Friday – The 100th Child
May. 1st, 2009 01:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ninanevermore.
.
.
I took yesterday off to interview women to watch my 4 year old. It went better than I'd planned. In fact, it went too well.
I found two terrific women, and I have to turn one of them down today. I still can't make up my mind which one. Of the four people I visited, one was easy to dismiss, one was nice but not quite what I was looking for, and two were wonderful.
It's been almost 3 weeks since my 4 year old got thrown out of daycare. It took me this long to actually start contacting people. At first, I was so worried about his behavior issues – the biting, the physical assaults – that I was terrified to even try. But I've watched something happen in my son the last few weeks, and it helped me develop a game plan. After all my theories about what my son's issue might be, I've devolved theory number 1001, and I think he was not the problem. I think it was his teacher.
Isn't that just like a mother, to claim her child is perfect and the fault lies in the teacher?
I'll be the first to admit that my son is not perfect, though. He's also not the little monster I was lead to believe he is.
Funny what a change of scenery can do. The child who was so introverted he refused to play with anyone else now walks up to every child he meets, tells them his first and last name, and asks them what their name is.
"Hi, my name is ______. My last in is _______. What's your name?" If they don't answer his the first time, he keeps asking until they do.
These last 3 weeks I've been watching him unclench his fist and start offering his open hand. He's slowly relaxing and turning back into the child I knew instead of the out-of-control little stranger he had become at school, and he is lonely for playmates. As he began to relax, so did I. I quit feeling like a deer in the headlights and more like the mother of a neat little boy. I finally worked up the nerve to ask people to take a chance on him caring for him.
At each woman's house, I observed him interact with his potential caregivers and with any children who were around. I took him to McDonald's to have lunch so he could crawl around and play in the giant Habitrail they have for little kids there, where I watched him interact with 3 other little boys his size and smaller. Never once did he attach another child, much less bite one. No one got hit, or pinched, or had shoes thrown at them. He did push one little boy for playing with "his" steering wheel on the equipment, but when I called him to come to me and reminded him that the steering wheel was for everyone and he had to share, he forgot about the incident and moved on. It was naughty of him, but it was an appropriate sort of naughtiness.
At the last house he visited, the 5-year-old daughter of the household and he were climbing over her bed to watch a movie in her room when she bounced and hit his head with her foot.
He rubbed his scalp and scowled at her. "Ouch! Kaylie, that hurt!" he exclaimed. But he didn't hurt her back. She said she was sorry, and they both carried on as if nothing had happened.
I was honest with all of the caregivers, or mostly honest. I confess that I implied I'd taken him out of the daycare, rather than admitted he'd been thrown out. The words I used were, "He had to be taken out of that environment." I mentioned that under the care of his last teacher, he had begun to regress. That he'd had tantrums and bitten other children (I didn't say how many times, and frankly I don't know because I lost count long ago).
"I can't, in good conscience, not tell you about this," I told each woman, "but you can also see that away from that environment, he's a pretty normal little boy."
And they could, too.
The last woman I talked to yesterday, Ms. K., used to work at my son's former daycare. She knew the teacher in question. She told me she'd "bumped heads" with her when Ms. S. had taught her oldest daughter, now 12.
"You're right," she said, "She's very strict, very rigid. I had a lot of disagreements with her and the way she treated my daughter."
Ms. K recognized my son. She'd been one of his teachers a year or so ago for a while.
"Was he a lot of trouble?" I asked. I was worried that I might be wrong about Ms. S. being the problem, that there were issues I was unaware of before he came into her care.
"No," Ms. K. told me, "he was normal. I didn't have any problems with him. Some of the other kids I did, but not him"
I decided to come clean with her. "The first week S. had him, she told me he was uncontrollable, and after a few months with her he really was. The longer he was with her, the more it escalated and there were incidents pretty much daily. Finally, they told me not to bring him back."
K. gasped and her eyes went wide. "Really?"
She worked in childcare centers for quite a few years. She knows how bad a kid has to be to get throw out of one.
I shrugged. "I guess 99 out of 100 kids respond okay to her method, but my son is that 100th child who didn't. The more pressure she put on him, the more he regressed. He started acting out in the way a really rotten 2 year old would."
We watched him play with her 5 year old. My son, who had stopped playing with other children almost all together at the daycare, and she played together like they'd known each other all their lives.
"I don't think I'd have a problem," Ms. K. said.
