Outgrowing Nursery: A Very Negative Child

Well! We were ill the week before half term and then it was half term, so L was away from her two-days-a-week nursery for two weeks. The change was striking. She relaxed. She started to admit to knowledge again. She got really interested in dinosaurs and boasted about her knowledge. She started to draw again, and draw well, not at the peculiar regressive standard she had been at for a few months. She asked me to help her with a complicate dinosaur collage.

So the first Monday of the new term rolled around and she said she didn't want to go, so I phoned the nursery and asked to speak to her key worker, because I wasn't sure nursery was still the best place for her. I ended up speaking to someone I don't know at all whom I was assured was The Manager. She told me that Linnea doesn't do anything she's asked to do, doesn't use any of the offered opportunities, doesn't join in the group activities, doesn't socialise, and "is very negative - I don't know if she gets it from you."

That seemed fairly clear cut. The child I live with is outgoing, sociable, friendly, and definitely not negative unless provoked.

So she hasn't been to nursery and she's thriving on it. She's doing her maths book and reading to herself and generally being lovely. She's friendlier and less stressed. And I'm happier, too.

It's sad, because I really liked that nursery and I loved her key worker, but she outgrew it quite quickly, I think, and it wasn't good for her any more.

I'm so pleased the L I love is living with us again. And that we have so much more free unscheduled time. We've been painting again!