Parents Always Giving Excuses for Child's Bad Behavior

[Unregistered]

I have a 3 1/2 year old DCG who has up and down behavior while in my care. There are days she will just sit and cry for up to 30 minutes at a time and refuses to speak when I ask what is wrong. She throws toys and then laughs when I tell her that it is not safe to throw things. She kicks toys when I tell her she needs to take a break and sit by herself when she says mean things or treats others poorly.
Some days she is great and plays so nicely and then other days she does not listen at all and does things as mentioned above.
Whenever I talk to DCM about the behaviors, she always has an excuse. Some have been, “I think she is going through a cognitive growth spurt” “Her allergies must be bothering her. That always makes her really irritable”. “I wonder if she is missing baby brother” (he was home sick one day). And the list goes on.....
How do you nicely tell a parent to stop giving excuses for their child’s bad behavior and start teaching the child there are consequences for bad behavior?

[Blackcat31]

I have a 3 1/2 year old DCG who has up and down behavior while in my care. There are days she will just sit and cry for up to 30 minutes at a time and refuses to speak when I ask what is wrong. She throws toys and then laughs when I tell her that it is not safe to throw things. She kicks toys when I tell her she needs to take a break and sit by herself when she says mean things or treats others poorly.
Some days she is great and plays so nicely and then other days she does not listen at all and does things as mentioned above.
Whenever I talk to DCM about the behaviors, she always has an excuse. Some have been, “I think she is going through a cognitive growth spurt” “Her allergies must be bothering her. That always makes her really irritable”. “I wonder if she is missing baby brother” (he was home sick one day). And the list goes on.....
How do you nicely tell a parent to stop giving excuses for their child’s bad behavior and start teaching the child there are consequences for bad behavior?

Nice has nothing to do with it.

I'd personally give the issue back to the parent.

She hits, kicks, throws things or is in any way aggressive or physically violent to others (including you) call for pick up.

Stop allowing the child's behavior to be YOUR problem.

Providers are paid to supervise and care for the children in their care. Nothing in that job description says you have to "fix" a child if a parent is doing nothing to do so on their end.

[Cat Herder]

I thought unregistered posting was gone :confused:

What consequences does she get for bad behavior in your care?

[Ariana]

I always tell parents “for me it doesn’t matter WHY she is doing it, what matters is the way she is expressing it. She is allowed to have feelings, she is not allowed to kick and be disrespectful in my home”. Then I go on a rant about emotional intelligence and the ability to regulate emotions properly will take them really far in life yadda yadda. I say this a lot!!

Prisons are filled will people who never learned to regulate their emotions, express them appropriately or control their impulses.

[Michael]

I thought unregistered posting was gone :confused:

I decided to give it another try. We had some good unregistered posts the last 24 hours. The private and members only threads are still in effect which prevent access and unregistered posting.

[LostMyMarbles]

Unfortunately you can’t tell a parent how to parent their child. The only thing you can do is handle things affectively while the children are in your care. Sometimes I think the parents are very frustrated at home and don’t know what to do. Is it a single parent? I find that they tend to have a lot of guilt over working and leaving their child in daycare. It seems like it’s a pattern in my day care for the children that are acting up the worst. And by single parent, I mean as in the other parent is AWOL. Sometimes some gentle advice may work. And sometimes parents get offended if we tell them how to parent. I always go out it with “I’ve been trying this and it seems to be working here”.

[Cat Herder]

I decided to give it another try. We had some good unregistered posts the last 24 hours. The private and members only threads are still in effect which prevent access and unregistered posting.

Thanks for the explanation.

[CeriBear]

It drives me nuts when parents make excuses for their children’s actions. Some excuses I especially hate are “he’s all boy” or “you know how boys are.”

Me: Johnny is having problems playing nicely on the playground. He’s very rough and today he knocked another child down.
Mom: He’s all boy isn’t he?
Me:confused:

[MamaG2903]

I have one of these, that I'm actually giving two weeks notice to, today. EVERYTHING is "she didn't sleep well" or something along those lines. This child is never held accountable outside of my house.

[Mom2Two]

To me the excuses translate as "I don't really care and I'm not going to ever bust a sweat to deal with it."

I guess deal with it if you can, but there are some kids where the behavior is difficult enough that it's a nightmare without parental help. That's the point where I would feel like the whole relationship wasn't working out.