Daughter “hates” daycare :(

I stayed home with my daughter until this September and this transition to daycare has gone relatively smoothly. We struggled a lot for the first few weeks with meltdowns afterwards and not wanting to go, but things are more routine now so it’s smoother. But for the last few weeks my daughter has been telling me how much she hates daycare and how mean the teachers are. She cries almost every morning and begs me not to make her go. Most days when I pick her up and ask how her how her day was, she says bad because the teachers make her sit still or be quiet or whatever it was that day. I assume this is somewhat normal but am not sure how to handle it. If anyone else has experienced this, how did you affirm your child’s feelings and support them?

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She says she has to sit still and be quiet? No that doesn’t sound normal. The teachers are mean? Also not normal. I’d probably look for another daycare and/or talk to other parents whose kids go to that daycare.

@Sarah I don’t think she has to still still and be quiet very often or for very long. She said it’s when they do preschool, so like 30-40 minutes I think? Also, I’ve parented very firmly but am naturally very gentle. She says I’m being mean if I even slightly raise my voice or talk in a firm tone. When other family members have corrected her in the past she has been very sensitive (nothing wrong with that at all, I want her to feel her feelings). But I just am not sure that there are going to be any daycare teachers she wouldn’t feel were “mean” sometimes. Thank you for the advice though! Maybe I’ll try to see what other parents think (:

Does the daycare have cameras you can view footage of? This might help you to understand what she means when she says the teachers are mean, and if it seems like they are telling the whole class to sit still and be quiet, you can explain to her that when it's time to learn it's ok for teachers to tell you that, so she can learn. If it's something else where she is being picked on by the teachers you can then address it with the daycare owner, or switch daycares.

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