Oh, woe

Let me just say for the record that I love my daycare. LOVE, LOVE, LOVE it. The people are kind and caring and remember all sorts of small things about my child, tend to his needs in a caring way and allow him to express his personality as much as he wishes while gently encouraging proper social interaction. It is a great place.

But yesterday when I went and got him the first thing I noticed was a small swelling bump on his head, right between the eyes. When I asked, the lady in charge said that he had recently bumped heads with another kid, but that since he hadn't cried (and the other kid had), she hadn't actually offered him any ice. I understood this -- you can't tend to someone's needs if you don't know they have them, and if he didn't cry, perhaps it didn't hurt that much and he didn't need anything.

On the way to the car, I gently reminded him that he could tell the ladies at daycare if he was hurt, that he should do it. He said he knew that. I asked him if his head hurt, and he said it did. I asked him why he didn't tell them it hurt and he said ... (gulp)

"They don't make it better"

Now I know this could just be a toddler thing -- only mommy or daddy makes the hurts better, but it still made me sad. When The Boy was first at the daycare, we had the same problem -- he wouldn't talk to them and ask them for things, he wouldn't tell the other kids to give him back toys they had taken from him or to not push him. He just wouldn't say anything. He's not overly shy; he's just reticent to speak up. I don't know why. He sure speaks up at home, we always know when there's a problem. We always tend to the problem if there is one. Perhaps it's just a social thing -- I'm like that, I don't like crowds of people and it was only in the last few years that I will speak up in classrooms or meetings of people I don't know. For the record, I'm 34.

But it's not a trait I want my son to inherit. I want him to trust himself, to trust the people he's with, especially at not-quite-three. I want him to get his needs met -- when he hits his head hard enough that there's a red bump, I want someone to put ice on it. 

So today I went back to the same lady in charge and told her what he told me. I told her I thought it related back to the bee incident, when he got stung and nobody did anything because he wasn't crying. I mentioned that they might want to remember that he doesn't cry all the time, but that if they think he's hurt they should fuss over him so that they know he needs help and can get it.

I don't know if it will help. Maybe he just wants to be his own person, maybe he doesn't -- like me -- like being fussed over in public (Yes, in private is fine, which you'd find out if you asked The Man, who complains I want fussing over far too often.) Maybe this is just how he is. 

One of the many reasons I like my daycare is that they take stuff like this seriously. So in the end, even if next time he gets hurt he doesn't cry and he doesn't get ice for his owies, at least I'll know they *want* to do so, that the help is available if he asks. There's only so much I can do, and I hope that it's enough.