Honestly, I don't think she would, either. I'm still going to jump through the insurance ropes to get my son a counselor, and I'm still going to put him on the waiting list for the developmental assessment clinic. Something in his make up makes him a little more sensitive than other kids, and I'm not sure he may not still be a little damaged from months of being in a pressure cooker environment that lead him to injure other kids and teachers on a regular basis and to withdraw into himself in such an extreme way.
Monday, whether I choose the stay-at-home mother of little Kaylie or the ex-Montessori teacher opening a home daycare center in her living room (they both are wonderful, and I'm in agony over whom to choose), my son will have a new care provider. I'll be nervous about that phone call saying, "I know you warned me, and I know I said I could handle him, but I was wrong. Come get him and don't bring him back!" I'll be nervous about that call for the next few weeks.
But I have hope – maybe even a realistic one - that it won't come.
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * # * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *
.
.
I took yesterday off to interview women to watch my 4 year old. It went better than I'd planned. In fact, it went too well.
I found two terrific women, and I have to turn one of them down today. I still can't make up my mind which one. Of the four people I visited, one was easy to dismiss, one was nice but not quite what I was looking for, and two were wonderful.
It's been almost 3 weeks since my 4 year old got thrown out of daycare. It took me this long to actually start contacting people. At first, I was so worried about his behavior issues – the biting, the physical assaults – that I was terrified to even try. But I've watched something happen in my son the last few weeks, and it helped me develop a game plan. After all my theories about what my son's issue might be, I've devolved theory number 1001, and I think he was not the problem. I think it was his teacher.
Isn't that just like a mother, to claim her child is perfect and the fault lies in the teacher?
I'll be the first to admit that my son is not perfect, though. He's also not the little monster I was lead to believe he is.
Funny what a change of scenery can do. The child who was so introverted he refused to play with anyone else now walks up to every child he meets, tells them his first and last name, and asks them what their name is.
"Hi, my name is ______. My last in is _______. What's your name?" If they don't answer his the first time, he keeps asking until they do.
These last 3 weeks I've been watching him unclench his fist and start offering his open hand. He's slowly relaxing and turning back into the child I knew instead of the out-of-control little stranger he had become at school, and he is lonely for playmates. As he began to relax, so did I. I quit feeling like a deer in the headlights and more like the mother of a neat little boy. I finally worked up the nerve to ask people to take a chance on him caring for him.
At each woman's house, I observed him interact with his potential caregivers and with any children who were around. I took him to McDonald's to have lunch so he could crawl around and play in the giant Habitrail they have for little kids there, where I watched him interact with 3 other little boys his size and smaller. Never once did he attach another child, much less bite one. No one got hit, or pinched, or had shoes thrown at them. He did push one little boy for playing with "his" steering wheel on the equipment, but when I called him to come to me and reminded him that the steering wheel was for everyone and he had to share, he forgot about the incident and moved on. It was naughty of him, but it was an appropriate sort of naughtiness.
At the last house he visited, the 5-year-old daughter of the household and he were climbing over her bed to watch a movie in her room when she bounced and hit his head with her foot.
He rubbed his scalp and scowled at her. "Ouch! Kaylie, that hurt!" he exclaimed. But he didn't hurt her back. She said she was sorry, and they both carried on as if nothing had happened.
I was honest with all of the caregivers, or mostly honest. I confess that I implied I'd taken him out of the daycare, rather than admitted he'd been thrown out. The words I used were, "He had to be taken out of that environment." I mentioned that under the care of his last teacher, he had begun to regress. That he'd had tantrums and bitten other children (I didn't say how many times, and frankly I don't know because I lost count long ago).
"I can't, in good conscience, not tell you about this," I told each woman, "but you can also see that away from that environment, he's a pretty normal little boy."
And they could, too.
The last woman I talked to yesterday, Ms. K., used to work at my son's former daycare. She knew the teacher in question. She told me she'd "bumped heads" with her when Ms. S. had taught her oldest daughter, now 12.
"You're right," she said, "She's very strict, very rigid. I had a lot of disagreements with her and the way she treated my daughter."
Ms. K recognized my son. She'd been one of his teachers a year or so ago for a while.
"Was he a lot of trouble?" I asked. I was worried that I might be wrong about Ms. S. being the problem, that there were issues I was unaware of before he came into her care.
"No," Ms. K. told me, "he was normal. I didn't have any problems with him. Some of the other kids I did, but not him"
I decided to come clean with her. "The first week S. had him, she told me he was uncontrollable, and after a few months with her he really was. The longer he was with her, the more it escalated and there were incidents pretty much daily. Finally, they told me not to bring him back."
