there for a moment and the only adult in the room will be me/DH.  Also some of the rooms are connected (infant is connected to the 2 year old room and the 2 year old room is connected to the older infant room).  So one of the older infants who had been dropped off in the infant room needed to be brought to the older infant room once that teacher got there.  The older infant room teacher asked the teacher in the 2 year old room to reach into the infant room and then bring her the older infant so that she didn't have to leave the older infants unsupervised (if that makes sense).  So the teacher in DS's room walked to the infant room door (again, they're connected) and picked up the little one and then walked over to the doorway of the older infant room and stepped halfway out to drop her off into the proper room.  She had half her body out the door and was not watching the 2 year olds for about 10 seconds.  Didn't bother me because I was still in there.  I'm sure it happens a lot.  

And kids just do what kids do.  The whole showing off body parts doesn't weird me out.  Maybe I'm weird that way?