How to deal with someone else's toddler....?

[robinator]

There is a little boy who is 2.5 yo in our church nursery. He is in there for both services (1.5-2.0 hours) each service, every Sunday. His parents sit thru the first service but then volunteer elsewhere in the church during second service, so he is in there an awfully long time.

This kid acts out, and I can't say I blame him, but how to deal? He is a handful, to say the least - drawing on walls, himself, violently pushing younger children to the point that the children's director has to come in and take an injury report. I would say I'm sure she has told his parents, but I don't know....

I have been in the church nursery nearly every Sunday with dd, but just as her mom and not as an actual volunteer. This Sunday is my second time volunteering (ie, I would be responsible for him) and, not having a child that age with such issues, I really don't know what to do. Other volunteers have tried distraction, done timeouts (with the pushing), tried all sorts of things.

I guess what I'd like to know is, when he does these things should I just tell him to stop, try to distract him and know it'll all be over soon enough? This kid tends to carry on though; I'm sure its out of frustration for being stuck in there for so long, but what can I do to help him if need be?

 

[buttonnose82]

hmmm tough one, he is there a longggggg time for such a little one

I know my toddler loves to help, so maybe you could try that, give him a little task with loads of praise, like helping to put out toys or helping to collect toys up, showing a smaller child how to play with a toy, but praise him the whole time so he feels like he is really helping.

 

[robinator]

^^Good idea!

 

[RachA]

Personally I don't think it's because he is there for a long time. We have two parts to our morning service and if we stay for the whole time then lo is in crèche from 10am until 12.30. Alot of other parents have complained that their children can't cope with the 2 1/2 hours yet the go to nursery for a whole day and cope. Anyway that doesn't help with the boy in your charge.
We have a child like this at our church and there have been alot of issues surrounding it. The crèche have a duty of care to all the children and if this boy is a danger to other children then something has to be done.
I think you need to speak to the person in charge and find out if the parents have been told. In our case the parents had been told on a number of occasions and refused to deal with it. They said that at the child's age they didn't believe that he should be told off or disciplined in any way. He was dangerous towards other children and was hitting them with anything he could get hold of and pushing etc. the crèche ended up trying to have 1 person responsible for him but it really wasn't possible (also bare in mind that the boys mum would be in the crèche most weeks even if she wasn't helping out and refused to step in and remove her child etc). In the end they were told that he was actually a danger to other children and if he carried on then the church would have no choice but exclude him from the crèche. It was an awful thing to do but there was a child in the crèche who had seizures that were possibly brought on by being hit so that had to be considered too. The family did stop coming for a few months which was what we really wanted to avoid happening but they have come back and since then the boy hasn't been anywhere need as bad.
That's obviously the extreme of what to do.

Generally speaking I would suggest someone being responsible for the boy all the time so that they can intervene before things happen. I would also suggest that he is told rules and those are followed through as much as possible. Hopefully the parents can't be talked to and you can work at it together.

 

[cutie4evr01]

I agree with the above. In our church nursery we save timeout as a last resort and generally just tell the children no and try to distract with something else. If bad behavior continues, we may try time out occasionally, but usually just page the parents instead. If he is hurting the other children and you can't get him to listen properly, then his parents should come to collect him or stay with him. If you have enough adults in there to provide him one-on-one care then that's terrific, but I know in our nursery it's usually 2 adults to about 6 kids (and we have the infants separated from the toddlers in another room).

Also, do you have many structured activities? I've found that our church children are better behaved (and entertained) if we have activities planned. For example we do a little "lesson" each week that consists of everyone listening to a Bible story and then doing some craft/coloring related to that story. We also have a set time for playing outside (weather permitting) and a set time for snack. This helps to fill the time with activities other than just free play. But the bottom line is that we've instructed our nursery workers and volunteers to treat the children with love and respect, using gentle discipline such as distraction while saving time out for extreme cases, and if they feel they can't handle the child's behavior beyond that, then call the parents down.

 

[robinator]

There is a snack time and a video playing, but as it is infant - 3 years, there is no structured activity. They are shopping around programs to use, though. Mostly it's free play. There are usually 3-4 volunteers and 6-8 children, the majority of which are infants. Nearly every one of them is at the separation anxiety stage, so most volunteers hands are full holding crying babies. Parents get paged for them if they still won't settle after 10 minutes or so.

