At one Scottish nursery, a new mother was so anxious she presented staff with a spreadsheet detailing how the care of her child should be carried out – right down to the correct amount of food per spoonful. The owner of the nursery, who wants to remain anonymous, says, ‘The senior room leader has been totally stressed about it.’
Sadly, many practitioners are reporting increases in the number of stressed and anxious parents. Many parents are struggling under the burden of rising living costs, stagnant wages and high costs of childcare: a million children under five live in poverty in the UK, childcare can cost nearly half an average salary and, according to charity Gingerbread, half of single parents in London have to borrow money to pay for childcare.
Julian Grenier, head teacher at Sheringham Nursery School and Children’s Centre in London, sees this first-hand. ‘In my experience, there are many more parents experiencing stress, for numerous reasons, including having to work long hours, sometimes with unpredictable zero-hours contracts that make arranging childcare very difficult, and because of the pressure caused by changes to benefits.’
Early years consultant and parents specialist Janet Uwins agrees, adding that even in the case of a two-parent family working full-time there are challenges. She says, ‘For the parent doing the picking up, if they get stuck in traffic and are late, that is stressful, then they have to try to get in touch with the nursery when sitting in a traffic jam and may have to pay extra. Then there’s the reaction of the practitioner – is it going to be “That isn’t good enough” or “Don’t worry, we understand”?’
Some parents present more extreme problems. Speaking at a Public Accounts Committee hearing last month, Pre-school Learning Alliance chief executive Neil Leitch said, ‘Most providers will tell you that where they are operating with two-year-olds entitled to the 15 hours, it comes with – these are my words – an element of baggage.’
That ‘baggage’ could mean a parent turning up ‘drunk out of their mind’ and will invariably require additional resources, maybe ‘almost one-to-one care with some children’, he added.
STRESS AND POWER
We know feeling disempowered is stressful – studies have shown that feeling stressed at work increases the likelihood of heart attacks. Research has also shown the opposite is true. A Stanford-Harvard study from 2012 looked at stress hormone levels and self-reported anxiety levels within high-ranking officials and found that they had lower levels of cortisol and lower reports of anxiety. The crucial difference in the findings lies in control. ‘If you enhance the sense of control, that could be a really healthy thing for people,’ researcher James Gross said.
Understandably, parents too want to remain in control of their family lives and to be listened to – so, says Dr Grenier, practitioners should ‘offer advice and ideas in such a way that we make it clear that it is the parent who is ultimately in the best position to make a decision.’
But what about a staff member’s right to feel in control? In the case of the spreadsheet mum, the nursery owner has attempted to give the mother a sense of control, while also protecting staff from unrealistic expectations.
The key thing she has communicated to the parent, she says, is that ‘our focus is on the interests of the child’, adding, ‘She is a new parent and I think there may be a guilt complex about leaving the child at the nursery five days a week. You have to be very sensitive about that.’
To protect her staff from stress, the baby room leader had a meeting with the manager about the mother and was told she was ‘doing a great job’ and to ‘just make sure that the child is happy and learning’. She was also reassured that if the parent complained again, ‘We will be there to support you’.
CRYSTAL CLEAR
In some more serious cases, such as a drunk parent, other factors also come into play, including policies. So, in one instance, when a mother turned up drunk to collect her child, staff took her into the office and phoned her husband, while also reporting the matter to social services.
For the nursery owner, the case was also a salient reminder that anyone can make a mistake and to assume nothing. ‘The mother was a bit aggressive at first and then she started crying,’ she explains. ‘It later turned out she had post-natal depression.’ (In a separate case, a parent suspected of heavy drinking actually worked in a brewery.)
It is also important to acknowledge that ‘the nursery is not perfect, staff will make mistakes’, the nursery owner adds. ‘Therefore you have to listen to both sides.’
In general, says psychologist Lynne Jordan, ‘Non-confrontation but gentle clarity with parents is the way forward, and for staff, managing stress and one’s own feelings is empowering in itself. Most important is to have good communication in the arrangements at the very start of the child coming to nursery, so both know what is expected.’
Policies on how to act when a parent is concerned about a nursery staff member or vice versa should be ‘crystal clear’. So much anxiety is created when there is lack of clarity, she adds.
ATTITUDES AND PERSPECTIVES
Stress and anxiety also have their roots in staff failing to understand or accept ‘difference’ in parent attitudes and perspectives. ‘I really don’t believe there is enough training in the concept of “othering” and listening to difference,’ says Dr Uwins, who has done ‘working with parents’ training with early years settings. ‘Othering’ is ‘when we consider that our own perspectives and ideas are “normal”, and anything else outside that is not normal,’ she explains.
‘In some cultures, parents do a lot of things for the child – for example, doing laces up or undressing them. Practitioners can be very quick to jump to conclusions about these parents. We all have views and make judgements – you can’t stop that, it’s part of human nature. It is recognising that we do it.’
Dr Gill Goodliff, a senior lecturer in early years at Open University, which runs an open-access course in working with parents, agrees. ‘[The problem is] practitioners not having any experience of interacting with families which are not like theirs. Some practitioners have not had that, even in their training.’
The idea of listening comes up time and again. ‘I firmly believe that in order to build meaningful and respectful relationships with parents, it is vital to communicate directly with each family and listen attentively to their perspective,’ adds Dr Uwins. ‘Listening can stop assumptions being made.’
‘Central to everyone’s well-being – parents’, practitioners’ and children’s – is having a positive sense of being respected and valued. Parents can very much enjoy sharing information about their children, but if a practitioner says they are doing something “wrong”, then parents will be defensive,’ adds Dr Goodliff.
So, is there decent training to help practitioners develop these skills? According to Dr Uwins, ‘Generally, courses classed as training in diversity and equal opportunities can be outdated and almost disrespectful. I’ve seen it referred to as a tourist curriculum: “Today we are doing Diwali, so we have got a box of candles.” Practitioners may assume certain traits to do with cultures and practices, but difference is a very individual thing. If you have a lot of African children, they may be Afro-Caribbean or black African or British African. You need to find out what they do at home – you can’t just say, “This is what Nigerians do.”
‘I have tried in the past to address this issue sensitively in my teaching, and it is not always well received. This may actually be due to an element of stress on practitioners’ part, particularly with teachers who simply don’t have the time that those working in the PVI sector have to meet with and talk to parents.
‘Some practitioners, particularly teachers, will attend anything about working with parents with the expectation that they will be given a list. It simply doesn’t work like that – though I do think schools are beginning to consider new ways of working with parents that allows more time to listen.’
For nursery chains, Dr Uwins adds, a practice of delivering or buying in training that is disseminated in the same way to each nursery can result in an attitude of ‘this is how we do things’. She says, ‘This can mean excellent practice, but however high the quality of the training, any input on issues of diversity may not then reflect the make-up and cultural community of each individual nursery.’
FIRST AND FOREMOST
While being sensitive to parent needs is critical to best practice – and curbing staff stress – the needs of the child must remain paramount. ‘A lot of early years provision now is offered to parents as a service, but we have to remember that our principal obligation is to the child,’ says Dr Julian Grenier. ‘For example, sometimes a parent may not want their toddler to have a nap in the afternoon, because they would rather their child went to bed earlier in the evening.
‘That may be fine – but if a child is exhausted, and unsettled, and the practitioners are not offering a rest because of the parent’s instructions, the child’s needs are not being put first.
‘We often have to think of the whole family when we think of the child’s well-being, but we must always make sure that we consider the child first and foremost.’
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