how to deal with little monsters

good work -- as parents we can't take any guff off of these toddling swine

it looks like the board is taking this very seriously and the one proactive bully parent initiated proceedings to move schedules around and keep the kids separated as well as get a process on the books, so that's good.

I'm still kinda freaked about what happened to my daughter, now that more details about what basically sounds like a coordinated beating are trickling in

little asshats, who teaches them this kind of behavior...

e-mail from the teacher to the Board:

"Hello Ladies,
Because of the severity of the situation that occurred yesterday along
with the previous situations leading up to it with the same children I
have decided that what is best for everyone involved is to have
GURL 1 and GURL 2 seperated completely for the remainder of the
RUBBERY DUCK Program.
At first I considered only separating them on days V. a was not
present, but I do not believe that will be enough. GURL 2 and GURL 1
play well on their own, just them, but when together and around other
children quite literally situations can and have become dangerous. The
only reason it was Veronica and not another child was because she
desperately wanted to join their group. Other kids stay away when they
can. V. has not been the only child hurt by GURL 1 and GURL 2
together. Even with all four of my eyes and all of my energy I cannot
promise that they will not hurt another child. This time around they
knew to do it where I couldn't see them and the one minute while I was
out comforting another child in the lobby.

I would very much appreciate the Board to add a new policy to the
RUBBERY DUCK program so that in the future when this happens again,
and it will, we are more prepared.
On a side note - I was moved to tears yesterday while holding V.
because seeing her cry, feeling her shaking, listening to her recount
the events was just too much to bear. This will stay with her for a
long time. I have great guilt for being in the lobby and wish I had
just come back ten seconds sooner. Drop-off time can be intense
understandably, but I still wish I could have stopped what happened.
But again, I can't promise that safety at this point so the girls
being moved is necessary as they know now to do these things when I am
not present.
I know M$ and S$ mentioned taking the girls out of the program
completely and I DO NOT feel that is necessary. They just can't be
together is all.
Thank you, Let me know your thoughts
N$"

I dunno about the "this will stay with her for a long time" part... I hope not

Wow.

(Might want to google-proof that.)

Also.. "RUBBERY DUCK"??????

Veronica has not been the only child hurt by @nya and S0lve1g
together. Even with all four of my eyes and all of my energy I cannot
promise that they will not hurt another child. This time around they
knew to do it where I couldn't see them and the one minute while I was
out comforting another child in the lobby.

DAYUMMMM. Naming and shaming...I like it!
Also, congrats to the teacher for taking this 100% seriously.

let me know if you want the memo googleproofed

eh I'm not worried about it, this is a pretty small co-op/program

and yeah I think the teacher does take this 100% seriously and my wife and I (and Veronica) all really like her - I think where things broke down is that the other parents involved, both the ones who were supposed to be on-hand to assist the teacher and the parents of the bullies, kinda dropped the ball re: taking this seriously. Now, EVERYBODY is taking it very seriously. there were lots of phonecalls/e-mails last night

I think the saddest part of this is that GURL 1 and/or GURL 2 are likely to get a swat, not because they've done something wrong, but because they've embarrassed their mothers.

MOD NOTE: hey, i went through and googleproofed it before getting the 'don't need' from shakey mo. i can roll back, but i was erring on the side of caution

at this point -- with all the repeating of the kids' names -- it is kind of a moot point, but i was thinking shakey mo might want to avoid having the kids/parents google the co-op and finding a thread where two children are called 'little monsters'.

haha hmm yeah that's a fair point, google-proof away

just to keep everybody updated (I know yr all on the edge of yr seats), this has basically turned into a huge clusterfuck now - not that it's all bad, but now the board is definitely in damage control mode and are going WAY overboard to do everything they can think of to cover their asses, revise their policies, make sure they don't get sued, etc. Basically my wife is fielding multiple calls/e-mails a day about this, there's an "emergency town hall" meeting scheduled for tonight, a therapist is being brought in, etc.

