Oy

[flea]

Dillo had an accident at after school again today. The person in charge told mr. flea it took half an hour to get him changed (WTF? he can change himself; two year olds at his Montessori changed themselves) and they are going to start calling us if he has an accident and we will have to come change him.

So, I dunno what we can do. I mean, it's not like we send him to school at 7:30 am saying, "Be sure to pee in your pants at afterschool!" I also note, he has never had an accident in his regular class, which runs until 2:30. They make them go to the bathroom in PreK, which IMO is age-appropriate. If you ask Dillo if he needs to pee, it's odds-on he'll say no even if he's dancing the pee-pee dance like mad.

If this keeps up I guess we will plan to pull both kids out of afterschool and pay someone to keep them at home. Because we can't leave work and change his pants several times a week; we need afterschool because we have, you know, JOBS.

You'd think that afterschool could think of a better way to handle this than punishing the parents. I'm not peeing in Dillo's pants, and there is NO WAY I can stop him from doing so if he wants to.

Comments

[meara]

They can't tell him (when he gets there? or at some point) that it's time to go to the bathroom?? Or do they do that already and he doesn't go, or what? Jeez. OTOH...kiddo! Figure it out!

[sedge]

Do they know nothing about small children?

Their solution is utterly ridiculous.

[rivka]

Ugh. "Hey, kid, feel like seeing your mom before the end of the afternoon? There's an easy solution!"

What a terrible idea. I'm sorry, and I hope they'll be open to discussing other solutions with you.

[zmayhem]

Yes. THIS. They could not have come up with a more counterproductive "solution" if they'd tried.

And, augh, just generally. Matilda hasn't had anything to this degree, but even the inevitable small developmental backsliding and defiance that have popped up every now and then have had us almost chewing off our own arms in frustration. And that's without having daytime caregivers who choose to actively make things worse. Who are these people? What Bizarro World principles are they basing their work with Dillo and with you on? Because, I, they, WHAT.

Seriously.

[ste_noni]

Ugh, how frustrating. Is it that hard to just tell him that he must sit/stand/try before he can do X?

What I hate about this sort of response is to me, it's a not very veiled way of saying "your child shouldn't be doing this at this age and it's your problem since you haven't fixed it by now" which is really unfair to both kids and parents and not very "caregiver" like.

How could it seriously take 30 minutes to change him? If it took me 30 minutes to change wet clothes, I'd never get anything done.

[loligo]

I am with you in four year-old frustration. Squeaky's preschool class just instituted a whole new classroom management system, with a big construction paper traffic light and clothespins with the kids' names on them that get clipped on different colored lights depending on the kids' behavior -- and in two days, he's the ONLY kid who's been moved off of green. And last year at this same school, he was a little angel who wouldn't say boo to a goose. I am so ready for him to learn whatever developmental goal he's working on, and get out of this phase! (Night waking has also shot through the roof.)