r/ECEProfessionals

Hello everyone!!! I so respect what you all do. I am a teacher as well, just elementary school level so not quite the same. I just enrolled my daughter (8mo) in daycare and I am having a super hard time with something. They have cameras so parents can check in during the day. Today I was watching and my daughter was sitting on the ground crying for an hour and nobody went over to check on her, pick her up, comfort her, anything. Is that normal? I’m stressed. On one hand I am super understanding that there are a lot of other babies in the room who need attention and care. As a teacher I understand that. As a mom I am so upset that nobody picked her up for an hour. They only picked her up after I messaged them that she needed to take a nap (kind of another story but it was just that the first teacher didn’t communicate to the other teachers, but resulted in baby not sleeping for almost 7 hours) I really want to be respectful, but it just doesn’t feel right. I’m just wondering what is normal and what is not.

I deleted my post history, because my only post was asking about something regarding my kid (detailed enough), and i want to remain anonymous. I might delete this post too, idk 🥲

I'm so sad to have to ask this. I love my kids daycare and they have been so great. Ive loved her past teachers, and these new ones seemed fine too.

Im hoping maybe I dont know enough and im just wrong. I did submit an anonymous complaint already to the Department of Health & Human services (utah). But no answer yet since i just did it; i put an anon email in case they needed the video (I downloaded it).

My childs toddler teachers posted a video of the kids doing freeplay. They do some structured and some more relaxed activities, and they post things throughout the day on the daycare app.

In the background of one video form today, you can clearly see a teacher carrying one of the 2 year olds by the wrist only; kid is completely dangling in the air, feet not even close to the ground. The room isnt that big and the video is very clear. Not sure if the kid had a potty accident, but the teacher looks very stern faced and is kind of angrily fast walking to where the door is, carrying that kid (you cant see the door, I just know the door is there). A different teacher uploaded the video than the one carrying the kid by the wrist. I dont think she noticed because she was focusing the video on the kids that were playing, idk.

Im not sure if maybe its allowed if the kid is soiled, and maybe she meant it so as to not get her clothes soiled? Im not ok with it, and i would be even more upset if it was my kid. I guess im just hoping I haven't been keeping my kid at a shitty daycare this whole time

I reported it since I obviously am not equipped to investigate this. Just so they'll browse the cameras and make sure it wasnt something that is illegal.

I struggle with ruminating and this situation is STILL bothering me, so i thought I'd share for some outside perspective. I feel i was in the right (although I could have gone about it differently) but everyone hated me until I left.

We had a teacher in our center who i suspected was drinking on the job for a few months. I continued bringing this up to management, and nothing was being done. I told our director that if the teacher came in again with a cup that smelled like alcohol, I was going to pour some (out of the teachers personal cup) into a disposable cup to bring to management and confirm.

They fully backed me on this and said it sounded like a plan. A few days later, cup smelled like alcohol AGAIN and I stepped into the classroom so the teacher could go to the bathroom. Poured some into a cup and sure enough, it was. Took it to management and they got mad and started yelling at me because now "they would have to deal with it"

I was then sent home for the day and management sent a message in our team communication saying to "focus on yourself and not on everyone else" obviously directed at me.

My hours were then severely cut (down to maybe 15 hours a week) i contacted licensing and the teacher was eventually fired a few weeks later, and i was treated horribly until i quit.

I need help and you guys are experts! Someone here might help me crack the code…

My son is a finger sucker (middle and ring) and I swear to god we are sick with something every other week from it. It’s chronic and the dentist said it’s starting to bend the roof of his mouth. HFM is now in my house for the second time.

What is the best way to stop it? I also have a 11 month old who now sucks her thumb when she’s hungry and tired…

I had a 5 year old student bring a lunchbox with a full jar of icing and a muffin. She had other things in there - chips, Capri sun, cosmic brownie. Suffice it to say we had to remind her mom about our lunch policy of packing all of the food groups for a well rounded meal.