It's all kind of annoying at this point - I mean they've already agreed to an immediate solution that we found acceptable (separating all the respective parties' schedules) and everyone's apologized/talked about it so my wife and I are satisfied with the resolution. V seems to be doing fine and we will work with her to see that she continues to develop normal socialization skills and everything (it's not like she was kidnapped and molested, I kinda rolled me eyes at the suggestion that therapy was necessary but whatever). But now all these busy-body moms are in overdrive and it's just yak yak yak pester pester pester you don't need to apologize to me for the millionth time just get yr kid under control, okay? It's driving my wife crazy. (V appears to be totally oblivious, which is as it should be, she's basically back to her normal cheerful self)

At this point all you can really do is enjoy the feeling of satisfaction that comes from making a bunch of people lose their shit.

lol

a lot of crying last night, apparently. lots of the Board being told by the therapist that there are huge, glaring holes in their organization - particularly in regards to disciplinary policies - that need to be dealt with. bullying needs to have consequences, for example - neither bully was subjected to any discipline as a result of their behavior, and obviously that's wrong (that there are hippy-dippy parents in this community who would argue otherwise, who would argue that something as simple as a "time out" is too harsh just make me think WTF is wrong with you, I shouldn't be placing my kid in yr care)

fwiw I feel pretty good about how V has handled this and think she's going to be okay, but at the same time my wife and I now feel some overwhelming guilt about our culpability in placing her in an unsafe environment, that we should've pressed this issue harder/earlier, should've thought more about the drawbacks of co-ops, etc. Live and learn, I guess.

In some ways I feel worse for the parents of the bullies, both of whom clearly have way larger issues with themselves, their kids and their marriages that my wife and I do not. the guilt and the pressure to deal with this must be insane... otoh if you can't get yr shit together, stay away from my kid, basically. It does make me feel lucky to have such a generally well-adjusted kid and a happy, functional relationship with my wife

like, okay my kid got subjected to some bullshit by some other kids, but at least she is not the problem child; at least my wife and I are able to give her a comfortable, loving family environment and she's otherwise healthy and happy

yes!!

totally shocked/amazed at time-outs being considered "too extreme" a form of discipline. They won't give them at this preschool because it would be too much of a "marketing problem".

we are looking for another pre-school now...

i don't even understand that. "marketing problem"?

like, they would have problems attracting families/parents if they advertised that the way the way they discipline children includes giving time-outs. that temporarily removing a child who is causing problems from the group is some kind of horrible trauma just makes me say GTFO - and yet, this appears to be fairly common in the Bay Area, which is borne out by all these co-ops/preschools advertising that they advocate "peace-based solutions to problem solving" or some such nonsense. Your kid is being a jerk, he goes and sits in the corner for 10 minutes, what is the big fucking deal...

now I'm just pissed and dreading the headache of finding another preschool

yeah that ultimately hsa to be the most irritating thing. doing the research, settling on it, establishing your little gal there - and now doing it all again! aaaaarrrrgh

I just feel bad like we failed as parents cuz we went with the easiest route and it turned out not to work out - this co-op was started as an extension of an indoor playspace that we were bringing her to, V liked it, we knew some of the other parents, she knew some of the other kids, it seemed like the most reasonable choice. but the drawbacks of being a relatively new co-op with poorly established rules are now really clear and we're just like ARRGH fuck now what

i'm not up for advocating any hippy-dippy "peace based problem solving" malarky among preschoolers, but alfie kohn does make some pretty sane and interesting arguments against certain uses of 'time out' type behavior –– NOT THAT I AGREE WITH THEM –– as forms of punishment predicated on the notion of 'love withdrawal.' a little too liberal for my taste, but interesting food for thought here.

advertising that they advocate "peace-based solutions to problem solving" or some such nonsense.

you will have to really nail down with these people what this means procedurally, beyond "we won't do shit"

Your kid is being a jerk, he goes and sits in the corner for 10 minutes, what is the big fucking deal...

They're prolly thinking about "time out" as practiced in some public schools: Standing stock still, with additional punishment added for slouching (has happened), being locked in a small box (common), or being put into a janitor's closet filled with open cans of paint and varnish (has happened too).

being locked in a small box

i do not believe this has regularly happened in my lifetime.

as they get older I expect modes of discipline to change/adapt but we're talking about 2 and 3 year olds here, and I don't see how doing bad shit with no consequences teaches them anything valuable or important.

and yeah goole OTM about our having to press for specifics in the future

xp

They're prolly thinking about "time out" as practiced in some public schools: Standing stock still, with additional punishment added for slouching (has happened), being locked in a small box (common), or being put into a janitor's closet filled with open cans of paint and varnish (has happened too).

this doesn't meet any definition I ever experienced/witnessed in public schools (either myself or with my parents, both of whom worked in public elementary and jr high schools for 30+ years). if I got a time out as a pre-schooler/elementary schooler it meant I had to go sit in a corner or something and be quiet and that was pretty much it. The locked in a box thing sounds insane/abusive

being locked in a small box

I meant a *narrow* box, sorry. A box tall enough to stand in. And I'm one of those that was locked in one.

in england they have something called "the naughty step" i.e. the bottom step of whatever stairs are close by that you have to go sit on

