Long-term crying in playgroup

amother

Yesterday at 10:38 am

So there's a kid in my child's playgroup who is still crying for about two hours every day. (This is an improvement; originally the child was crying the entire four hours of playgroup.)

The morah says she's never had a child cry for so long like this. When I drop off, if the child is already there, I can tell because of the loud crying...Even worse, the morah says that the last two hours of the day the child is sitting on a chair quietly watching the rest of the kids play.

I know she's been speaking with the parents. I don't know exactly what was said. Originally I felt nervous that the morah's full attention was on this one child for most of the day, and the rest of the kids weren't getting any attention. Now I just feel awful for the child. The morah is really fantastic, but you can tell she sort of feels at this point like there's only so much attention she can pay to one screaming child when it means shortchanging the others. So although for the first week or two of school she was giving lots of attention to this child, holding her while she was screaming, but it was really hard for the rest of the kids. At this point, she just sort of lets her cry...

If you're a playgroup morah, what would you do at this point? Is it really okay to just let her cry all day? As a parent, what would you do? I'm trying to see both sides of things, and especially without knowing the situation the parents are in (desperately needing childcare in order to keep a job, or for another reason), it's kind of easy. But it just hurts me so much to hear this poor child crying and crying like that. I have full confidence that the morah is fantastic (I've dropped in randomly in the middle of the day to drop off late or pick up early, and she's always super-morah, with all the kids engaged and happy), she's just also so sweet that I can't see her demanding that this child needs to stop coming. But how can this continue all day? With yomim tovim coming up, I can only imagine how hard it's going to be for this little girl...

Has anyone dealt with something like this before? What did you do?

amother

Milk

Yesterday at 10:41 am

My neighbor works, she has no choice but to send her child to daycare. Her toddler started a new daycare at the beginning of the summer. He cried non stop. She took him our & since then she's tried 2 different daycare's and he still cries. She has no choice but to leave him at his current one. She needs childcare. The crying is better, he'd cry all day at the beginning.

bsy

Yesterday at 12:09 pm

As a mother, I'd take off and stay with my child the whole time while they get more comfortable. A crying toddler for so long isn't okay with me

amother

Skyblue

Yesterday at 12:14 pm

As a morah I would say we can't accomodate a child who is crying all day. As a parent I would find a way stay home.

amother

Brunette

Yesterday at 12:18 pm

bsy wrote:

As a mother, I'd take off and stay with my child the whole time while they get more comfortable. A crying toddler for so long isn't okay with me

Many Morahs aren't comfortable with the mothers staying the whole time. And how would your child get more comfortable if you're there all the time and then one day just disappear in the middle?

amother

Gold

Yesterday at 12:34 pm

I'm a morah and I said it's not working out for me or the child when that happened a few years ago.
It's cruel to the kid, not fair for me or the other kids! It really effects the atmosphere of the group.
It's not normal for a child to cry so long imo. I've only experienced that once in my 14 plus years as a morah.

amother

Goldenrod

Yesterday at 12:41 pm

As another mother I’d be upset. All the kids shouldn’t have to hear and see a child cry all day. That’s traumatizing for all of them. I’d insist she tell the parents it’s not working out.

amother

Ginger

Yesterday at 1:40 pm

Didn’t read all the responses but I want to share a story. I’ve been a toddler morah for awhile now. One year I had a little boy (young two) who cried for his mommy nonstop(like hysterically ) all day every day until after sukkos he stopped and was perfectly happy.

I learned from that with kids this young you can’t count anything that happens before sukkos .

amother

Camellia

Yesterday at 3:09 pm

This yr in day camp I had a 2 1/2 yr old kid who cried nonstop for 7 days. I almost kicked him out. Actually told mother maybe he's just too young and it's not working out.
Next day he stopped crying. I think mother told him he won't be able to come if he keeps in crying.