OT: Need Advice Daughter's Hair Cut Off At Daycare (Elizabeth: day care, home)

[maryronapa]

I have been reading these boards forever and posting a few times, so I thought I would see if anybody here could offer me some advice.

My daughter Elizabeth is 3 1/2 years old and attends a daycare/pre pre K type program two days a week around the corner from my school ( I teach ). This is the first year I have had her there and have always been very happy with the program. Considering that most Kindergarten classes are five full days we thought that it would be good for her to be away from home two days this year, and maybe three next year. We didnt want her to go from 24/7 home with dad to 5 full days a week away from him. ( he is a sahd )

On Friday I brought her to school as I always do and picked her up on Friday afternoon. No problems. But when I took her hair out of her ponytail to brush it out and get her ready for her bath I noticed a problem immediately.

Her hair just felt wrong. I cant explain it...I brush her hair out twice a day so I know what it is like.

So I start looking at it closer and then I see them. All the short pieces on the bottom. I pulled up the long part of her hair and almost screamed when I saw all the hair that had been cut off. Do you guys know that trend a few years back when the girls would keep their long hair but shave off the first four inches or so? Well thats what it reminded me of.

I asked her what happened and she named two students who had cut off her hair. SHe said the teacher yelled at them. WELL SHE NEVER EVEN TOLD ME!

My daughter HAD never had her hair cut before. She had long blonde curls down her back....

Beth was born with black black hair...but when she was a few months old it started growing in blonde. It was funny how strangers would actually stop me in the grocery store when she was 9 months old or so and ask me if I dyed her hair black and now here roots were growing in. Funny now, not at the time. But that is how stark the contrast was. Well the end of her pony tail was cut too...because the black hair that was on the very bottom is gone.

I am so angry. First two students took a few minutes to cut off her hair. Where were the two teachers in the room????

Then they threw it out ( I am assuming ) Dont most mothers have a lock of their daughters first haircut?

Then they tied it up in a low tight ponytail and sent her home without telling me.

Like I am SO STUPID that I wouldnt notice.

I do have a meeting scheduled today at 3 with the teacher and director which is now going to be moved to wednesday since I was just told I was going up to doylestown for the day for a conference.

But my question to you all is what am I supposed to do at this meeting.

Yes, I want a consequence for the teachers not watching the classroom and for hiding what happened.

But the point is that there is really nothing they can do to fix this.

I will never be able to say that my daughter has never had her hair cut.

At least 35% of the volume is gone...her hair is so thin now

They cant fix that........Beth cant get back her first haircut.

Do I sue them? What is that going to do, it wont fix this?

I guess I just needed to vent.

Thanks
Mary

[MermanMike]

Mary...that is so terrible. It reminds me of my nieces. When the older niece was 6, she cut off the hair of her younger niece, who was 5 at the time. Their mother wasn't home, and the father (oy) did not notice it was happening.

I don't have any advice for you on how to handle it with the school...I don't even had kids...but I will give you this trifle from when we went through it. The younger niece was not upset at all really when it happened, but she become very upset when my mother (her grandmother) had a very extreme and negative reaction. I think it elevated the important of hair and beauty and the younger niece became upset that she had lost something important.

Of course, she did lose something important, but I'd recommend trying to approach with her in such a way that she does not become self conscious about what's already happened.

Ugh....very disturbing indeed that it could happen at school with teachers and aides around...scissors...geesh.

[poconosmama]

Whew I'd be like a raving lunatic if that happened to one of my kids. Yes, I'd be upset about the first haircut thing, but that would really take a backseat for me personally. It would be more of 'omg, where were the adults?' It does take more than a minute to cut hair and it sounds like her cut is a bit more involved, so where were the eyes and ears of the daycare? Especially if it involved 3 children(you said 2 cutters) that's enough kids to be watched at all times.
If nothing else I would not be sending my child somewhere where there is such a lack of supervision and communication. Not sure if you can sue, but you can certainly bring media attention to it.
Good luck, so sorry to hear all of this, it really is a terrible situation.

[FightinPhils]

I would pull them out of that school immediately. Obviously there is not enough supervision. You don't want to be there when something worse than a haircut may happen.

[maryronapa]

She should be in school today, but she is not.

Tuesdays and Fridays were her two days there. I can not see ever putting her back in.

What else has happened there that nobody told me about? If they tried to hide this what else have they hidden from me?

