how to deal with little monsters

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 I guess that's reassuring in a weird way? like, gettig bullied at daycare is probably not gonna be hat traumatic in the long run?

someone else pointed out that V is now probably going to be the SAFEST kid at the co-op being that she was (mostly unbeknownst to her, I'm sure) at the middle of this whole brouhaha.

but yeah, her being on the receiving end of some little brats kinda doesn't even compare to some of the other shit I've heard in recent days (like surviving a murder/suicide attempt on the part of your mom, which claimed the life of yr sibling, for ex. I can see how your dad+stepmom might be a little hyper-protective of you after that)

oh man :(

yeah my eyes kinda popped out of my head when I heard that

"but in the long term we're looking around for somewhere else to put her"

Have you looked into L4ur3l Hill, Shakey? That's where my brother and I went to pre-school and it was a really good experience.

we haven't taken a serious look anywhere yet, just compiling a list - need to get on this tho

so the bullies are gone - new school year, my daughter is now one of the oldest in the program (keeping her here while we look around for a real pre-school, so far fingers crossed for Glenridge which seems like our first choice)

altho now she has a classmate who humps everything... which is more comical than anything but it's just like WTF this kid is literally humping something every couple of minutes. the floor, the furniture, toys, other children (latter doesn't always go over so well). Future porn star?

Oh man, long story but I ended up briefly reunited with a long lost sister about 12 years ago and during the reunion I met my niece who was about 4 and who constantly humped everything, just frottering away while we're having this estranged family reunion, and it made an already awkward situation almost unbearable. I would say it is just a normal thing some kids do, but I there was nothing normal about any of that.

I think this kid is around 2 yo

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