NO More Nice Letters Please..........

[daycare]

Not too sure some of you recall my thread about a dcm that always flips out when I had to tell her that her child did not have a good day.

Well, some of you made a great suggestion that I stop telling mom anything negative and write a letter home about all the positive things dck did that day.

So I hung a blank paper on the wall and when I caught DCK doing something good, I brought him to the wall, told him, wrote it down and gave him a hug, high 5, etc.

At the end of the day, dck and I read it together, fold it, cool sticker on it and we hand it to mom or dad at pick up. I have not noticed a huge improvement with dcks behavior, but we just started it here so I am sure it will take time.

Well I get an email last night from DCM. She said that she feels his behavior is worse than ever and that it is because I tell him how good he is, that as soon as he gets home he is so bad......................UGH

(bang bang bang....this is me hitting my head on the wall) :confused:

Now what............I really feel that no matter what I do, I will NOT win with this family..

ANy other suggestions??

[Cradle2crayons]

Not too sure some of you recall my thread about a dcm that always flips out when I had to tell her that her child did not have a good day.

Well, some of you made a great suggestion that I stop telling mom anything negative and write a letter home about all the positive things dck did that day.

So I hung a blank paper on the wall and when I caught DCK doing something good, I brought him to the wall, told him, wrote it down and gave him a hug, high 5, etc.

At the end of the day, dck and I read it together, fold it, cool sticker on it and we hand it to mom or dad at pick up. I have not noticed a huge improvement with dcks behavior, but we just started it here so I am sure it will take time.

Well I get an email last night from DCM. She said that she feels his behavior is worse than ever and that it is because I tell him how good he is, that as soon as he gets home he is so bad......................UGH

(bang bang bang....this is me hitting my head on the wall) :confused:

Now what............I really feel that no matter what I do, I will NOT win with this family..

ANy other suggestions??

Tell the mom you aren't responsible for his home behavior.

[daycare]

Tell the mom you aren't responsible for his home behavior.

in a round about way, I did say something of the sort. I told her that I was sorry to hear that they were having issues with him at home, that I could not help them with that.

Just now at drop off, dcd said, you got dcm email right? Maybe you can just give him a sticker or something.

I think it may have to do with the fact that DCM is upset that I can get DCK to behave here and the letter is like a smack in the face???

[Unregistered]

Are you seeing ANY improvement with it? If so I would give it a go for a few weeks more. Except I would no longer give it to the parents. Just read it to the child at the end of the day before pick up.

I would be banging my head too. So frustrating.

[Leigh]

Not too sure some of you recall my thread about a dcm that always flips out when I had to tell her that her child did not have a good day.

Well, some of you made a great suggestion that I stop telling mom anything negative and write a letter home about all the positive things dck did that day.

So I hung a blank paper on the wall and when I caught DCK doing something good, I brought him to the wall, told him, wrote it down and gave him a hug, high 5, etc.

At the end of the day, dck and I read it together, fold it, cool sticker on it and we hand it to mom or dad at pick up. I have not noticed a huge improvement with dcks behavior, but we just started it here so I am sure it will take time.

Well I get an email last night from DCM. She said that she feels his behavior is worse than ever and that it is because I tell him how good he is, that as soon as he gets home he is so bad......................UGH

(bang bang bang....this is me hitting my head on the wall) :confused:

Now what............I really feel that no matter what I do, I will NOT win with this family..

ANy other suggestions??

HORRIBLE, horrible parent. Reinforcing positive behavior is how to get kids to behave! What does she do, just smack the kid when he makes her mad? I find that kids who are spanked often respond to NOTHING other than the fear of getting hit more. These kids take forever to adjust to my daycare. I have seriously considered just making my first question when parents call "do you hit your kids when you're mad at them"? so that I can just weed them out from the start.

YOU, the daycare provider, are doing it right. Keep reinforcing the positive. I have a big bowl of snacks and small toys that I keep out of the kids' reach, but they know that they are there. When kids have a good day, they take something home with them. We don't discuss bad behavior in front of the kids-we take care of that via e-mail during the day, as it happens, but GOOD behavior is always a big deal at pickup time, and the kids are proud of it, and work for it.

[butterfly]

Not too sure some of you recall my thread about a dcm that always flips out when I had to tell her that her child did not have a good day.

Well, some of you made a great suggestion that I stop telling mom anything negative and write a letter home about all the positive things dck did that day.

So I hung a blank paper on the wall and when I caught DCK doing something good, I brought him to the wall, told him, wrote it down and gave him a hug, high 5, etc.

At the end of the day, dck and I read it together, fold it, cool sticker on it and we hand it to mom or dad at pick up. I have not noticed a huge improvement with dcks behavior, but we just started it here so I am sure it will take time.

Well I get an email last night from DCM. She said that she feels his behavior is worse than ever and that it is because I tell him how good he is, that as soon as he gets home he is so bad......................UGH

(bang bang bang....this is me hitting my head on the wall) :confused:

Now what............I really feel that no matter what I do, I will NOT win with this family..

ANy other suggestions??

How are you still dealing with these parents? I think I would have to term. You have gone above and beyond to try to be helpful. I absolutely love your positive note and what a wonderful way to help that little boy feel appreciated and loved.

I very rarely term, but I think this family is just too much.

