Top 10 Ways to Get On My Nerves. (9 complaints too long)

[panda]

Negative feedback can be dangerous!
When I was in nursery I got a worker in a load of trouble apparently. I was doing a puzzle and a boy (B) came over and messed him up. I turned around and bit him. Hard. On the nipple. (He TOTALLY deserved it... MY PUZZLE!)
He screams and cries and the worker pulls me off him and tends to his bite mark. I had actually drawn blood through his shirt. Rightfully, she needs to discuss this with both parents, so at home time she calls in my mum and his mum (Mrs B).

Worker: Mrs B, Mrs Panda, your son and daughter had an incident today in the playroom. From what I understand of the situation, Panda was doing a puzzle and B decided to ruin it just before she finished. Now, Panda was upset, as you can imagine, and she somewhat overreacted and bit B.

She showed both of them the bite marks.

Worker: Now, Panda has apologised for biting B and B has apologised for messing up Panda's puzzle, but I think-
Mrs B: You made him APOLOGISE?!
Worker: ...Well, yes. He was wrong to destroy her puzzle. Panda shouldn't have bitten him, but-
Mrs B: HOW DARE YOU MAKE HIM APOLOGISE TO THAT LITTLE MONSTER! HOW WOULD YOU LIKE IT IF I BIT YOU, PANDA?!
Me: *runs to Mummy and cries*

The stupid mother went on to report the worker for, no jokes, making her son apologise. I'm surprised she didn't try and have been arrested for GBH or attempted murder.

[Exaspera]

Before I had kids, I used to be very critical of kidlets with dirty faces in grocery stores, the mall, etc. Then I had my son. If I did nothing else but follow him around ALL DAY with a tub of wet wipes his face would still get dirty and runny nosey! I don't know how they do that! Magic or something.

I did choose to be a stay at home Mom. Yes, we were in a financial bind, money was tight. BUT, I spent 5+ years with my son doing lots of stuff until he went off to school. To this day I am proud of that. Not to put day cares down, but he never went to one.

Yes, I CAN have everything. Just not all at once.

[Overnight]

I think it's really sad that these complaining parents aren't familiar enough with their own kids to understand that there are going to be messy clothes, bad days, and other such things. Even though I don't have any kids, I'm the oldest of five and helped with my brothers and sister when we were growing up. That was enough for me to see that you can't prevent every stained tee shirt, skinned knee, or tantrum.

[ThanosIsKing]

My mother used to work in early childhood here in Colorado before she moved back to Illinois. To graduate from high school, I was required to complete 50 hours of internship (didn't really matter where, just that we did it). I interned with her in one of the local day care places. Most of the list here perfectly describes why the both of us are now staying as far away from tiny kids as possible. Me, I won't go anywhere where the customers are predominantly children, and I've sworn off ever having kids. My mother now teaches college students how to deal with tiny tikes. Of course, for her the career change was due mostly to incompetent co-workers, but idiot parents did nothing to help.

[BookstoreEscapee]

The did that on South Park! And apparently it's like... trendy now to have chicken pox parties. But my mom did the same thing to my sister til she caught them, I got them when I was 8, and my mom essentially locked my then-4-year-old sister in a room with me for days When that didn't work, she too called around looking for infected kids for her to play with.

My brother and I, and my friend and her sister all had chicken pox around the same time (I was 7; my brother was 9 and I think he got it first). Our parents didn't go out of their way to expose us, but they didn't quarantine us from each other, either. (Though we probably got exposed before anyone showed any symptoms, anyway.)

[Exaspera]

I remember a measles party when I was a kid. We all got it and got over it at about the same time.

[Bramblerose]

Save the pretty dresses for church, send them to school in jeans, sneakers and T-shirts.

Heh. A buddy of mine is having a problem- her daughter is in a Princess Phase, so Mom is trying to deal with daughter who insists on pretty dresses and playing rough anyway. She's trying to come up with the pretty enough dress that doesn't matter as much when it gets torn up to save energy for more important battles than what will we wear today? That and hopefully Daughter will work out choosing clothes to match the activity soon....

I work at a summer camp, last summer a parent threatened to sue us because her Precious Poppet got (gasp) sunburned.

[XCashier]

Heh. A buddy of mine is having a problem- her daughter is in a Princess Phase, so Mom is trying to deal with daughter who insists on pretty dresses and playing rough anyway. She's trying to come up with the pretty enough dress that doesn't matter as much when it gets torn up...

"Here's your denim ballgown, sweetie!" Yeah, hopefully the daughter will figure out that pretty clothes =/= tough clothes and save the pretty clothes for tea parties and the tough clothes for the playground.

I work at a summer camp, last summer a parent threatened to sue us because her Precious Poppet got (gasp) sunburned.

What next, is she going to sue God for making the sun too hot?!

[Magpie]

Heh. A buddy of mine is having a problem- her daughter is in a Princess Phase, so Mom is trying to deal with daughter who insists on pretty dresses and playing rough anyway. She's trying to come up with the pretty enough dress that doesn't matter as much when it gets torn up to save energy for more important battles than what will we wear today? That and hopefully Daughter will work out choosing clothes to match the activity soon...

Meh, once her fancy dresses are torn she'll consider her every-day dresses to be princess-y enough. My SIL used to be required to wear shorts under her skirts. However she was the kind of kid who could play in the sandbox in a white outfit and come in clean for lunch, so I don't think she had a hard time with killing her dresses. (She stole my husband's share I tell you!).

[HYHYBT]

What next, is she going to sue God for making the sun too hot?!

I had someone threaten to sue, not God (which would be more logical, relatively speaking,) but me and the store I was working in because it was too hot outside. In August. In Georgia. One of those days when you open your car door and have to stand back a minute to let the blast out before you can even stand to reach in and open the windows, and he'd had his kid running around outside our store on the tile pavement with bare feet and somehow it's *our* fault his feet got burned. And specifically *my* fault, despite my not having been there at the time (I'd just come in when the phone rang) and only being a substitute, because it was SO unhelpful and rude of me to have to look for the information he wanted instead of knowing right where it was in an unfamiliar building.

[Gidgetdigit]

You have my deepest sympathies.

I once was the chair of our school board (preschool), and it was an eye-opening experience. There were a few parents who would get so bent out of shape over the teacher's choice of words or tone used, when no one else detected anything wrong with what was said.

I wanted to yell at the parents: Your child is happy. He or she loves this teacher. Your child is learning and is blossoming in the classroom. If you are not completely satisfied with your relationship with the teacher, get over it. This also applies to elementary school, middle school, and high school. Keep your child's needs in mind and all will be good.

Of course, I also had access to the salary list and was shocked at how little the teachers were paid. It turns out it was comparable to or better than all but one of preschools in the area. If those complaining parents spent a day in your shoes and got the paycheck of one of those teachers, they would change their tune pretty quickly.

[HYHYBT]

However she was the kind of kid who could play in the sandbox in a white outfit and come in clean for lunch, so I don't think she had a hard time with killing her dresses. (She stole my husband's share I tell you!).

Your husband's share of clean dresses?

[Andara Bledin]

Yeah, hopefully the daughter will figure out that pretty clothes =/= tough clothes and save the pretty clothes for tea parties and the tough clothes for the playground.

Hmm.... you could always use Zelda for a comparison on the difference between Princess-time wear and Hero-time wear...

http://i48.tinypic.com/2d0nq7s.jpg

Not sure how much you want a little girl to run around looking like a ninja, but I'm sure the clothing bills would be less...

^-.-^