Edit- this child did not have ARFID, this child was not struggling financially. She just liked icing.
Also, this is just a funny story to invite other funny stories. In no way, do I want to make fun of parents and families that we serve.

What are some unconventional/silly strategies you use for teaching or classroom management? One of my favorites is whenever a kid gets hurt but it’s not something that needs ice or a bandaid, I always say “Do you want me to sprinkle some pixie dust on it?” and I’ll reach in my pocket and pretend to sprinkle pixie dust on their booboo and go “pspsps” and 9/10 times they giggle and go back to playing.

The events leading up to this post started in April so it’s been a long time coming. I also don’t really know if I’m looking for advice, solidarity, or just to vent but I know hearing others viewpoints often help.

Back in April, I picked my son up at daycare and signed an incident report that my child had been bitten. Obviously not unheard off, but reading the incident report concerned me as it stated that Child A had stolen a toy my son was playing with, my son told Child A “stop” and Child A responded by biting him. I’m certainly not a early childhood expert but I feel like generally when I’ve heard about reactionary biting its in reaction to an escalating behavior (ie: pushing, taking a toy, etc) and please correct me if I’m wrong on that. The mark that this bite left also struck me because it was a full dental impression on my child’s arm. Child A had my sons whole arm in his mouth.

At that time I spoke to the director about my concern and asked what the plan was moving forward and the director shared with me that the child was new and had struggled at a prior daycare ( I strongly got the impression that he was asked to leave but not confirmed) and they were working with the parents to see if they could accommodate him because all kids deserve a chance.

As time went by my child was bit again, by the same child. I also heard about multiple other children being bit (likely by the same child but I can only speak for my son since he told me who bit him). I’ve had my concerns but trying to trust that the daycare is following a process and also extend understanding and empathy towards this boys family. I’ve picked up at the same time as the mother many times and from what I can tell she is actively implementing things to help support him.

This was all kind of occurring peripherally until the new school year started a last week and it all came to a head. I do think the timing is important in all this because while I don’t know, I strongly suspect Child A may have a developmental disorder which could be why the behavior seems to be escalating now.

In the first week of school he bit the same child three days in a row (that I know of), I’ve seen them have to call in other teachers and lock all the doors (which I assume is a fire hazard) to keep Child A from eloping (I saw it 3 different times in the 5 minutes I was dropping off one time). In addition to several other aggressive behaviors - one time he had my son in a headlock, another day I watched him push my son out of no where my son stumbled but caught his balance, so he pushed him again harder so he’d fall to the ground. I’ve also seen him tell the teacher my son pushed him when my son had been clinging on to me at drop off. He can also be extremely desctructive, throwing furniture and toys when he gets upset. None of these things alone are abnormal but I guess just to give an idea of the kind of disruptions.

Today I was looped in that some of the other moms are fed up, blaming child A for their child’s bad behavior (I could write a whole book on that topic but I’ll spare everyone) and some moms even discussing looking at different daycares because of it.

My sons class has 12 children and one teacher, although they’re actively hiring a second to split the class, but the teacher has to spend most of her time chasing around this one child. I’ve heard a couple parents say their children have started saying they’re scared to go to school. My own son has started saying that when he’s always loved school - but he hasn’t gone as far as to say child A is the reason so he could just be copying what he hears. The teacher is unable to appropriatelysupervise the rest of the class because her attention is constantly on child A. It seems obvious that Child A really needs one on one attention and it’s getting to the point where it feels like the other children are getting slighted to accommodate this one child.

I have a good relationship with the director and so I’m thinking of going to speak to her when I pick up this afternoon. I know I can’t protect my child from everything and I don’t want to. He needs to learn how to handle problems, but where is the line between teaching your children to handle life and advocating for what’s best for them?

If you took the time to read all this I would love to hear your thoughts, advice, or experiences.

