**WaRNiNG - Deep and Meaningful Post Below**
I became a parent at 19. It was scary, exciting and different. Going through my teen years i never saw myself as that girl the 'got knocked up' and that's not how it happened at all. We were married [just] and it wasn't necessarily the first thing on my mind but i was anything but devastated when we found out [after a substantial amount of hyperventilation in the staff toilets haha]. I remember thinking 'i don't know what i'm doing!!'...crazily enough, that feeling never. goes. away.
I brought home my second beautiful baby from the hospital and things worked, everything was so easy, at that point i knew exactly what i was doing. Parenting was effortless and everything just went so smoothly all the time.
Now i'm at a point where my kids are growing up. My son is five years old and off to school next year and my daughter is three and starting kindergarten. Things are difficult. My daughter is well behaved and just so easy - don't get me wrong, she has her moments of course, as all kids do, but overall i spend not much time at all pulling her into line.
...Brooklyn is hard work. Brooklyn is a beautiful child, he's well behaved for me at home and in small groups, shopping is a challenge so we avoid it as well as anything that might 'set him off' and this works perfectly for me. He can sit there for hours on end just drawing or colouring in, he's so creative just like him mama...but then he goes to day care and he turns into a completely different child. I spend my entire work day worrying about what 'incident' they will tell me about next. He hits and uses bad language, something that i don't tolerate at home and that only happens on the most extremely rare occasion and is swiftly dealt with.
He is unsupported at kinder, with the teachers not looking into the cause of his behaviour, only calling me when it happens. There is staffing inconsistency and a number of staff who have left (well over 5!). I am frustrated and have finished his care at the centre from the end of the year. Things are just getting worse and worse lately, with other parents beginning to complain about his behaviour. I bring him home and talk to him about it and he tells me that kids have been picking on him or 'making him do it'. Today he even told me he wants to leave the centre so he can 'get away from the kids that make him do bad things'.
As a parent it has put me in a difficult position. I call the day care centre once a day when Brooklyn is there, i have given them countless strategies to deal with the behaviour. I even preempted the behaviour and warned that if a management plan wasn't put into place, things would become difficult to manage...which they have. On one hand i have a day care centre unwilling it seems to take action and on the other hand a son who behaves when with me but not with them.
I know the underlying causes, poor supervision, lack of stimulation, lack of boundaries and authority. I don't know how to fix it. I try and try. Nothing changes and it's breaking my heart. I just know if someone would watch him properly and stop the situations before they erupt into 'incidents' that things would soon die down and he would learn the proper way to display his emotion, but what more can i do?
This morning a parent witnessed my son hitting their child and made a 'formal complaint'! I have never seen him hit another child, unprovoked, in my entire life. How can i deal with a behaviour that i never see displayed. Now I have been called in for a meeting to discuss Brooklyn's behaviour when i have tried every day to get my message across - and they made me feel like Brooklyn is a 'bad kid'...am i not trying hard enough for them?!? I have even taken my son to the paediatrician who says he is fine! He is not a bad or evil child.
Now people are judging him and i just want to defend him, but how can i when he is doing these nasty things to his friends?! I love both my kids more than anything in the world and would do anything for them, but i can't seem to 'fix' this.
I just feel like such a terrible parent :'( like i should have made sure this never happened