I meant a *narrow* box, sorry. A box tall enough to stand in. And I'm one of those that was locked in one.

that's insane - this was in America?

yeah, that wouldn't be tolerated here

I'm old enough to remember the cane - used in my primary and middle schools (1973-81) on kids as young as six or seven. Hold your hand out, six whacks on your open palm or fingers with a bamboo rod. Pretty barbaric when you think about it.

that shit was banned from CA schools afaik, never happened while I was growing up and would have been grounds for firing.

surely there's some middle ground between abuse and "hey run free there's no consequences for your actions! Peace out!"

http://www.nospank.net/cacpban.htm

^^^and that's just at the state level, I'm sure it was banned at the local level in various counties well before that

Definitely had the paddle in my elementary school (in TN). At some point they changed the rules so that you had the option of three-day suspension or the paddle. Most kids chose the paddle. Pretty fucked up!

I'm sorry you're going through all this. My wife and I pulled our son out of school last year over the way they handled a kid who was bullying our son. We've been homeschooling him since then, but we will probably have to put him into some sort of afterschool care program soon enough so my wife can pick up more hours at work. We dread having to deal with any sort of problem like this again, and from talking to other parents, it's way too common.

how old's your son...?

6, I was just about to make a post about how young your kid was to have to deal with this, too.

Jeez, sorry about that punctuation.

yeah prior to this I would not really have thought 3 yo girls would be prone to this stuff but guess what. the two in question have a whole bully-and-sycophant dynamic going on, it's obviously bad news

how's it goin?

kind of amazed to ehar about this at that age! all the three year olds I worked with had trouble with like pants and remembering their last name---can't imagine actual bullying. general childish monstrousness sure

oh the firestorm continues - now there's a Safety Committee and a Discipline Committee and the co-op is discussing whether to implement some kind of time-out policy and whether that would lead to the current teacher quitting (she is categorically against time-outs in principle, a position I find sort of baffling) and all kinds of random parents weighing in about what happened. there was a post on the co-op's discussion board yesterday, clearly written by a parent with experience as a lawyer, pointing out that the co-op and individual parents providing care are exposing themselves to some incredibly serious legal liability without clear, consistent policies in place to handle threats to childrens' safety, for example.

in practice, things are going better at the co-op already and they've instituted a few changes that are ensuring all the kids are more closely monitored, etc. and V seems totally happy there. today she checked in and one of the bullies had left her a present (a pink princess dress), which was nice.

I think it's all going to work out fine in the short term, but in the long term we're looking around for somewhere else to put her, just because this whole situation has been very irritating to deal with, and we've lost a great deal of confidence in the teacher and in some of the other parents' child-rearing philosophies.

on a sidenote, this whole affair has led to me learning WAY more than I wanted to know about other families' issues/dysfunctions, including some real-life horror-movie level trauma

:-/

yeah mega-bummer

aaaaaand to close out the story that started this thread: the teacher who presided over my child's beating had her last day today. she is 4 mos pregnant and is leaving to take time off and pursue her master's/get properly accredited and the whole process of her leaving has made it ABUNDANTLY clear what an incompetent prima donna she is (complaining that the term "discipline" should have no place in the co-op's rules and regulations, demanding that she be able to tell parents, individually and personally, when she was leaving rather than let the board handle it, e-mailing parents about how unlikely it is that the co-cop will be able to find a replacement with her "experience" etc.) just ridiculous behavior, the woman does not know how to leave a job. my wife really had to bite her tongue through the whole process.

Wow.

haha maybe not the first ILP thread you should have clicked on...

Hah well I'd followed this earlier. I will say one of the things I am not looking forward to is dealing with a wider assortment of mentally ill people in San Francisco.

jesus christ can you imagine what her kid is gonna be like?!

is it just me who was all 'yay!' when they read kkvgz's asshole neighbor died???

You would be joining my wife. : ) I was certainly repulsed by and lived in fear of the guy. We had an alarm installed after one incident with him. We seriously considered buying a gun for home-defense.

But like in many, if not most, abusive relationships, he wasn't 100% always an asshole to his kid. So the memories of him hollering at the boy and the squalid and dangerous conditions the poor kid had to live in are offset a little by memories of the man fixing up the old dune buggy he kept in his yard and taking the little boy out for ice-cream this summer. It's a balance. I imagine the kid's memories of his dad will be bittersweet and Christmas might be a more difficult time of year to deal with now.

It's all I can do to hope that the boy's life gets better from here. I don't know how much better it will get, but I'm pretty sure it will.

(all of which as a way of saying that I'm not exactly all "yay", but more just like cautiously optimistic)

why wasnt he living with his mom in the first place?