Another dilemma...

Once again, I find myself lying awake at night, dithering and obsessing over should I or shouldn't I do something.

Here's the story. Yesterday, while I was dropping GG at her kindy, I was really disappointed in the behaviour of one of the staff members. She's not GG's direct carer, but when they are all outside playing in the common area, she would possibly be responsible for supervising her, depending on whereabouts GG chooses to play.

What I'm dithering over is whether or not to speak to or email the Centre Manager and express my concern. To dob or chill out, basically.

Here's the situation. When I dropped GG off, this girl was responsible for overseeing the area outside GG's room, it's basically an enclosed outdoor room, minus one wall, which leads out to a big yard. Under her lack of care, two or three boys, including one school aged boy there for before school care, were throwing and frisbee-ing these rubber rings around. It doesn't sound like much, but they were flinging them pretty hard around the room where lots of the littler kids were playing (and where GG wanted to play, cos that's where her friends were).

Now, this chick couldn't have seemed less concerned with what was going on around her. Not only was she trying to get them to move outside, or stop all together, she was praising them!! "Oh, that's a big throw!" etc.

As I'm standing there wondering whether or not it's my place to say something to her or the boys, sure enough, a little boy gets hit smack in the face. He bursts into tears and after initally telling him, "Oops, you're okay, hop up, la-la-la" she finally gets off her arse and comes over and takes him inside to put some ice on his eye. She catches my eye as she passes and seems a little surprised to see me looking so clearly unimpressed.

The boys go on chucking the rings with abandon and I'm getting kind of pissed off now. Just then another carer arrives to start her day and takes in the situation.

I'm not sure what do say, so I settle for, "C'mon GG, we'll go play over there, these boys are playing too rough." (Yes, I do enjoy my passive-agressiveness, very much, thank you).

Carer Mark 2 immediately tells the boys to go down the back of the yard where there are less kids if they want to keep playing the game. "But whhhyyyyyy?" whinges School Boy. The words are out of my mouth before I even think, "Because you just hit one little kid, and I don't want you to hit my little girl." This is said with a bit of a growl that I just couldn't help.

Anyhoo, that's pretty much the deal, what I'm now torn over is whether or not to leave it there, both carers will be in no doubt as to my opinion, or whether to say something to the Centre Manager about how I am disappointed that the first girl didn't manage the boy's behaviour better and prevent anyone from getting hurt in the first place.

Now, I don't want to be the Fun Police, or the Whingey-Bitch Parent type, I'm usually pretty laid-back about the inevitable bumps and knocks kids get just doing what kids do, but I do think if I say something, maybe I will stop GG being the next kid who gets hurt unnecessarily. Am I out of line here? What would you do?

It's hard enough to leave your children in care, what if you don't trust the people who may be watching over them?

Child non-Care

What the hell is going on in child care centres these days?

Image from here.

In the last little while, we have heard stories about children being burnt to a crisp, bitten on the lip by a carer, photographed by paedophiles, smacked, left behind when they closed up... the list goes on.

Honestly, WTF!!! It's hard enough to leave our babies and children in the care of others, practically strangers, but we console ourselves by thinking that they are experienced, qualified, screened and suitable for the role. Seems things couldn't be further from the truth. How the hell are these people getting, and then keeping, these jobs! Don't we have some sort of screening process, what about that preserver of children's safety - the almighty Blue Card?

My Dad once had to get a Blue Card as a visitor teaching a high-school manual arts class, and was amazed how easy it was. Maybe that's because he's an upstanding guy, maybe it's because it's a rubber-stamp process designed more to ease parent's concern than actually keep unsuitable people aways from our kids. Much easier to administer that way.

What about the other staff in these centres, did they think these workers were unsuitable and/or dangerous to be around kids? Is there a system in place where they can air these concerns, anonymously and safe from retribution? Nope.

What about qualifications - surely you'd need to be trained in some fashion to be responsible for someone else's greatest love? Nope. Sure to be Group Leader you do, and sure, it's preferable, but apparently anyone can "assist" in a child care room. Although it seems this is about to change, and it will be mandatory for ALL child care workers to be qualified.

I'm so lucky that GG attends a great child care centre, based on the Montessori theory of childhood development. They have lovely staff who we've got to know, transparency in all their policies, a community feel and practically no staff turnover (a red flag for a less-than-great centre I'm told). I had no shortage of heartache when I first decided to go back to work part-time and put GG in care, but I don't think it's anything on what Mums must be going through now, wrestling with the idea of putting their babies into care with all these stories scaring the crap out of them.