Time Out in Daycare

There is one thing every parent learns, you never say never. It is done and
over with. In my day, you were guilty until proven innocent!! LOL. Even
4 y.o. know when they have done something wrong and will tell another
story. They were there, you were not. I think you have to trust them. A
time out is not the end of the world. Let it go. It it continues to happen,
then I would need to address the situation.

A mother knows her child she knows when the child is lying or telling the truth.you konw his body langage.but kids will be kids. they fight they play they fight they play and we stay angry at one another.i say let it go and just watch.

I used to have a home daycare. Don't be one of those that says, "My child would never do this or that!" Yes, they do and will. Kids hit and slap and lie. All kids do it, even the sweetest of perfect angels have their moments. I have never and would never lie to a parent about something their child did. What would be to gain from this? They say your son did it, you don't believe it, he was punished according to their rules, move on! Nothing more can be done about it. I think you are making a mountain out of a mole hill. I would quit bringing it up, your son would have probably already have forgotten about it and moved on if you weren't still talking about it 3 days later.

Children lie, it is a fact. You could see your son hit the girl, and he would still say he did not because he believes it will keep him out of trouble. I am not saying for sure he hit the girl, but if the school thinks he did, chances are he did. I would let it go. He was punished at the time, and by talking about it to him again and again you are just reinforcing in his mind that he needs to stick to his story to avoid trouble.

I think that you did the right thing. It does happen that a child is disciplined for something he did not do or which turns out to be different than what the teacher or helper saw. It also happens that a child is not caught doing something against the rules and is not disciplined. It all works out. What is important for your son to learn is that the person in charge of him is responsible to call them as he sees them and even tho the one in charge made a mistake he is to be respected.

When what happens is serious and obviously in error, yes, you do need to stand up for your son. This is a minor situation about which you should not be concerned about. If you had not seemed unsure your son would have long ago forgot about it. You should be concerned if a pattern develops in which your son is frequently disciplined for actions that seem unlike him. Then you need to ask lots of questions.

If the school staff investigated every situation like this they would have no time for the normal day to day interaction with children. The school would be more focused on wrong doing and discipline then on teaching children how to behave and providing a positive experience for the children. Second guessing a minor decision such as this is counter productive.

I have been doing lunch playground duty once/week for 5 years now. From time to time I blow my whistle to stop some behavior. Sometimes the child wants to convince me that they did nothing wrong. I have more of a tendency to add additional discipline, such as a time out, when they argue with me because of the arguing and not the reason I blew my whistle. I say to them that I'm only concerned that the action stops and not who did what. Can they go back to playing "nicely." I insert whatever I am concerned about.

What I've described about my experience as a playground volunteer concerns children who are older and more mature but I suggest that the seeds for this kind of behavior is planted when the child is young and the parents focus on guilt instead of respect for the process. There is frequently no way to know what actually happened. At the same time there has to be a consequence, especially during the early years, so that the child learns about good behavior and consequences.

The girl fell. Your son is 4. He may have reached out to her and doesn't realize that his action contributed to her falling. He may not have actually slapped her but he may have been angry or irritated with her and it showed in his face and posture. The playground supervisor did the best he could based on his skill level.

Your child will always be around people who are not especially skilled. The day care cannot afford to hire a professional for playground duty. He is learning right along with your son. If he makes errors repeatedly the teacher will recognize that and if not you can bring it to her attention. In the mean time give the young man the benefit of the doubt.

You have to trust your provider. I suggest that you could still talk with the teacher about what happened but I urge you to keep an open mind and not push for a resolution concerning the time out. Ask because you want to understand the system as well as know more about this young man so that you'll feel more comfortable.

Young boy really tells me nothing about this person's age. The way that you stated young boy and put teacher in quotes causes me to wonder if you are having difficulty with this because of his age. If he's truly young, say 14-15 or less, then I might question what he did. But if he's older than that he may have good skills for managing preschool age children.

My granddaughter has been in the after school YMCA child care program for 5 years. The best caretakers have been young. They do have to be at least 18 and I think most have been 19-22. This years site director seems to be perhaps as old as 24. I've been on field trips with them and seen them in action. I also volunteer at the site and just hang around when I pick up my granddaughter and know that I can trust them. A couple of times I wasn't sure what was actually going on and I asked the worker. I've been confident in their ability to supervise her and the other children except during one year when the workers were changing every few weeks.

If you're not sure about your son's care, find a way to spend some time observing the workers at work.

Why are you still talking to your child about this after 3 days? You are making way to much out of it and IF your child did make a mistake, he certainly can now tell you are so concerned about it, he may not ever be able to tell you what actually happened out of fear of 3 days telling you his story. ..

When our daughter went into kindergarten her teacher told all of us parents, "If you will believe 50% of what your child tells you goes on here at school, I will believe 50% of what your child tells me goes on in your home."

