This email is long overdue.
My daughter was enrolled at this daycare for nearly 2 years. My husband and I learned so much about the daycare provider, Ms. Washington. We decided to remove my daughter from her care expeditiously.
We considered Nik-Nak's daycare to begin with because the commute from our home and jobs was convenient. Also, after an intensive daycare search and daycare tours we found this daycare to be the best fit for my daughter starting at 6 months old at the time. However, as time progressed we noticed Ms. Washington had almost 8 children in her care. As a result, my daughter was not being provided with quality care.
Ms. Washington's communication and professionalism lacked. She disliked having healthy conversations with parents and would always disregard our questions or concerns. It's not what you say, but how you say it. And, she truly STRUGGLED having conversations with us about OUR child!
As a Mother, educator, tutor, and DPT student I have never encountered a malignant person like this daycare provider in my life!!! Ms. Washington was always strident towards my husband and I. It was very personal and intentional.
When I spoke to some of the enrolled children's parents they also expressed the same concerns, but shared they just ignored the behaviors. It was hard for me to ignore such unacceptable behaviors. Ms. Washington always stated, "I have been doing this for 18 years and never experienced parents ask this many questions." My child's well-being, growth development and safety is so imperative to me and it always will be! This was a prime example as to why their was such a disconnection with her and my child.
In the mornings at drop off, Ms. Washington would never speak to my child. She barely spoke to me or my husband. It was forced and always insolent. Greetings ALWAYS sets the tone for social interactions. For someone who has been doing this for "18 years" she needs an internal reality check. The very first impression a child and parent should receive are open arms, positive energy and happiness. We NEVER experienced this.
Anytime we had an uncomfortable conversation,
Ms. Washington would write a letter and give it to us at pick up. EVERY TIME. Again, writing LONG letters to express her thoughts about my families concerns because she refused to talk.
The food here was terrible. When she gave us the menu plan I couldn't believe she was serving pork and beans, and hot dogs because she's TOO CHEAP to cook a healthy meal. For 6 months I provided my daughters food because the food she provided was distasteful.
One of the first strikes towards removing my child from this daycare was when my husband went to pick my daughter up, and she was laying in an empty child's pool crying. Ms. Washington was talking to another parent. My husband was furious. When we called and asked her about the situation she responded, "what did you want me to do?" and then got upset because she knew she was wrong. After all, we never received an apology.
We also noticed that my child started to regress in her learning development. I noticed Ms. Washington became inactive and unmotivated when it came to teaching and development skills. This is even after I had numerous conversations with her about how imperative it was that she has a curriculum foundation. She failed in this area.
The last straw was her disregarding my child's feelings. Her attitude was always extremely discourteous. I questioned her about unusual scratches I noticed on my child, and she begin to tell me how she had videos of my child and her friend having a toddler altercation. She stated, "I have videos. I recorded videos of your child." she never, ever shared the videos with me. The audacity of a daycare provider recording videos of children and not trying to problem solve and teach them right from wrong. This was sickening to my stomach. What are her future plans with the videos? I was fed up. I sent her an email notifying her my daughter would not be returning.
Lastly, she is ALWAYS on the phone during pick ups and drop offs. She changed her daycare hours NUMEROUS of times. Stating all the daycares she was familiar with were changing there hours too. OR most of her parents work from home. Excuse me? My husband and I work full time jobs and she wanted us to pick up our child early than we were suppose to. I would have to leave meetings early to pick up my child. She said, "children never stay the entire day." Ridiculous! I contacted multiple daycare providers and they ALL said, she just doesn't want to work. Literally! She created and made up hours convenient to her life!
What's worse, she talked about parents BUSINESS all the time. She is nosey, and unprofessional. I knew so much about parents personal life because she always talked about it. Just awful. I WOULD NOT RECOMMEND THIS DAYCARE TO ANYONE! read more