I've been hearing murmurings here and there about other bright horizons center locking up employee cell phones and my center is now one of them. We were just informed that they have ordered a see through locker and we are all expected to entrust our phone to this locker or else risk termination. I, and all of my colleagues, are absolutely furious. I can't even quantify how many times they've stressed the importance of trust and now they are confiscating our phones like we are children.

So I’m a regular staff for a school-age summer program. Yesterday a child In my room was quite upset because we were getting ready to go outside and the other kids were taking too long. He had been on edge all day, swearing at staff and other kids, threatening to harm us. I typically have found with this particular kid, it’s better to ignore(he usually looses interest and stops) but this time the language got worse. He told me to “suck his f*****g d***” then called be the f slur. I am queer so that word stung quite a bit. I was able to speak with my director and all that really happened was me switching rooms for the rest of the day.
My biggest concern is that his behaviour is not being addressed, so he’ll continue to use slurs and in front of other children. That word weighs really heavily on me and I honestly don’t feel very safe going back knowing the way it’s been handled.

I am an infant teacher, in my classroom we have a 11 month old girl who is very active. She is a go for it kind of girl! She is just shy of walking, pulls up, cruises, nothing stops her. As a result, she occasionally gets a bump, nothing major. She usually is more upset about the ice pack than the bump. I treat her, fill out incident report, take pictures…go through all the steps.

Mom has expressed her concern about her bumps and I have explained that this is part of the process, this is learning how to use her body. Unfortunately bumps occasionally happen.

Mom has asked if I can stop her from exploring, so she doesn’t get hurt. She explained that at home she basically is in a padded play pen area.

Umm, no. I can’t restrict her.

Anyone else experience a parent like this?

Hi, I’m wondering if this current setup is pretty standard or if we should be consider chatting with teachers/director. It’s a licensed center in Ontario, with different rooms, where my son is 3y in preschool rooom.

- Once monthly we get a photo. Sometimes the photo is back of head or doesn’t have our kid in it.

- Zero info on activities and development. We are aware that water play happens one morning per week because we are asked to drop off in swimsuit. But what he actually does and his successes etc is a mystery.

- Trips to the park or library stopped 4 months ago.

- We sometimes get midday phone calls about poor behaviour. Never hitting or aggression but just poor attentiveness and silly behaviour, sometimes name calling. We are usually told it’s normal for this age but also they seem really frustrated. We just apologize and say we’ll try to reinforce good habits at home. They never set a meeting with us because we pick up right before close.

- Our son hates daycare. He says daycare is stinky. Never excited really, though he talks about a best friend sometimes.

Others I’ve talked to have such different experiences in preschool, that seem more positive. What are some next steps and what should I NOT say.

Thanks!

It’s Wednesday, I’m sure we have a list of things that are just getting under our skin at this point. I’ll start – let’s talk about meals. At our Center families need to bring in lunch. We only supply snack. My classroom is 2.9-8 year-olds. It’s not ideal and I’ve reached my limit this summer with the older kids. One of my 3.7-year-olds is still extremely immature, but she is the baby of four other siblings and mom works at the Center so she often gets away with a lot of crap. Every day this kid gets chocolate pudding and no one in her family has sat and taught her how to eat like a normal human being. I think mom knows that this pudding cup drives me bonkers and purposely sends it , sometimes it’s her main meal. When I help her open it, I have to now take the cover away because when she would lick the lid, it would start from her forehead and go all the way down to her clothes. I can no longer have pitchers of milk and water on the table for the kids to help themselves because she slimed them up so bad that no one wanted to touch them and then I would have to spend time scraping pudding and saliva off of these pitchers. She constantly drops the pudding cup so pudding splatters everywhere and we’re not allowed to have mops at our center and asking a immature three year-old to clean up pudding from the floor makes a bigger mess that I get to deal with on my hands and knees.
Fun times

Hello this is a very unique situation and I mostly need help with presenting this to my employer as a complaint for lack of a better word.