None of us believes "our precious" would ever do anything like hitting, biting, cursing, whatever, but they are all capable.

I always think, why would a care giver place a child in time out, send them to the office... for no reason?

Just for fun? because they do not like children? Because they are just mean? I do not think so.. I think these things happen and so there are consequences.

The behavior of your child in that one moment, doe not make people think you are a horrible person or your child is a terrible child. Instead it is a child behaving like a child and now suffering the consequences.

Always ask the teacher/babysitter/other parent and then ask your child..
I always think, would I lie to another parent about a behavior of their child? No. So I am just going to have to trust they would not lie to me. Same with a professional like a hired caregiver, babysitter, neighbor or a teacher at school.

you need to let this go. the teacher is in charge of the playground (or in this case the young man they have hired for playground duty) if you jump in everytime you feel he is unfairly treated your going to have a child who is not able to cope with everyday life. let it go. not sure why you would have been scared angry or embarrassed. your child was involved in a playground altercation. no more no less. just breath in and out and let it go. there is really nothing more to investigate. the young man saw what looked like your son slapping or pushing and he got a time out. you were not there you didn't see it. kids do lots of things we would never expect. just let it go.

You weren't there, you didn't see what happened, and to openly second-guess a reasonable reaction from the teacher (that is, having your son sit down and calm down) in front of your son is to invite your son to openly rebel against his teacher's authority. My older daughter is generally not the sort who would "ever" hit another child. Imagine my surprise when I went to pick her up from preschool one day, and saw her with my own two eyes punching her best friend in the face! The teacher saw that it was going to happen and got there just in time to prevent my daughter from punching her a second time. I was absolutely blown away! So even though you think your child would never do that - probably he would. AND may I add that four year olds LIE. Yes, even your child. Every 4 year old I've ever known does it. I don't think they mean to, they just maybe wish they hadn't done what they did, so they invent an alternate reality and will absolutely insist it's true. It's developmentally normal.

I think you just need to take a deep breath and let the teachers handle the discipline problems at school. Kids have conflicts all the time and at that age, they don't always remember to use their words. Continue to support your son's teachers in words and action when your son is listening, and continue to reinforce good behavior at home. He will be fine.

It is difficult to leave your children with child care providers and that alone can cause emotions to run high. I don't think you are out of line to feel the way you are because both parent and child have an adjustment period to a new childcare facility. What I have done in that past is ask for a "parent- teacher" conference with the teacher to discuss discipline and how they handle particular situations - for example this one. I would ask the teacher if they use timeout only if they have seen who was truly at fault. What other discipline techniques do they use? Do they discipline hitting if the child hitting is defending himself? Etc...I believe this will assist you and your child in understanding what to expect in the area of discipline at school. This meeting will assist in building your trust in your child care provider or allow you direct them on how you would like your child disciplined. I hope this helps. I know it is hard when you only want to do what is best for your child. Best of Luck to you!!

I always told my children that if I accused them wrongly, I was sorry, but think of all the times they got away with something. Life isnt fair and the more of an issue you make of this the more you will instill your son with mistaken ideas of justice. Whats done is done and I think you are more upset than he was.

I think you were right to be skeptical, but not right to talk to the teacher about it in front of your son. If it were something bigger, yes, always stand up for your child. But a time out (time to calm down) is never going to hurt your child. The teacher was being reasonable, even if he may have witnessed the situation wrong. However, it is possible that it did happen the way the teacher said too -- all children have the potential to lie, they are human after all!
If it becomes a trend and your son gets put in time out too often for things he says he didn't do, then maybe time to set up a meeting with someone at the daycare to discuss things.
But that all being said, sometimes life isn't fair and we get in trouble for things we didn't do and a time out isn't a huge issue. It won't scar him for life. If you hadn't made a big deal of it, he would have forgotten about it soon enough!

I've worked in childcare for more than ten years as both an administrator and a provider. I also have 4 children of my own. To begin with, time outs are never effective deterrents-kids have the attention spans of a flea!. The teacher sounds rather inexperienced and just wanted to avoid a confrontation.

Since your son has maintained his innocence I would reassure him that you believe what he said and that you have faith and confidence in him that he would never do that. I don't feel that confronting the person on the playground wold accomplish much. But I think I would speak with the director and/or lead teacher to discuss the situation, if for no other reason then to protect your son and be assured that he not be labeled as aggressive or overly physical. Although it may be denied or prohibited, labeling ( so and so is a "biter" or so and so is a "bully") though not documented in writing, may be verbally passed from one teacher to another, and is never productive and often creates a self-fulfilling prohecy.

You were correct in defending your son.

Hope this helps

Gerianne

In my vast experience with children I have seen that the age of 4 is a prime time for lying to begin and they do it with what appears to be great expertise. They can and will dig in and stick to their story until they believe it themselves.

