The Walk of Shame

Well, it finally happened. Michael was booted from daycare.

I put the start of the whole mess back about six months ago, not long after Michael started in the Early Preschool program at the not-to-be-named daycare. One afternoon I got an “incident report” stating that Michael had been bitten by another boy in the class. Big deal, I thought. Maybe that’ll learn Michael not to bite once he sees how much it hurts.

And then, more and more similar reports came, until finally, Michael was moved out of the class. Why they didn’t move the biter is beyond me, but this is the corporate daycare industry we’re talking about here. Things don’t have to make sense.

I have since learned that the biting boy referred to above was later booted from daycare as well, which I suppose is somewhat gratifying…

Anyway, things went along okay, until a new teacher started. In the Early Preschool class, there was quite a bit of teacher turnover. And they seemed to get younger and more doe-eyed as we progressed through them. None could have been much older than Michael’s own sisters, certainly had never been moms themselves, and had only the CORPORATE GUIDELINES to use as parenting instructions. As a reminder, we’re dealing with the daycare industry here.

One teacher in particular, whose name was probably Heather (I’m not exactly sure, but I think they were all either named Heather or Lynn), reported that Michael had become more and more aggressive with her, throwing tantrums whenever naptime came along.

As reported in a previous entry, we resolved this through the use of authoritative tone.

But aggression seeped back in to the setting, and began manifesting as biting attacks against the teacher, against other assistants, and finally against other kids in the class.

Eventually, we’d get reports back that said that Michael would simply grab a child who “entered his personal space” and would bite them for no apparent reason. There was also a report that he’d thrown a chair, and one that he had “pushed over a little girl who was lying down” (although I have to say, the physics involved with what they alledge to have happened conjure up in my mind an M.C. Escher painting).

This came to a head on the 5th. I went to pick Michael up, and he was suspiciously in the director’s office with one of the assistants. She said she “wanted to talk with me.”

She presented me with four incident reports. This is not without precedent: I have, at times, been presented with as many. Usually, though, it was one or two.

She then proceeded to give me the fair warning that if they wrote up one more incident report, Michael would be dis-enrolled. I’m sure that meant the same as expelled, but who am I to argue with someone who needs to construct a brand new compound word just for my son?

As I stood there in stunned silence, the thing that really got me was that she said this to me as if I had some means of controlling him that I have been, up to now, reluctant to implement. Like I’d respond with “Okay, okay. I can see I have no choice now, but to adjust his temperment setting from ‘combative’ to ‘compliant.’”

I asked her, what am I supposed to do about it? Of course, she could provide no insight or help, other than the standard crap that they’ve been fobbing off on us in the past. In other words, despite the fact that this problem began here, is entirely fostered here and does not occur at our home, it’s still ours to deal with.

So rather than wait for anything further, I gathered up Michael’s things, and we did the Walk of Shame out of the center.

I vowed that Michael should never again set foot in those premises.

So far, he hasn’t.

In fact, over the last week as my wife and I have traded off staying home with him, and the two days he was at another day care center, he has done fabulously. He has never been happier or more generally well-tempered and compliant all around as in this last week.

We have found him a new place, an in-home daycare that looks to be good. We shall see…