I have a daycare situation

Re: I have a daycare situation

• mrsconn23 member

  

  July 2014 edited July 2014

  Since working with your SIL is probably going to cause nothing but trouble, is there a game plan you can think of to come up with your sitter to ease the situation?  Is finding a different daycare an option?  I find it frustrating that your sitter won't tell SIL that her kids are going to have to go if they can't shape up.  

  As far as trying to get DS to remember to behave at daycare...Does he respond well to visual reminders?  Like buy him something he wants (a firetruck, candy, a new game) and put it up in a place where he can see it, but not reach it, and say he has to be good at daycare for X number of days and he can have it? ETA: I know you do the money thing, but since this is a special issue/circumstance...maybe doing a side thing may help him to remember/think of his actions? 

  I feel for you.  DefConn goes to the same sitter with neighbor kid (the one I mentioned in my morning post).   Luckily, neighbor kid is more of a loner in his misbehaving.  But there have been some issues here and there.   

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• GBCK member

  

  July 2014

  urgle.
  
  Is there any way they could be in separate classes?  I know it'll be WWIII, but the argument of "I want them to be able to establish relationships w/ others without it being triangulated w/ their relationships w/ their cousins" is plausible enough sounding.

  
  

  Is there any push to be 'nice' to cousins?   don't want to sound like I think your kids should shun these kids...but sometimes the very subtle "be nice to your cousin/they're faaaamilly"(which likely comes from someone other than you guys ) gets heard as "you should make your cousin happy and play w/ him even when he's a jerk"--because kids are weird that way.
  Could you give explicit 'permission' to your kids to put distance between them and these kids?  Or to help have a 'script' where your kids know they can/should  say things like "you are doing somethng that will get me in trouble--I am going to go play with the cars instead"?

  
  

  Kid issues magnified by family sucks

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• NavyBlue143 member

  

  July 2014 edited July 2014

  What a parent at my school did was have a little whiteboard her son came in with every day. On it was either a smiley or frowny face. Smiley face meant he had a good morning, frowny meant he had made some bad choices. It was his "job" to keep that smiley face or turn a frowny face into a smiley one with his behavior throughout the day. The teacher would tell him he was earning a smiley or frowny face periodically, depending on how he was behaving. She would draw the face that coincided with the behavior and show it to him. At the end of the day the teacher would draw the face he had earned on that board and give it to mom. Going home with smiley faces meant a little prize. Eventually, to further hammer in accountability, he had to be the one to draw the face and show mommy, good or bad. It worked pretty well. He's still not a perfect child, but he learned to take pride in making good choices.

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• Heffalump member

  

  July 2014

  1.  Have you tried role playing with DS?  DD had an issue a few months ago where, frankly, one of the other girls was being horrible to her:  she would tell DD that she couldn't play with so-and-so, or she had to go play by herself, or whatever.  Future Mean Girl.  So we spent a lot of time role playing, until she got the idea that if Sofia told her to go play by herself, it had absolutely no bearing on her, and Sofia could stuff it.  I think DD responded well because it was like a game for us, and she really just needed practice shutting this kid down.
  
  2.  You are probably already doing this, but depending on DS's personality, try heaping positive reinforcement if he responds well to that.  Aside from the actual, tangible quarter/toy/whatever, if positive reinforcement motivates him, then I'd serve up an extra helping whenever he does what he's supposed to, until it becomes the norm again. 
  
  3.  You can say something to SIL, but honestly, if the fact that her kids are brats isn't motivation enough for her to shape up, then I'm not sure your opinion will be, either.  In your shoes, I'd be dying to say something, but it doesn't seem likely to accomplish anything.  You can try, but it sounds like you may have to choose between finding a new DCP, or learning to deal with SIL's misbehaving kids.  The latter isn't a bad life lesson to start working on:  these won't be the last bad influences your DS will cross paths with, and it will be inconvenient to switch schools every time he's in class with a bad seed.
  
  
  

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• 6fsn member

  

  July 2014

  I have no advice, but I'm sorry you are going through this. 

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• PMeg819 member

  

  July 2014

  So we do lots of positive reinforcement. Praise in public, punish in private. And we try to be effusive about the praise. The quarter system feeds into that- DH bought a bunch of Lego kits for him (cheap of eBay) and he can "shop" the store for a prize once he earns enough. So he has motivation it's just that he gets swept up with it when nephew sort of drags everyone into it. I've seen him at my house- he has a lot of energy and I think part of it is he doesn't know how to direct it. DS is very laid back, go-with-the-flow and he will feed off nephew.
  
  DH and I are at the point where we won't (and probably) won't confront SIL because it will be a lost cause. I know in speaking to the mother of the other boy that is DS's age, she feels like I do. This is a parenting problem and needs to be addressed by the parents but she feels sort of powerless too.
  
  Thank you for the suggestions. I'll continue to work with DS and I'll talk to our DCP about what we can do with him (including telling her that if necessary, they could and should be separated).
  

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