Childs play!

The powers to be forgot to clue me in on all these dramatics of bringing up a child.

We had two amazing years in Tampere, Leo was happy going to daycare, enjoying himself and he was allowed to be himself without any drama. In fact, his personality was encouraged to blossom! So what if being himself means that he spontaneously bursts into song in the middle of the street, greets people by kissing their cheeks, is loud, dramatic and possesses a rather quirky sense of humor. But those are all qualities are, in my opinion, pretty fabulous.

And now we're back in Oulu. And things are not looking too hot. I noticed a change in him as soon as he started in his new preschool/daycare in August. He got quiet and reserved and was crying loads. He kept telling me that he was being bullied and that he had no friends there. I believed him and took this matter up with the preschool teacher. Now I prefer to have things dealt without any insinuations and straight up. She does not seem to favor this type of an approach and was rather taken aback when I asked her about Leos situation. According to her, things were just peachy, everyone was great friends with everyone and Leo had all the playmates he could have asked for there. Here I admit that I let my son down as I believed the woman. But just for a week or so! The crying would not stop, he didn't want to go to preschool and what was most alarming, his speech started to deteriorate once again. I contacted a speech therapist and booked him an appointment and then asked Leo why he's started studdering and forgetting his words. His answer? " The boys in daycare keep laughing at me and saying, listen to him talk, he sounds so stupid, so I don't want to talk anymore. It makes me sad to be laughed at." At this point, I saw red. I've been bullied in school and it took me years and years to get over the trauma and begin to have confidence in myself again and I'll be damned if anyone bullies my kid..!

So once again I confronted the preschool teacher, explaining to her what Leo has told me and asked her what measures would be taken so that this kind of a behavior would stop once and for all. Her response? " Oh but I don't know of any such incidents, no one has ever told me of those kind of situations." We went home that day, me growling and Leo still sad.

The next morning things got odd. The preschool teacher approaches me solemnly and declares that a specialist from the other group in the building will come and monitor my sons behavior as he is showing alarming signs of something. What that something was, was a tad unclear. Apparently my son was now a violent person, attacking staff and other children ( no mention of such incidents were given to me prior to this ) and the teacher wanted to know if there had been any abnormal behavior in his previous daycare. He was also immensely restless and unable to function in a group. Those are the teachers words.

I had no problem with someone coming to monitor him, which I told her, yet I made it pretty clear, in my own style, that no way in hell would my son be "diagnosed" based on some 30 minutes visits by some so called professional. That if such monitoring would be used as grounds for anything, there would have to be consistent visits plus proper documentation stating everything.

Few weeks passed, Leo wasn't crying anymore, yet he still claimed he had no friends. I told them about this and we booked a discussion time with the preschool teacher. I had to fill out a form which stated my parenting styles and Leos answers to specific questions regarding preschool. This form was to follow him all the way to school. The other sections of the form were to be filled out by the teacher. These sections included such statements: " Knows how to dress him/herself properly ", " Can deal with his/her disappointment without harming themselves, others or their environment " and so on.

According to the preschool teacher, my son does not know how to dress and undress himself. And that he acts violently when not allowed to do something. Naturally I wanted examples of such situations. First off with the dressing. She had marked it as " Blossoming skill ". Her reasoning for this was that Leo doesn't fold his pants and shirts and has once left to go outside without his outside pants on. This means that a child cannot dress themselves in this particular preschool. Then the matter of violence which still makes me shake my head in wonder since my kid is touchy feely, yes, but never violent. The reason she gave me for marking this particular spot with a " Needs training " was that he has ONCE pulled on her finger when they had been outside on a field trip. I mean, seriously. I will not get into what I said to her, some of it is not printable, but I made myself pretty clear that if she wanted to start building some kind of a case of my son being a problem child, she needed to inform me of every appointment with these specialists and I wanted a copy of every document regarding my son that she writes or receives.

It had taken me this long to realize what was going on. I just didn't think such things would happen here! But now I get it. Why would any preschool/daycare want to be labelled as incompetent? It is so much more easier to brand the kid problematic and explain the problems so, isn't it? I have to be clear here that if my son truly had ADHD or was autistic ( these both have come up with these little talks I've had with the teacher ), it would not be the end of the world, he'd still be just as awesome and just as good as anyone else. In fact, it would be great if such diagnoses can be made early on so that he would get the support he deserves. But what I do recent is the fact that he is being made to look like a problem child simply to get the focus off the insufficient conduct of the personnel.

As the situation now stands, I've applied new places for him in smaller establishments, let's hope that he can leave that place before any irreparable damage gets done. Yesterday the teacher told me she had called Leos previous daycare in Tampere and perhaps I was imagining things but she actually sounded and looked a bit miffed when she told me that they had said he had never been aggressive there. It's as if she has expected her opinions of my son to be confirmed from them and was let down when they were not.

Huh, this turned into a novel it seems. Let's just keep our fingers crossed that I'll get a call today that he can start elsewhere and can start being his wonderful self again! I must point out that this is the one subject that gets me all worked up and pissed off, never mind frustrated and furious, but I have written this as truthfully as possible and without exaggeration on which I know I'm prone to be inclined to.

Until next time, be well!