A calmer head is needed for a little advice please.

[tomc]

Hi all, thanks for taking a look at my post. I'll get straight into my problem.

My wife and I are both fairly new to child minding and my wife works in school as a lunchtime assistant.
Last week, one of the children my wife looks after in school, bumped their head and came to my wife for assistance.
During the course of a quick head survey she noted that the child was crawling with head lice. On returning the children to their teacher after lunch, my wife discreetly mentioned to the teacher that the child had a head lice infestation, and the teacher replied that this child "always had them."

The next day was red nose day and all the children came into school dressed up, again at lunch this same child approached DW to show off her outfit, DW complemented the child on their lovely outfit, no mention of the headlice from the previous day, all was well.
After school, and while my wife and I had picked up our 'wraparounders' and our own children(2,3,6,8,9), and walked to the local store, the mother of the headlice child had followed us from school and accosted my wife in front of all the children and all the people in the store, stating that (read in your best chavish accent) "Eh you... Mrs. XXX, next time can you not point out they've got nits in front of the whole class", now DW handled it well, and told the lady what had happened but she was dismissive and wasn't listening so DW ended by saying if she had a complaint to make it in writing to school, and not in front of everybody in the store and all the children present.
Chavvy little lady sauntered off having said her piece over to 3 of her friends with their staff dogs, who, it appeared she had brought along as support. (I realise as I type this how bad this area sounds but it's mostly lovely semi rural village up North.)

We all walked back to school to make a record of the incident with the head teacher and head of year and honestly thought nothing more of it than a minor over reaction on the parents behalf.

Today our eldest daughter came out of school and immediately told us that an older relative of this child had been intimidating and bullying her in the playground asking for DW's first name because her mum wanted to "invite her to a birthday party." To be clear we didn't even know who this woman was until the store incident. Our daughter being fairly wise, told the older girl she wasn't going to tell her, and was verbally and physically attacked because she would not divulge this information.

As soon as she told us after school tonight we went straight back into class and reported this as a bullying incident, and the teacher has undertaken to monitor the situation closely now she is in the loop.

I am considering calling the Police after the school advised that DW should, but feel that it is only 1 hour after the bullying report was filed in school, and that I may be over reacting myself.
Help me out fellow childminders, would you take this further or leave it in the hands of the school. I really want know what you would do.

[K.EAST]

I feel that everything yourself and wife have done is professional and correct, and you and your reputation has nothing to worry about, you have reported the incidents and that's all you can do really, I feel involving the police isn't necessary and to just carry in with your lives and be happy! These people come along to challenge us all we can do is plod on and be professional and consistent my advice to your little girl is to just ignore her and walk away x all the best

Sent from my iPhone using Childminding Forum

[Sarsar3NCH]

What a horrendous situation for all of you. I would keep an eye on the situation very closely for a day or two, talk to your children about it so they know to report anything immediately, and also possibly mention to mindees parents in very broad terms (if you are concerned that any of them may be affected) that there has been an incident and yourself and the school are monitoring it.
I wouldn't contact the police yet but make sure you have a written record of everything.
I hope it all gets sorted quickly

[Daisy1956]

How awful for you, it really annoys me when people drag everyone into things like this, poor child now everyone knows about their head-lice. How did parent find out that you had noticed the head-lice?

[helena_j]

Until you mentioned it was somewhere north this sounds similar of my local area lol in the south so sounds like its not just my school with parents like that!

I agree you have done all you can and make sure children are reporting any bullying or intimidation immediately. Total over reaction on that parents part clearly they are threatened by the nits more than anyone else!

Continue as you are and report any more situations to school if it can be ironed out that way it will be better I would be concerned police would just stir things up alot more, of course unless you get more abuse.
What are they teaching their children, some example they are setting!!!

[TAZ]

What a horrible situation to be faced with, as has already been said keep a record of everything. I prob wouldn't have thought about going to police but actually thinking about it, it might not be such a bad idea, you can just notify the police (do you have a local officer) therefore if anything further happens the police already have a record, also they may be able to offer advice. I hope nothing further does happen for you or your children.

What is the school policy on lice? Our kids get sent home from school & have to be treated before they can return to school. My dd got sent home once with 'lice' which turned out to be tiny wood chippings (she'd been playing on the school trim trail, hanging upside down)

[tomc]

How awful for you, it really annoys me when people drag everyone into things like this, poor child now everyone knows about their head-lice. How did parent find out that you had noticed the head-lice?

Daisy, you raised a really good point that we had overlooked entirely, in that as my wife had raised a safeguarding concern with the child at school, that there has been a lapse in confidentiality when the school disclosed DW's name to the parent. This should never have happened and if she had raised safeguarding concerns of a more serious nature would certainly hope would never happen.
We have decided to write a stern letter to school stating that they have breached confidentiality, and that we expect better from them and certainly expect the same level of support that a teacher or administrative member of the school staff would get in a similar situation. We both feel that they have left DW to sort this out for herself and the school really have a duty to support her.
Thanks for all the replies you lot, I hope I too can be somebodies voice of reason when they need it.