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A child fell and hurt themselves while in my care. I was in no way responsible, but since I care for older children, this is the first time I've had to deal with a somewhat serious injury, and I'm feeling almost overwhelming guilt since it happened while the child was here. Does anyone else deal with this, or am I just being overly sensitive?
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The most important thing is that you were able to get it handled quickly and professionally. These things do happen, and it is always very hard to take. Keep professional about it, document everything, and keep asking about his progress. DO NOT let it eat you up, it is a fact of life that kids will get hurt. If you were responsible for it (provided unsafe atmosphere, no supervision, etc..) then you might need to re-evaluate the way you do things, and learn from it. If it was unavoidable, use it to help teach the other kids about consequenses of not being careful and safe. -
They are called accidents for a reason. We recently had an 11 month old crawl into the toy room and he missed the half inch elevation and fell down onto it. He gave himself a black eye. Did we feel horrible? YEP! Was there anything we did wrong? NOPE! We notified the parents right away and monitored him which was all we could do.Comment
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Had a split lip here yesterday when one of my 4yos snatched a toy from another and smacked herself in the mouth with it. Sometimes, I think, it is just natures educational/judicial system...:
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A little talk about sharing, an ice pack and moving onto another activity worked wonders.
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Do you find that the parents get angry over these incidences? I love this child and would hate for the parents to decide to leave...Comment
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I have never faced parents being angry about occasional accidents, personally. Kids come in on Monday mornings, often, with more scrapes, bumps and bruises than they get here in a month..!!!
I am sure if there were inconsistent stories vs. type of wound (ie. obvious bite mark being called a "scrape" from a fall off tri-cycle), or a pattern of injuries occurring on a regular basis, it would be a different story...but I don't think that is anywhere close to what you are dealing with.
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I've never really had a parent be upset about an injury. Things happen, and I'm sure the kid has his share of injuries at home too! Don't beat yourself up!Comment
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I agree most parents know kids will get hurt part of growing up I always do feel better when its not on my watch but things do happen no matter how close you watch themComment
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I think as long as you don't play up minor bumps and bruises to the parents then it will make them feel more at ease with what happened.Comment
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It feels awful, I know. Just on Saturday my daughter picked up a dcb that's 9 months old and tried carrying him. She did this after I walked out of the room to get my dress. I had changed her in her room and the baby was with us and I was getting my dress to take it into her room so that I could change. Dcm asked me to watch him on Saturday and I said ok. We had an event to go to that evening and she was over half an hour late and so I had to get my daughter ready and myself while the baby was there. I walked out and grabbed my dress and on the way back I heard a loud THUMP! I ran in and he wailed!! She had tripped and bonked his head on the carpet then landed on him!!! I picked him up and he had a rugburn on his forehead and immediately it started to get a big knot! Oh it was awful. Just at that second his mom walks in. He wasn't crying anymore but I immediately told her that we had an accident and that it was all my fault. I explained everything exactly as it happened and I felt just AWFUL. She actually smiled!! She said she understood and that things happened and she talked to my daughter (5) and all she said to her was "Are we going to pick him up again?" and my daughter just shook her head. She felt bad also I know but I was about to burst into tears. I just couldn't believe how understanding his mom was. She even gave me an extra $10 for being late which I didn't want to take because of what happened but she refused to take it back.
It still bothers me even if his head is all better but when I think about it, things do happen. It's scary when they do and we get upset but we can't expect nothing to happen. Hope you feel better soon.Comment
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I show concern about the injury with the parents, and follow my policy about injuries. But I was told once to never say I'm sorry. It's the same at a car accident. If you say I'm sorry, you are admitting some guilt.
The biggest thing I think is to talk about it at the interview, and review your policy. Then follow the policy when an accident happens.Comment
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Hi
Sometimes it happens but the the sole responsibility is for the owner to take care of the child's safety.Last edited by Michael; 09-03-2010, 01:04 PM.Comment
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yes, this happend a couple of weeks ago. Right in front of my eyes my dcg and my daughter were skipping and smacked right into each other. My daughter came out unscathed but the dcg got a black eye! At the moment it seemed like no big deal and we moved on. A couple of hours later I was talking to her and she had a black eye! I freaked out. I dreaded pickup. The dad came and he was fine. He laughed it off. But I felt horrible. It was black for like 2 weeks. But we were not doing anything wild or unsafe, I was right there. It was just in a bad spot. You can't beat yourself up.
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i had a two year old ( who normally walked fine), trip over his own feet, and his head landed on a rock. he hit it just right to split his head wide open. of course i freaked, called 911, then mom. mom beat the ambulance to my house, which she was twice as far away... after they all left in the ambulance, i went inside and threw up, thats how upset i was. he got 4 stitches, and mom was o.k. about it. she knew it was an accident. funny thing is, that very weekend, he walked in to a door jam at home and needed 5 stitches on the other side of his forehead. he looked like frankenstein... that is the only serious accident to ever happen while i was doing daycare, but 3 years later, it still bothers me that it happened on my watch.
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