I am the Pre-K teacher at my program. This would mean that I am “preschool” but my center has a separate, unlicensed, “traditional preschool” offered to families. Which means the get taken out of my class 9-12 Monday- Wednesday if the families opt in. (And pay extra money)

My class is a very small room. Annoyingly small. It actually is only allowed to have 9 kids because it’s such a cramped space. Usually more than half of my kids go to preschool, which is a huge room with a bunch of cool stuff. The room of my dreams really. 🤣 problem is that sometimes there has been 2 kids who don’t get to go.

I know, super stupid and messed up. They aren’t licensed because it doesn’t have some sort of alarm or something that they would have to pay a lot of money to remedy. But also it’s extra income for them. It’s been like this for many years.

This has many issues with this system and I could talk about it all day but I want them to actually listen to me and just change the whole situation so that it actually makes sense.

Hi everyone!

We tried to start daycare recently with our 5.5 month old, and it was a fail. The ladies were so nice, but at a 1:5 ratio, he was left crying under the playmat too often, wasn’t eating, and was just generally so exhausted and lethargic it was heartbreaking. The other babies there were constantly crying and no one could get to them to help soothe them. They could barely get through bottles/diapers, let alone activities. Everything was so rushed, and you could tell the teachers were working so hard. They themselves told me they had no choice and were just doing their best. As a nurse, I do have an understanding of too many patients to one caregiver myself. This is considered one of the best daycares in the area. Unfortunately there are no daycares with lower ratios, so we pulled him out to be with a nanny until he’s older. I feel like infants need more responsive caregiving than what daycare can provide in our area unfortunately. That got me thinking, at what age do you personally feel daycare seems to not have such negative effects on young children? There is just no way being left alone to cry for long lengths of time every day is good for his development, and it would be a crime to pretend it is. It hurts my heart that so many have no choice, and I feel like systemically, this is a failure for both the staff and babies.

I’m wondering for how long the nanny may be a better option for him. I’m just really curious to see when you think kiddos truly thrive in daycare vs at home with a nanny.

I did have the opportunity to spend a few hours in the classroom when taking him to meet the teachers mid-day, so I do feel like I got a very good idea of what actually goes on there unfortunately. I know they are doing their best.

Please hear what I'm saying......

I truly understand life happens. We get sick, our children get sick, the unavoidable happens. People also deserve to take vacations and time away. But when the same people call out of work every other week, the rest of the staff picking up their slack will start to get tired of it. Not to mention....these kids are acting out 10x more because of all the inconsistency of staffing!

Did I mention it is only the second week of the new school year?

I'm trying to get some outside perspective on my daughter's kindergarten schedule. She's 5 (turns 6 in April), and this is the daily schedule her private school provided.

