My child is just now beginning to understand questions I ask him about school and actually answer them. Also, I never put my child in the corner and he only goes to daycare if he's not at home. So I'm positive he was being truthful about being put in the corner.(Which I don't mind). He always seemed to like this teacher though.
Also, when he gets around another teacher he gets sad and wants me and cries.
I asked my 3yr old (37m) general questions about his day. He said his teacher put him in the corner. Then after a question he stated "Teachers name...hit me".. I asked where..n he said " _____ hit me in face, I fall down and cry". He said this several times and smacked his face each time on the same side.. 7 mins later while he was distracted and playing with his tablet I touched his face and he said again "she hit me". .Could he possibly be making this up? I've never known him to lie and sort of believe him.
Before taking to the Director give the teacher the respect of talking to him/her. Suppose you find out that it was not true. It will be difficult for the teacher to forget about the accusation.....
he's barely verbal. he doesn't have a big vocabulary and store of experiences from which to draw when he answers your questions about school. so a teacher who was turning around and whose hand brushed across his cheek becomes 'the teacher who hit me in the face.'
it's possible she hit him. but you're out of whack to approach this as 'he's either telling the truth or he's lying.'
he's 3. his perception of things is not an adult's.
a calm non-accusatory discussion is the way to go. i would not bring up specifics. 'antonio says he had some trouble yesterday, huh?' and then shut up and listen.
of course you want to get to the bottom of it, but don't let yourself turn into an inquisitor. waiting 7 minutes for your 37 month old to get distracted so you could gotcha him and find out if he was making it up or not is a little concerning.
khairete
S.
You have to get both sides of the story - the truth will be somewhere in the middle.
When our son was in pre-school he told me some kid had grabbed a ball away from him.
What I heard later was that it happened because my son had grabbed the ball from the other kid first.
Did my kid lie? - No - From his point of view it happened as he stated it.
Was it the whole story? - No - His story left things out because those missing points were not as important to him as his hurt feelings at that moment.
As a parent, you listen, you commiserate with your child, you ask the teacher what happened because your child told you something and you think you/your child might be misunderstanding something, and once you've got some clarification, only THEN do you form an opinion and go forward from there.
A childs point of view is very different from our own or any adults point of view.
You have to take what you hear with a grain of salt.
Hi M. - Have a conversation with the teacher in a "non-accusatory" way. Just let the teacher know what your child said, and tell the teacher that you do know that your child likes the teacher, so you were surprised to hear your child say these things. Listen to how the teacher responds and then see how you feel (you can update your question here after you talk to the teacher).
I'd mention it to the teachers but yes he could be making it up. My oldest grandson was around that age when he told my son in law 'Gram yelled and spanked me.' Sil was upset and spoke with my daughter who assured him that 1) I never laid a hand on my own children, 2) I never raised my voice to my grandson ever and 3) I would never punish my grandson physically and if I did put him in time out I would certainly let my daughter know.
As a former early childhood ed teacher and caregiver, I have to agree with everyone who stated that you should check in with the teacher in a calm, non-accusatory way.
I've seen countless situations like what you have described.... children are still learning a language, English. They are learning which words mean what. Imagine going into a foreign country with maybe two or three weeks of instruction on their language.. you are going to have problems expressing yourself accurately. It happens. It doesn't mean our kids aren't bright or good kids, just that they are still acquiring language. Plus, at this age, the lines between 'real' and 'make believe' are still pretty blurry. Children of this age are not known for their verbal accuracy in recounting an event. So, all that to say, I'm pretty familiar with sorting out 'what's what' in regard to the accounts of young children. They only can tell you what their perception (which is also limited at this age) and language can provide them.
So, understanding all that, it's good to keep an open mind. And, if you are giving attention and focusing on the story *a lot*, he's going to keep repeating it because you are giving a child a prize beyond measure--- our rapt, active, uninterrupted attention. This isn't to say that your child is deliberately lying to get the teacher into trouble, but honestly, I've heard so many things come out of kids mouths that they swore up and down, insisted on and clung to, that a calm review of facts is always important. So, yes, ask, and then, if your child is not fearful of the teacher, seems to still enjoy them, seems himself in the daycare environment-- maybe chalk it up to a three year old expressing themselves as a three year old. Here's something to consider, too:
"Conventional wisdom long held that young children were not capable of lying. More recent research, however, has found that most children learn to lie effectively between the ages of 2 and 4. The first successful lie can be pegged as a developmental achievement because it marks the child's discovery that her mind and thinking are separate from her parents'. This same understanding is marked by the discovery of the word no, which helps young children delineate the boundaries between their own desires, thoughts, and feelings, and those of others."
source:http://www.scholastic.com/parents/resources/article/stage...
Please read the article before you walk into that discussion with the provider!
If it were me, I'd approach the teacher and ask her calmly what happened. It may be nothing. Children's imaginations take off at three (not so much a toddler any more as a little kid who can exaggerate, make up stories, repeat things they've heard, etc. for attention and just because they are trying it out).
We had to ask our sitters and our daycare providers about a few incidents. You're your child's advocate and parent. You should have a good idea if there's any truth to it once you talk to the teacher.
You want to make them aware that he is saying such things anyhow - because if it is his imagination or he is exaggerating, there will be more stories such as these. If it's not a made up story - you want to make note of this, so that you could report it and take action.
Welcome to mamapedia.
I would make an appointment with the center director and the teacher to get to the bottom of it. Your day care should most likely have cameras in the rooms. You can ask to look at the recordings from the day it happened.
He might not be lying but exaggerating what happened. There was a day care provider who "grabbed" a child's face at the jaw and had their head up...the child pulled away and fell backwards. He told his mom that she had grabbed him and pushed him down. Which was true in his perception. However, the tapes showed that she did NOT violate anything and he fell backward when he pulled back.
Good luck!
You seem very precise when you say things like "7 minutes later he was..." so I would think you would be very good at nailing down the details.
You write down what your child said, and then you talk to the director of the center to find out what incident(s) occurred on the date in question. You ask for a specific incident report.
You allow for the fact that kids fantasize and make things up, and also for the fact that there are abusive and ineffective teachers. You admit that your child is "just beginning to understand" but also that you are sure he is entirely truthful.
Get independent corroboration. If you don't get it, file your own version of an incident report. Ask if there is video surveillance of the room - sometimes security cameras are in place.
Talk to the teacher. Talk to the director. Talk to the other teachers. See what happens.
If another teacher saw the teacher hit this child they would turn them in. They did this for my boy when he was at Head Start. The state investigated it and it wasn't much longer until that teacher wasn't there anymore.
Most preschools will have some kind of security cameras, talk to the director and ask to review the tapes.
Talk to the teacher and director. Listen and decide how you feel. In the end, while I fully realize children say things for all sorts of reasons, I encourage you to listen to you gut. If you are truly worried about your child's safety, you must remove him. All my best.
I had a situation like this when my son was in preschool. I called my Dad's best friend to ask his advice. He is a former chief of police. He told me to take my son out right away. He said that kids their age do not have the capacity to lie thoroughly. They lie, but not with details. At the time I was torn about what to do because my son was supposedly in the 'best' program in our area. This was when he was 4, he is now 8. The school where I put him had two of the loveliest most supportive teachers ever. In hindsight he was beginning to have a negative association to school and being without me. These two teachers completely turned things around. Yes, he couldn't read by the end of preschool but he entered kindergarten a very emotionally well adjusted child and was ready. Good Luck this is a terrible situation to be in but go with your mommy instinct you'll be ok.
