As a grown adult who went to this preschool years ago, I feel that this could potentially give some…read moreparents a bit of perspective on the effect that this school may have on their child.
**I went to Happy Hollow about 14-15 years ago** and, had both good and bad times here. I remember playing with arts and crafts, having snack time, circle time, story time, stations, the whole shebang. Everything was kept clean, I even remember learning the clean up song as we would throw away our paper plates after snack time. I also remember playing with shaving cream on the tables, which got messy, but was loads of fun.
However, as I mentioned, I experienced some harsh moments here, and these memories still stick with me to this day. Of course, I have forgiven the woman who owns the place since these times, and I'm sure she does not remember them, but the memory still resides within my head.
Since so much time has passed, I look back and understand that having a career where you are a caretaker and teacher to children is a stressful job to have. I also feel that if someone is going into this sort of career, that there should be a level of patience and understanding so that lash-out behavior does not occur.
It was nap time, and everyone was asleep, lullaby music was playing, curtains were shut, and the lights were out. Usually I was a pretty good napper, but there was one day where I just could not fall asleep, so I sat up on my mat. The owner's daughter, who worked there, came into the room to check and see if everyone was doing okay, and she noticed I was sitting up. She told me to lay down or she would tell the owner that I was awake. I responded by telling her that I would lay down, I apologized, and tried to get some rest. A couple of minutes later, the owner marched into the room and yanked my ear and told me that if I did not go to sleep, that I would be in big trouble and she would tell my parents... Of course, I started crying out of fear and cried until nap time was over. When the lights came back on, I sat up and was immediately put into time out, where I sat on cold, hard concrete and stared at a wall.
Another thing I remember was her long nails digging into my arms when she grabbed me to put me there.
Needless to say, I had a pretty "meh" experience here. Even my parents, who were persistent in teaching me to have good manners and to be respect, were disappointed in how this situation was blown out of proportion and they admit to regretting having me at this day care. They have also mentioned to me that the owner was quite snippy with them from time to time.
**Of course, there has probably been a LOT of change since my time**, but I wanted to put my story out there incase anyone else has experience something along the lines of this.
I give this daycare 2 stars because although I did have good times here, unfortunately, the bad times are more clear in my memory.
