Friends…
I just want you all to know that I am extremely thankful to have this blog up and running. I really hope this doesn’t become annoying, but I really have a ton of freaking thoughts in my head at any given point. I am laying in bed, looking at my son who is laying next to me and all I can think is that it is insane to me that he turns 4 tomorrow!!!! In just 30 minutes, actually… It seems like this has been the longest 4 years of my life while also being the fastest 4 years of my life… I really hope that I am doing this mothering thing right… He told me tonight that I hurt his feelings (because I wouldn’t let him eat popcorn right before bed… I SUCK) and all I could think was that hurting his feelings is literally the last thing I ever want to do.
I am a middle child with an older sister and a younger brother. I am extremely close to my sister and she has a daughter and a son. My family regularly attends their sports and just this evening we were at my niece’s basketball game. I let my daughter watch Ms. Rachel (because honestly, that is all my little girl freaking wants to do… Watch Rachel) and my son was running around like a banshee through the empty portion of bleacher in the gym. He has gotten so used to being around my niece and nephew (both are significantly older than my kids), so my son gravitates towards older kids. Well tonight, he found some kids that were sitting in the bleachers and decided that they were his new friends (they had to be about 8-years-old and there were 4 of them)… The only problem was that every time he went around them, they would snicker to each other and whisper things amongst themselves. My son did not pick up on these social cues, but I watched multiple times as my son attempted to play with them and talk to them and got treated in a less-than-ideal way… Not gonna lie to you guys, my momma-bear really wanted to show her claws to some little 8-year-olds (sorry, not sorry). I don’t know if it was because he is my son, because he is significantly more attached to me than my daughter is (damn daddy’s girl), or I just feel like I need to fight his battles for him, but if it were my daughter being treated this way, I fully believe she would take care of the issue herself- or just not give them the time-of-day to begin with because her attitude is like that. Maybe it is because he is the firstborn and she is the second… I have no idea.
So, story time…
Speaking of treating my son like shit… I recently pulled my kids out of a daycare center because my son was being treated like garbage by his teacher and the director of the center did nothing to stop it. Back story… One of the teachers at the daycare center quit around Christmas-time due to conflict with the assistant director of the facility. She ended up contacting me on Facebook messenger (we were not friends on Facebook at the time, so she had to seek me out) and informed me that my son’s teacher was screaming at him frequently and taking him to the office 3-4 times per week due to her not being able to “handle his attitude” (of which I was never called or even told about in person). When this previous employee approached the director about the way his teacher was yelling at him, she decided to state “well do you blame her? He is a lot to handle.” These were this former employee’s relay of the events. I had already had a gut feeling that something was happening at the daycare with this teacher (let’s call her Jane) because my son had made a comment right before this was brought to light.
When attempting to teach my son how to recognize his ABCs, we were looking at flashcards… He was unable to retain the ability to memorize the letters based on the cards (no big deal). I asked him to sing his ABCs and I was going to lay the letters down as he sang; however, the moment I asked him to sing his ABCs, he got the most scared and lost look on his face and could not even begin the song… I told him “come on buddy, you know your ABCs. You have such a big brain and are so smart!” He immediately broke down in tears and said “No I’m not momma…” I thought he was just being dramatic (oops) so I said “says who?!” and he immediately said “Ms. Jane!” When I tell you that I immediately hugged this little boy and told him that she was wrong and he is the smartest boy I know… My heart was broken!
I decided to take a step back and I asked some of the other teachers that work at the daycare if what the former teacher was saying was true and they verified that my son seemed to be singled out many times. As a mother, I do not see how anybody can treat a child in such a poor manner… I immediately pulled my children from this facility, gave the center a 2-week notice that we were leaving, and got them enrolled in a new facility that has live cameras for me to watch at any point during the day! After giving a 2-week notice, the director asked for a meeting on why we were leaving and I agreed, but gave her a synopsis on what my issues were with the center and her response was very unprofessional and she played the victim, showing me that she was not going to take ownership of the way things transpired, so I did not end up having a meeting with her and left it at the email being our notice.
I ended up filing a case with the Department of Human Services for a complaint of emotional abuse; however, I do not know if they followed up on my complaint, looked into anything, or simply did not care, but when I called for an update on my case 2 weeks later, I was told that my case was thrown out because it “did not qualify as abuse.” I was taken aback by this statement and said “so you all just allow daycare centers to treat kids like this?!” and was told that he could not verify, but he would inform the supervisor that made the decision to contact me… That was on January 22nd and I have still not heard from the supervisor.
Since that day, there have been multiple teachers that have quit the daycare center, including all of my daughter’s teachers (who happened to be the ones to verify what the prior teacher stated). They were not the ones to originally tell me the information, but based on my email synopsis of the issues I had with the facility, the director took it upon herself to assume that they were the ones to give me my information- it was obvious in her responses to the email. The director told Ms. Jane that they were responsible for our departure and that they told me information on the way she was treating my son, and she retaliated against them- going so far as to slam doors in their faces. When one of the teachers approached the director about Ms. Jane’s behaviors, she was told “I’m not going to discuss this with you right now.” This teacher quit right then and there because she knew she did not deserve to be treated that way, especially when she was being wrongfully blamed.
This whole situation was unfortunate, but to this day I do not regret making my call to DHS or pulling my children from that facility; however, there are other kids there that may be treated in a poor manner and that breaks my heart… To think that a teacher can treat kids in a shitty way and the director will back her up and protect her… ABSOLUTELY DISGUSTING! Since that day, my son has made comments on Ms. Jane tripping him and making him fall down and I feel too let down by DHS to believe that even if I reported that, they still would not do anything. I just hope they listen to the next people that complain about Ms. Jane. Until then, I will continue protecting my babies… Against anything and anyone!
Sorry for such a long post (I told you I just needed to get it out of me- unfortunately in the middle of the night). Thank you for reading this post if you made it all the way to the end here… Sorry if it is confusing to follow- That is just my scrambled brain!
Sweet dreams, friends- Maybe now we can all get some shut-eye!