Two Sundays ago, this little boy went up to my friend's 11 month old son (their first time at our church) who was standing and playing at a racetrack table. This older boy comes right up to him, shoves him and accuses him of stealing his snack. My friend's little boy had no food whatsoever that day. Right after this is when he went up to another 15 month old who was standing with hands on the door, wailing for his mother and pushed him so hard he got a welt the size of an egg on his forehead. No exaggeration; it was awful. Someone gave him a timeout for that and the director came in to take the report. His parents were never paged. It's like this nearly every Sunday (except for the violence), so I'm not looking that much forward to this Sunday....

 

[RedRose]

I would try and keep him reeealy busy and give him lots of praise where possible! He probably knows when he arrives that it's a boring/fustrating time for him so he could be annoyed before he starts playing- try and keep on top of him straight away and pre empt the bad behaviour rather than wait for it and try and fix it if that makes sense? Easier said than done though cos I'm sure you'll have your hands full with other lo's! Good luck!

 

[cutie4evr01]

Oh that does sound difficult. In our nursery the younger kids birth to 18 months-ish are kept in another room with another 2 adults; in the main nursery it's usually only 2-3 year olds, so we don't have the problem of older kids hurting the younger ones very often. I think if he's more than you can handle you should definitely page his parents and just ask them to stay with him or take him out for the day.

 

[flower01]

Are you allowed to take walks outside around the church? That would break everything up for him and get him some fresh air!?,

 

[robinator]

I should mention that we have two rooms, too, connected by a door. However, the door is usually left open until something (like this) happens which necessitating the rooms being sealed off. Perhaps I'll suggest we close it from the get go and we can avoid a lot of this.

 

[robinator]

Are you allowed to take walks outside around the church? That would break everything up for him and get him some fresh air!?,

They are not allowed out, even with a volunteer. With the teeny kiddos only a parent can remove the child from nursery. It would be wonderful, though!

 

[RachA]

If the parents aren't in the room when it happens then they definitely need to be paged as soon as it happens. I would be mortified if my child was behaving like that.
Definitely find out what the parents have been told etc by the person in charge. It does make it really hard for the volunteers when there are children like that. But also it makes it hard for the parents of the other children. I know that accidents happen and I would always be really relaxed about something happening by accident but I wouldn't be happy if another child was hitting/pushing for no reason. I'm not silly enough to think my child is 100% blameless but the people in our crèche would usually know if something was unprevoked or not.

 

[ayls]

I think it is also better to inform the parents about the child's behavior and at least one of the parent could oversee their child. If his behavior is like that it would better if the mom or dad is there to reprimand him. As a volunteer, all you can do is to provide him with different and worthwhile activities, but the parents also must be responsible for their child's behavior.

 

[sherylb]

Aww that situation really irks me. Especially if they know. They should be volunteering in the nursery if they are that concerned about volunteering.

 

[robinator]

You know, it's a good point about having a family member in there with him. Several months ago I was in there with dd and he was just all over the place, drawing on things, throwing things, etc. His bigger sister (who was probably only 7) was a jr. volunteer that day, and she was the only one he would listen to. Even for such a young age, she carried herself with such a smug, little-mother attitude toward him. I noticed she never referred to him by name when talking about him; it was always "that one" (with a pointed finger).

Anyway, he would listen to her.

 

[RachA]

You know, it's a good point about having a family member in there with him. Several months ago I was in there with dd and he was just all over the place, drawing on things, throwing things, etc. His bigger sister (who was probably only 7) was a jr. volunteer that day, and she was the only one he would listen to. Even for such a young age, she carried herself with such a smug, little-mother attitude toward him. I noticed she never referred to him by name when talking about him; it was always "that one" (with a pointed finger).

Anyway, he would listen to her.

Hopefully having a family member in will help and you should suggest that. Unfortunatly in our case the mum was in there most of the time but would totally ignore the child so there wasn't any point in her being in there. If she wasn't in that creche she'd be in the creche for the non walking children (as she had a child in each room) and she would be texting on her phone the whole time.

Hope this Sunday is better for you.

 

[robinator]

He was home sick today. I'll definitely be taking your suggestions with me next time!