Monday

7:45–8:00 — Arrival

8:00–8:25 — Bible/Devotional

8:30–9:10 — Reading/Language Arts

9:15–9:55 — Reading/Language Arts

10:00–10:40 — Science

10:45–11:15 — Lunch

11:30–12:10 — Spanish

12:15–1:35 — Math

1:45–2:25 — Social Studies

2:30–3:10 — Recess

3:10–3:15 — Dismissal

Tuesday

7:45–8:00 — Arrival

8:00–8:25 — Bible/Devotional

8:30–9:10 — Reading/Language Arts

9:15–9:55 — Reading/Language Arts

10:00–10:40 — Science

10:45–11:15 — Lunch

11:30–12:10 — PE

12:15–12:55 — Writing

1:00–1:40 — Math

1:45–2:25 — Tech Time

2:30–3:10 — Dismissal

Wednesday

7:45–8:00 — Arrival

8:00–8:25 — Bible/Devotional

8:30–9:10 — Reading/Language Arts

9:15–9:55 — Reading/Language Arts

10:00–10:40 — PE

10:45–11:15 — Lunch

11:30–12:10 — Music

12:15–1:35 — Math

1:45–2:25 — Recess

2:30 — Dismissal

Thursday

7:45–8:00 — Arrival

8:00–8:55 — Chapel

9:00–9:10 — Bathroom Break

9:10–9:55 — Library

10:00–10:40 — Reading

10:45–11:15 — Lunch

11:30–12:10 — Reading

12:15–12:55 — Extra Instruction

1:00–1:40 — Math

1:45–2:25 — Math

2:30–3:10 — Social Studies

3:10–3:15 — Dismissal

Friday

7:45–8:00 — Arrival

8:00–8:25 — Bible/Devotional

8:30–9:10 — Reading/Language Arts

9:15–9:55 — Reading/Language Arts

10:00–10:40 — Art

10:45–11:15 — Lunch

11:30–12:10 — Spanish

12:15–1:35 — Math

1:45–2:25 — Writing

2:30–3:10 — Recess

3:10–3:15 — Dismissal

One thing that really jumps out to me is that the only listed recess on Monday and Friday is 2:30–3:10, immediately before dismissal, and Wednesday's recess is 1:45–2:25. Tuesday and Thursday don't have recess listed at all (although the teacher told me they have either PE or recess every day).
I'm not asking whether the academics are "too hard" for kindergarten. I'm more interested in the overall structure of the day—the amount of adult-directed academic time, the lack of visible unstructured/child-directed play, and the timing of recess.
Does this look developmentally appropriate to you for a class of 5-year-olds? Or is this simply a normal example of a more academically rigorous/structured kindergarten program?

I am an after-school director. The majority of my employees are between the ages of 16-22. I never want to be the “Young people today blah blah blah” guy, but…these kids just do NOT want to work! They often choose to be more social with each other than with the kids they are supposed to be engaging with. In addition, daily tasks like taking attendance, having their kids walk in straight lines, playing circle games during down time, and cleaning up after snack are approached as inconvenient and annoying…which maybe they are…but every job has those necessary annoyances. It’s important to note that I pay very well compared to similar programs, and as such, I expect excellence. On top of that, when I give them strategies to use to help them set a positive tone and, overall, make their lives easier, they scoff at it. I’ve been an educator for over a decade and I work hard to treat my staff with respect and I take on the more challenging parts of the job (discipline, communicating with parents, etc) but it seems like they won’t be happy unless I’m doing literally everything. Am I the asshole here? And if I am, please lord someone tell me what I need to do to make sure the work gets done without these kids rolling their eyes at everything I ask!

I’m sure my question depends on the facility and everything, but I was wondering if anyone has any insight or has been through this before. I’ve been really trying to get on at a daycare with preschool age children and have been to a couple interviews. Right now I have two job offers, and I quit smoking marijuana 2 weeks ago. I’ve been drinking lots of water, gatorade, and cranberry juice trying to clear my system but I’ve been a frequent smoker for about 2 years now. I just did a drug test from the dollar tree today and it still came up positive. I’m wondering if I fail a drug screen at one facility if that would show up at other facilities in the future. I’m pretty young and I don’t really know much about this stuff. I guess I should’ve stopped sooner but I didn’t think about it or plan ahead. I don’t know what to do and I really need a job. Any advice/insight would be much appreciated

Hello, so while I was nannying this three year old today. He hadn’t gone potty in a few hours by the time I got there, so before we left the house, we tried again to no avail. He had a small accident while we were at the park, I changed him, and later we went home. I asked him if he needed to go potty and he said no, so I planned on having him try again after lunch. Then he had another accident while I was preparing lunch, and I didn’t realize until after it was time for me to leave (maybe about 30 minutes), that pee had gotten on his sofa cushions in his room. Mom was upset but didn’t say a whole lot, I said that it was my bad and I should have had him go right away when we came back home. I’m debating knocking off one hour’s worth of pay as an apology, since that took at least an hour to clean. What are your thoughts? I know this was a big mistake, I’m still fairly new to full on nannying as opposed to babysitting for an evening.