It's great for our children to feel that we trust them. There are going to be literally hundreds of times in his life that you are unsure if he's telling the truth. I believe we need to be very careful when it comes to defending them to the death or we might get egg on our faces. And yet, without absolute proof, I'd just let it lie and wait for evidence that he is going through a time of being rough with other kids. If he is having an on going problem he'll be seen and you'll find out. Until then, try and smooth those mommy ruffled feathers because the teacher is in the same situation as you are. He really doesn't have eyes in the back of his head.

Regardless of whether or not the teacher was right to put him in time-out, that's what the teacher did, and you should respect it if you want your son to learn respect for his teachers (which I assume you do!). If your son knows that you are going to question his teachers whenever he is punished, he will learn to question their authority as well, and may even start to lie to you about what he's done if he thinks it means the teacher will not punish him.

Hi R T
What do you think your issue would be? I don't see there is an issue, only that there is a young teacher aide on the playground who probably did not see the whole incident. Even long time teachers sometimes have to go by what they saw and do something about a situation before it escalates. This young teacher did. Was it right? You will never know. Is your son telling you the truth? Yes. Do you think 2 people could see the situation differently? I certainly do.
Now what to do? Tell your son you believe his story, and that of course you expect him never to hurt, hit, or _________ any one of his friends, and you know he would not. You are sorry that the teacher thought he saw you __, but you expect him to always help and never hurt anyone.
That gives everyone the benefit of the doubt. I think you are a realistic parent who realizes that kids given the right circumstances can make bad decisions so you were caught off guard.
That said if I saw this become a pattern, then is the time to stay and observe you would be surprised what you learn. When my younger boy went to K, I was upset because the teacher called him a brat. He was a lot of things but brat was not one. I talked to an older mom who said go to school and sit in and see what she is talking about. OK, what I saw I would have used a different term for but good behavior it was not. He was bored silly writing 4 on the blackboard when he could already add any 2 numbers without carrying, and read the newspaper. I said I told you he could read and add. She had the audacity to say it was not possible. I was so upset I couldn't even talk. We(dh & I) went to the principal and finally had to go to superintendent, and finally sent him to private school because although the superintendent agreed he could read would do nothing to move him forward. Private school became our answer. Tested into the 5th grade material going into first.
He is now a lawyer for the gov. writing multimillion dollar contracts. Why because he reads fast and knows what we call fine line definitions of words so no contracts have loop holes when he writes them.
There is a reason for people to act like they do. I thought I was a good mother til I had this child, it was humbling and that is where you are at now. Humbled. Walk with your head high!!
God bless you and give you peace

when we put our daughter in daycare, we were handed a load of paperwork on the rules and regulation...how things were run. the BIG plus to all of it, which convinced us to pick them was that they had a camera system, where no matter where the children were, they were always being reocorded. therefore if there's ever an issue, it's caught on tape and there can't be any question. i hope you find one near u! good luck!

Why are you so upset? Your son is four, do you really think that he is going to act perfectly at all times, especially under such a change has occurred in his life? Personally I think it's not really about whether or not the other child was hurt but about hitting in general and how you are reacting to the fact that your son may have done something wrong. In a daycare setting things happen...time outs occur, ALL CHILDREN do things wrong at one time or another - especially at this age when they are still learning so much. Its not the end of the world. I am still unsure as to why your son is defending himself with "he did not hurt the girl" and why you for that matter are echoing the same defense? What about the message that we don't hit our friends or anyone, let alone we don't hit girls!? If he didn't hit at all thats one thing but its very hard to see everything that goes on at every minute with every child - even as a parent...reinforce your message of no hitting if you have one, communicate with your child that you have his back no matter what but there are consequences for right and wrong if he did do something but no matter what he should trust in you to tell the truth - good or bad and stop worrying so much about him being put in time out.

Whether he hurt the other child or not is not the issue. If he slapped or hit or even was playing like he did it he still was against the rules. If the girl said he slapped her is she just being a liar? What did the teacher actually see happen?

There are many questions you have and the head teacher is the person in charge while you are gone. Ask them if you can make an appointment to sit down and talk about this. It may be that you have to take off work and do this when it is convenient for the teacher because she/he is in charge of the kids during the hours they are at work. This way you can get the answers you need and they can learn more about your son.

It seems to me that it was just a time out and you may be over reacting.

it's very possible that, during an adjustment period, your son is acting out physically. he's certainly not old enough to understand or talk out his feelings. while it's too late for a scolding, perhaps you should stop making excuses for his POSSIBLE behavior and reinforce that you hope he wouldn't hurt some one else because he's upset. a knee-jerk reaction of 'not my kid' doesn't help anyone. the response i suggested doesn't deny his vesion, but it does reinforce that behavior like that is inappropriate.