Q got expelled from his daycare back in december. yeah, expelled. he’s 5. and got expelled. from daycare. it's taken a while, but the anger has subsided. a little. unless i think about it. or blog about it. argh. anger bubbling.
the backstory… as you know, Q has ADHD. because of this he is prone to meltdowns (ADHD kids have the self-control of children 30% younger than themselves, so from a tantrum perspective, Q is 3.5.) just like your average 3-year old, his meltdowns usually start from a small incident and then escalate. if a grown-up steps in and helps him regain his composure, it’s over. if you don’t intervene, it spirals out of control, tasmanian devil-style. at home, we’ve only seen a couple of doozies, mainly because we are able to catch him before he escalates, and help him calm down. his kindergarten teacher has also learned to spot his triggers and warning signs, and the number of tantrums at school has dropped off considerably. his before/after care teacher and directors, on the other hand, did not understand this concept and would not try to diffuse his tantrums at all. instead, they would just yell at him, and then call us and complain about it (while Q was actively melting down in the background.) they also consistently treated us like his behavior was our fault. they were very judgy and accusatory, like we were secretly training Q to be a bad kid on purpose. awful, awful people who have no business being in early childhood education. the nicer of the two directors had once told me that if they knew about Q’s ADHD, they wouldn’t have placed him with the particular teacher he was with. they knew from the start that it was going to be a challenge but did nothing to alleviate it.
one friday morning in december, the daycare called us less than one hour after we dropped him off because he was "out of control." the situation they described didn't really seem that bad and it seemed like something they should have been able to handle. but of course they didn't. they informed us that we needed to come get him immediately because he was so out of control and dangerous. jeremy was with patients that morning so i had to drive up from delaware to get him. the meaner of the directors called like 5 times in the 30 minutes it took me to get there, to see if i was there yet. (does she understand that delaware is a completely different state than pennsylvania? probably not.) she even called in the school’s security guard to restrain him because he “was so out of control.” she described a scene of complete mass destruction, like he has wrecked the entire daycare and was holding a knife to her throat.
when i got there to pick him up, she had him locked in the office with her and the security guard. the “complete destruction” consisted of a knocked-over chair and a few papers on the floor. oh, and the content of Q’s backpack were spilled on the floor. she glared at me and then snarkily said, “this is his handiwork,” like i should be ashamed of it. Q was calmly sitting on the security guard’s lap, looking at pictures of cute puppies and kitties on his phone. clearly the tantrum had passed. the director started interrogating me: “why is he doing this?” i told her i didn’t know, and that it was odd because he’d been improving so steadily in every other facet of his life (home, school, soccer, karate, swimming.) i stated i believed that the situation was specific to daycare and expressed frustration that we needed to sit down to discuss how to better manage him. he had served a 2-day suspension for a previous incident about a week prior, and following that, jeremy explicitly requested that we all sit down to discuss how to manage Q. but nothing had come of it, so i was just asking for that again. she then berated Q for his behavior (which clearly was unacceptable, but seriously he cannot control it; he needs their help) and we left, with her glaring at me the entire time I was packing up his belongings.
at 4:45 that afternoon, the other director called jeremy and informed him that Q was being expelled from the program effective immediately. it was clearly a vindictive response to me criticizing how they were managing him. they had no interest in helping him, they just wanted to punish him. and us. and seriously, telling us at the end of the day on a friday that we no longer have daycare for the next monday, so not cool. then the director tried telling me that she, the other director, and the teacher had 25 years of experience each so my criticism was unjustified. so what she’s saying is, in 75 years of experience, Q is the worst child they have ever seen? really??? i do not believe that for one minute. i hurt their feelings, or i wasn’t apologetic enough, so we had to be punished. awful, awful people.
we were livid. we didn’t really want him going there anymore anyway (what with them being awful, awful people), but they totally left us in a lurch. we could not believe how they flat out refused to work with a child with a documented disability. and Q was so confused. he didn’t understand why he couldn’t go back to daycare and see his friends and teachers. oh, and did i mention that this daycare is run by the town and affiliated with the school district? my tax dollars pay for this nonsense (in addition to the tuition we paid.)
the next week, we took turns working from home since we had nowhere to send Q during the day. we researched other daycare options and toured a couple. one of them was perfect. the assistant director is studying to get her masters in child psychology and actually has a niece with ADHD so she is very familiar with it. they were more than comfortable with their ability to handle him, even when i described his tantrums. the program is actually private kindergarten, so now Q gets a double dose of kindergarten at daycare and at school (which is also super good for him, because he’s lagging a little bit behind as a result of the ADHD.) he was able to start there the following week. amazingly, he transitioned to the new daycare super smoothly (ADHD kids, Q included, typically have a really tough time with transitions.) and we’ve noticed that his behavior has actually gotten even better all around. he has not had a single incident at the new place. he’s had his moments but they have been able to handle them, not even needing to call us about them or write them on his daily sheets. just normal kid stuff and they handle it. it has become even more obvious that the old daycare was just so toxic. he was clearly struggling with it and acting out because it was so awful.
we are sending a letter to the township expressing our concerns about the old daycare. they were clearly unwilling to work with him and us. and what with all the disability laws and such, they aren’t allowed to do that. it was unacceptable and that feedback needs to be given. it will be interesting to see what, if anything, comes out of it. (we’re not lawyering up, or anything; we just want to make it known that this was unacceptable.)
ok. breathe. everything is better now. i just hope i never see the awful, awful people at the grocery store or something...