[greentown]

First of all, yes, I would be upset if one of my two daughters was in that situation. However, what if your daughter got into scissors at home and cut her own hair or a friend's? Should you and your husband be arrested for child abuse and neglect? As a child, I remember always cutting my dolls hair. I also have a good friend whose little daughter decided to cut off her bangs one day. I think all kids are facinated with this, and since your daughter obviously wasn't upset and didn't mention it until you noticed, I think you should try not to make too big of a deal about it around her. You never know, she might have even told them it was OK.

And while I definitely agree that there is a problem that the teachers were not there to see this happening, I think suing and media attention would be going a bit too far. If you truly were happy with this school prior to this, a more productive approach would be to find out why scissors are left in an area accessible to 3-year-olds and find out their reason for leaving the kids unattended on that day. When my kids attended preschool, on the days when they practiced "cutting with scissors", they had two or three kids sit with a teacher at a table in shifts while she supervised the process. Then the scissors were put away. You could use your meeting to ask about their policy and demand that they adopt one to keep the scissors safely away from the kids. I would also ask them to pay for a nice haircut for your daughter to even out her hair, since it was undeniably the teachers' fault. Other than that, you will have to decide after the meeting whether you want to continue sending your child to that school.

I can appreciate that you think this is a horrible thing and are angry about it, but when you think about all the experiences you are going to have with your daughter over the next 15 years until she "grows up", trust me, this is going to pale in comparison.

[sgtgeorge]

Mary,

DO NOT SEND YOUR DAUGHTER BACK THERE! There clearly is NO supervision. If the classroom was left unattended with children with scissors sharp enough to cut hair, that is certainly an issue to take up with administration. Suing, I'm not sure, but the children were left in a dangerous situation no doubt. This time it was a haircut, what could be next?

[NCN]

Children are very good at hiding that they are cutting hair. You should have been told about it though. Did they really think you would not notice.

My daughter was a day care director. They gave reports about anything unusual that happened at school. They were not allowed to tell which child had done the wrong thing to keep fights from happening among the parents.

She said one little boy was bitten by another child. They gave the report to his very big dad. She said the next morning when the dad dropped off the child after receiving the report, he stood in the doorway and said, "O. K. Now who is the vampire!"

Think about the number of things that happen that you don't know about until after the fact. My daughter once smeared petroleum jelly all over her wall when I thought she was playing quietly in her room. It didn't take long. Luckily we had painted the wall with washable paint. When you are dealing with children, things will happen. I think you need to chill a little. Maybe it is time you cut her hair. Long hair made my head ache.

[poconosmama]

Chill a little, are you kidding? Two children took scissors to her child's head. Daycares have a teacher/child ratio for a reason and children are to be supervised at all times. If there's scissors readily available to the kids, what else is going on there?

Sure there's bigger things in life. But we all know its hard enough to leave younger children in the care of other adults. And to realize that they are not being watched as they should, it's upsetting. If they can forget to mention something like this to the parents, which they will obviously find out about once they get home, what else can they easily forget to mention?

Sorry, inexcuseable in my book.

[greentown]

Originally Posted by NCN

Children are very good at hiding that they are cutting hair. You should have been told about it though. Did they really think you would not notice.

Think about the number of things that happen that you don't know about until after the fact. My daughter once smeared petroleum jelly all over her wall when I thought she was playing quietly in her room. It didn't take long. Luckily we had painted the wall with washable paint. When you are dealing with children, things will happen. I think you need to chill a little. Maybe it is time you cut her hair. Long hair made my head ache.

Yeah, I know about those after-the-fact events, too. One of my sons once smeared something worse than petroleum jelly in his room when I thought he was napping!!

I also wonder about something, Mary. Is it possible that your daughter either did this herself or let another kid do it? It would make sense then that the teachers didn't know (it was underneath her ponytail), didn't find the hair (kids could have hid it or thrown it away), and didn't report it to you. It would also make sense as to why your daughter didn't even mention it to you until you noticed her hair later that night. My kids would have told me about something that "big" the minute we were in the car and I asked about their day. I also found it strange that she said that the teacher yelled at the two kids that did this, but didn't mention it to you. I filled in at our preschool on many occasions, and I have to say that I never heard a teacher "yell" at a kid that had done something wrong. They might have been sent to timeout or otherwise punished, but not yelled at.

It still doesn't excuse the fact that the scissors were accessible to these preschoolers, but just something to think about.