[CrackerJacks]

I would continue to praise the child for his good behavior..continue to write down during the day what "good" things you observe him doing, maybe write it in a small dry erase board, and go over it with the child at the end of the day. It's obvious mom isn't wanting to see the notes of his good behavior, so don't give it to her. As long as he is behaving better with you, that's all that you can really hope for. Keep doing what your doing, sounds like a great thing. Bottom line is the child's behavior is not going to change at home unless parents follow through as well.

On another note, whenever I have kids who are more of a challenge both here and at home (parents are fully aware of their behaviors), I try not to go into too much detail about what a "rough" day they have had. I simply say "xxx has had a rough day". They know what I mean.

[daycare]

Are you seeing ANY improvement with it? If so I would give it a go for a few weeks more. Except I would no longer give it to the parents. Just read it to the child at the end of the day before pick up.

I would be banging my head too. So frustrating.

I guess they say silence is golden right. So saying nothing is better than saying aything at all??

[daycare]

How are you still dealing with these parents? I think I would have to term. You have gone above and beyond to try to be helpful. I absolutely love your positive note and what a wonderful way to help that little boy feel appreciated and loved.

I very rarely term, but I think this family is just too much.

well I do love the kids....they are very sweet kids most of the time.

most of it has been for financial reasons, but for the most part its been one of those that just when I think everything is ok, (things will be ok for about a month or two and then bam).....

[snbauser]

Don't you love that when you are having "issues" with kids at your place they are the perfect angels with parents. But as soon as the kid "behaves" at your place, suddenly they are monsters at home. It is always our fault. My guess is that now that you are not pointing out the "bad" at your place she thinks he is a perfect angel. So now she is noticing the behaviors at home and needs to blame them on someone.

Not sure how I would handle that. Maybe a sit down with the parents and say that although you are choosing to focus on the good in hopes that he will realized he gets more attention for the good than the bad, it doesn't mean he isn't still doing a lot of the same things he was doing before so nothing has really changed. But that you are going to give it time to see if the focus on the good helps to change him. It is also typical of a child who has gotten attention for the negative to temporarily increase the negative behaviors when he stops getting attention for them. He is trying to see if he can get you to pay attention. Once he realizes that it's not going to happen, they should decrease. But you and the parents need to be on the same page. Otherwise they will see the brunt of the bad behaviors.

[bunnyslippers]

I have often told parents, when presented with the "he is horrible at home" argument, that behavioral changes come in phases. For Ex.

"DCD, it is hard for DCB to hold it together all day at school and then continue to be perfect at home. It is great that he is learning how to behave here. Once that is consistent, I am sure we will see carry over to the home environment. It can take a while, but consistency will help speed up the process. We need to be patient with this process. Isn't it great that he is learning how to behave properly outside of the comfort of home?"

Good Luck ~

[daycare]

HORRIBLE, horrible parent. Reinforcing positive behavior is how to get kids to behave! What does she do, just smack the kid when he makes her mad? I find that kids who are spanked often respond to NOTHING other than the fear of getting hit more. These kids take forever to adjust to my daycare. I have seriously considered just making my first question when parents call "do you hit your kids when you're mad at them"? so that I can just weed them out from the start.

YOU, the daycare provider, are doing it right. Keep reinforcing the positive. I have a big bowl of snacks and small toys that I keep out of the kids' reach, but they know that they are there. When kids have a good day, they take something home with them. We don't discuss bad behavior in front of the kids-we take care of that via e-mail during the day, as it happens, but GOOD behavior is always a big deal at pickup time, and the kids are proud of it, and work for it.

ugh...spanking... I say to each their own, I won't judge you for how you chose to raise your child.

BUT...I had a dck that the DCM used this for every little thing. I had to be very firm with the girl here, sent her home a few times for uncontrolled behavior and massive tantrums.

well the girl aged out of my program and had one heck of a year in kinder. She would tell the teachers, I don't care, you can't spank me. DCM and I actually became very good friends. I had to tell her that she needed to stop spanking. that because she knows that there is nothing that anyone can do to her at the school like mom does at home, that she is going to keep up the bad behavior. She didnt stop the spanking, but did cut way back. there was a HUGE improvement in her behavior at school.

[rmc20021]

Are you seeing ANY improvement with it? If so I would give it a go for a few weeks more. Except I would no longer give it to the parents. Just read it to the child at the end of the day before pick up.

I would be banging my head too. So frustrating.

I would do the exact same thing...if you are seeing any improvement then I'd continue doing what you're doing with (and FOR) the child...let dcm deal with her own issues at home...which obviously aren't working, right?

Even if you're not seeing a whole lot of improvement yet...keep doing it because it will help build a positive bond and him trusting you. It will get better...

In my daycare, I keep most of the negative things my dck's do to myself, unless it's something really bad because if it's enough that I have to discipline the child, I don't expect him to have to go home and be disciplined again. Some parents can be pretty harsh (I have one now that I would never tell her anything negative about dcb because she is tooooo harsh on him)

[wahmof3]

I think you have done something great for this child! Sometimes all children hear is the bad things they do- so in my opinion that the only way they know how to behave.

Is there any way you can suggest that the parent do the same thing at home?

Make a good behavior chart at home or something?

Good luck- this is a tough situation. One of my pet peeves that parents don't work with us and then blame us for behavior.

Keep doing what you are doing

[AmyKidsCo]

Could the child be acting out at home for attention? What if you suggested that Mom read to him for 10 min a night to help develop his vocabulary, etc, and not mention the behavior issues at all. Maybe getting that attention from Mom totally unrelated to his behavior would help in a round-about way? Right now it sounds like his behavior is getting a lot of attention from everyone at home and at child care.