K. gasped and her eyes went wide. "Really?"
She worked in childcare centers for quite a few years. She knows how bad a kid has to be to get throw out of one.
I shrugged. "I guess 99 out of 100 kids respond okay to her method, but my son is that 100th child who didn't. The more pressure she put on him, the more he regressed. He started acting out in the way a really rotten 2 year old would."
We watched him play with her 5 year old. My son, who had stopped playing with other children almost all together at the daycare, and she played together like they'd known each other all their lives.
"I don't think I'd have a problem," Ms. K. said.
Honestly, I don't think she would, either. I'm still going to jump through the insurance ropes to get my son a counselor, and I'm still going to put him on the waiting list for the developmental assessment clinic. Something in his make up makes him a little more sensitive than other kids, and I'm not sure he may not still be a little damaged from months of being in a pressure cooker environment that lead him to injure other kids and teachers on a regular basis and to withdraw into himself in such an extreme way.
Monday, whether I choose the stay-at-home mother of little Kaylie or the ex-Montessori teacher opening a home daycare center in her living room (they both are wonderful, and I'm in agony over whom to choose), my son will have a new care provider. I'll be nervous about that phone call saying, "I know you warned me, and I know I said I could handle him, but I was wrong. Come get him and don't bring him back!" I'll be nervous about that call for the next few weeks.
But I have hope – maybe even a realistic one - that it won't come.
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no subject
Date: 2009-05-01 07:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-05-01 07:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-05-01 07:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-05-01 07:22 pm (UTC)*HUGS NINA TIGHT*
no subject
Date: 2009-05-01 07:35 pm (UTC)Now, she may have meant it as a moment of fun but it really hurts his feelings, the kids call him that every day.
He says (again, it could be just him) that she yells at the class every day.
He hates school this year. His other 3 years, he loved it
It could be him, I know he can be annoying etc. But a teacher does matter. I hope he gets one that meshes with him better next year.
no subject
Date: 2009-05-01 07:35 pm (UTC)But it's way nicer than the agony I was in before. :)
no subject
Date: 2009-05-01 07:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-05-01 07:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-05-01 07:46 pm (UTC)If only one of these other girls had scary dogs that knocked my son to the ground and made him cry, it would be a no brainer. But no, they have a friendly mini-dachshund and a cute happy shih tzu. *sigh*
I must write about the lady with the pit bulls, I suppose. It's kind of funny. :)
no subject
Date: 2009-05-01 08:17 pm (UTC)I would take the woman's experience with the teacher to heart. She has seen it first hand and still welcomes your son with open arms....It's not him. It was the specific chemistry between he and the teacher.
no subject
Date: 2009-05-01 08:24 pm (UTC)Either she's mean, or she has very poor judgment. Either way, she shouldn't be teaching children.
All kids can be annoying, and an atypical kid especially so. That's no excuse to torment him. >:(
no subject
Date: 2009-05-01 08:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-05-01 08:27 pm (UTC)I have to admit, it was nice to get the validation from the ex teacher.
no subject
Date: 2009-05-01 08:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-05-01 08:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-05-01 09:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-05-01 10:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-05-02 12:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-05-02 12:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-05-02 12:26 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-05-02 04:06 pm (UTC)The other women, I spoke to for at least an hour. The "large dog" lady I only visited with for about 20 minutes.
no subject
Date: 2009-05-02 04:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-05-02 04:11 pm (UTC)I'm hoping this works out. :)
no subject
Date: 2009-05-02 04:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-05-02 04:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-05-02 04:18 pm (UTC)A few weeks at home, watching him change back into the child I knew before, plus the realization that he only acted out at school but almost never anywhere else made me realize that the environment had the be the problem, not the child.
I still want him to talk to the counselor, just to make sure there are no more underlying issues. But he's about 90 percent better just not being in that place anymore.
no subject
Date: 2009-05-03 05:03 am (UTC)While I seriously doubt you'll see many lingering effects from this experience, I agree with about taking him to a counselor -- if for no other reason than to make sure he understands that he deserves better than how she treated him.
no subject
Date: 2009-05-03 04:22 pm (UTC)I understand little kids with big personalities are a bit more work. So are smart kids - they ask questions constantly, and each one you answer leads to another question. But dealing with emerging personalities and expanding intellects by answering questions is all part of the job of being a #$%&ing teacher! Being a teacher who refuses to deal with these things is like being an M.D. who refuses to deal with @#$*ing sick people!
(Me, use exclamation points after all I've railed against them? Yes, because I'm shouting, damnit.)