How would you answer this?

[Country Kids]

I had a parent ask if their child was the only one getting in trouble at childcare when asking about their day. In fact this is the second parent to ask me this!

I responded "No, but yours is having these issue's at the moment that need to be worked on".

Then both sets of parents went on to let me know that at home the child had been having issues with behaviors at home. Then why would you ask me this if you are also having issues.

So do I just not tell the parent what the child is doing and go from there? All my parents want to know how the day went.

Would you have even answered when asked about being the only one getting in trouble?

[cheerfuldom]

I had a parent ask if their child was the only one getting in trouble at childcare when asking about their day. In fact this is the second parent to ask me this!

I responded "No, but yours is having these issue's at the moment that need to be worked on".

Then both sets of parents went on to let me know that at home the child had been having issues with behaviors at home. Then why would you ask me this if you are also having issues.

So do I just not tell the parent what the child is doing and go from there? All my parents want to know how the day went.

Would you have even answered when asked about being the only one getting in trouble?

I only tell parents about behavioral issues if I feel that there is something they can or should be doing at home about it. Otherwise, part of my job is to keep the kiddos in line while in my care. I don't lie to the parents....but I also dont tell them every single thing that may have happened during the day, especially when it is small things that were handled and are a not a long term issue. Parents get very sensitive about any "complaints" so I try and sandwich the discussion between a cheerful hello and then follow up with a few reasonable measures of how I will be handling the behavior at daycare. Keeping things as upbeat as possible so it seems less like a complaint and more like a opportunity to help junior learn

[daycarediva]

I do take home sheets for all the kids in my care, and there is a space on there for 'taking a break' (my nice way of saying time out) and a few behavior things that I can just check (good and bad eg. polite, helpful, kind, had difficulty sharing, aggressive, etc) so parents ALWAYS see the good WITH the bad, kwim? I don't give a lot of time outs/breaks. So once a week per kid would be typical.

[Country Kids]

Well both parents did say they are having behavior problems at home also but didn't elabortate.

One child has been pinching, laying on toys others are trying to play with, taking toys and running with them, laying on children, etc.

The other one is goes through spurts of behavior issues but they will be big ones!

[Lilbutterflie]

I learned early on to not be super specific when the parents ask how their day was. If their child behaved reasonably well, and nothing came up that was a big issue, I say "We had a great day! We did this, this, that & that." If their child did something that has become a problem and the parents need to work on it; I would mention it. Otherwise, occasional timeouts or redirections here & there are normal and I don't mention them.

I did speak up last week with one of them. DCB age 4 was having a rough day, screaming at the other kids, not sharing and even talking back to me. This is not his norm, he usually needs some redirection here & there but he never usually lets it escalate to needing some time alone in timeout. He had 2 timeouts that day. Usually when I know the child was just having a rough day I don't mention it to the parents. But when his dad picked him up, the first thing he said was "Daddy, I was a GOOD boy today!" He knew he had a bad day & was trying to cover it up. I wasn't going to let him get away with that! I told the dad that he actually had a rough day and had some issues with talking back to me, not being nice to friends, etc... In that instance, I was forced to bring it up because the child was lying to Dad about it.

[sahm2three]

Well both parents did say they are having behavior problems at home also but didn't elabortate.

One child has been pinching, laying on toys others are trying to play with, taking toys and running with them, laying on children, etc.

The other one is goes through spurts of behavior issues but they will be big ones!

To me most of those things sound like normal kidlet behavior. I just deal with it myself. If a parent asks for specifics of their day, I will just say something like, "Oh we had some pretty normal kidlet behavior, but don't worry, we are dealing with it here." If it is something I feel the parent needs to be involved in then I bring it to their attention.

For the issues above, I would get down to their level and tell them that A, B, and C are not ok, if they do it again they will have to sit in time out/reflection spot. This is working for my group. If they still continue to antagonize the other kids in some way, they lose the privilage of playing with their friends. I have a seperate area set up (that I usually use for the extremely little ones), and if the time out isn't working, they get moved to that area (which is still in the same area) and are given one or two toys to play with. They will spend time in the seperate area until I feel like it has made an impact on them (after they have asked to play with their friends or are showing signs of being unhappy with the situation). I will then again tell them that A B and C are not ok. If they do it again, they will not get to play with their friends again. I explain this while they are still in their "area". If they do it again, they might spend an entire day in their area. I don't feel like this is time out, because they are allowed to play, they just aren't allowed to antagonize the other kids in the same way they were. Good luck!