HIGHLY Irritated

I understand your upset. Who wouldn't want their child to enjoy books?

Child abuse is harm to, or neglect of, a child by another person, and you might argue that actively denying the child books is either criminal neglect or emotionally abusive. Depends on the situation.

Did you loan him your books? If so, you can call the mother and ask that the books be returned. Maybe you'll get some information from her on what happened to them.

I didn't get a "good feeling" about the mother taking the books and now he can't find them. Sounds fishy.

Poor kid.
______

May The Hair On Your Toes Never Fall Out

--Traditional Hobbit Blessing

Perhaps it would be better to first ask the Mom if she minds you giving her son a few books , and see how the conversation goes from there. Say you have duplicates and he seems to enjoy reading at daycare or something like that.

If you said anything as innocent as "What do you mean, you don't have any books at home? Well, here. We'll fix you up with some." . . . some parents would take that as an insult.. . thinking people thought they couldn't afford books. And I promise you, kids repeat things said to them and not always correctly!

Regarding money being no object. . . I've known people who wouldn't want their child to have a used book, feeling it wasn't "clean" enough.

I remember my Mom (many years ago) saying to be careful about offering things to people because you never knew if they would take it as an insult, or be thrilled to get it. She was talking about hand me down clothing for children at the time, but stipulated that it pertained to anything.

The no books at home reminds me of my son making comments in front of others to his Dad. . .. "You never do anything with me. You're always working." His Dad and I knew this was a ploy to get something he wanted, but a stranger hearing that may have assumed DH really did nothing with our son. That particular day he had taken DS to town for an icecream (just for the fun of it), they had worked together on DS's room for an hour or so and at the moment he was uttering these comments DH was coaching his baseball team.

Anyway, just some thoughts. I agree that children should have books and plenty of them. . .I'm just saying, a four year old's perspective may not be the same as ours.

Could the mother be illiterate? Or maybe have a reading disability? Not everyone can read to their children. My best friend is a good mom, but she has a very severe reading disability that wasn't diagnosed till she was in her twenties and had two kids (she's also a single mom). She quite frankly doesn't have the time to take the classes that she would have to take to learn to get over her problem.
As to him not being able to find the books, maybe she did something to them, or maybe HE did. If he doesn't have any books, he's probably never been taught to treat his books with respect. He might have torn them up, or left them outside, or lost them somewhere. They might even be in the car, and he doesn't remember leaving them there.

I too think a house should be full of books

I too Mindy had the idea that she can't read but QB says that she is a profesional career woman and I would think she would not get by without reading

soooo what was the problem..possibly as stated already you overstepped your bounds...I don't blame you though..I think it was totally innocent and you wanted to make the child happy...some people are so anal about things and it sounds like this is one things the mom is anal about

maybe ask her....would you mind if I LENT [kid] a few books to look at? this way it would not be like "charity" and you are "asking"

I think the earth just spun the opposite direction for a minute, because I actually very much agree with Fern on this one. ;> (Sorry, Fern, couldn't help it!)

First, unless you've been to the kid's house, you don't know that he doesn't have any books. I'm not saying that he's lying, per se. But even older preschoolers often OFTEN say things like that to get attention from an adult they like, or even a peer friend.

Again, I'm not sure that you can trust his word that his mom took the books either. I would be very careful about making assumptions. He could have lost them, and it's less threatening to shift the potential disappointment to his mom (whom I assume was not there). I am confused and don't know whether YOU are his daycare teacher, but I know that when I was a preschool teacher I often lent books out to children and families (but always got parental permission/participation first). So that would be one way of seeing if he or she is truly interested.

It sounds like you already have some problems with/impressions of this lady though. I would be very surprised if she did not sense this on some level (and you can bet HE does).

I've learned very painfully by overstepping my bounds as a teacher (though thankfully the parents involved were relatively gentle and understanding even though it must have been annoying for them) that A) preschoolers often love to tell embarrassing stories about their parents to you...and you to their parents and B) unless it's an abusive situation it's better to deal with concerns in a roundabout way rather than assuming the worst because 9 time out of 10 you'll be munching on your mid-thigh within 2 seconds of opening your mouth.

Host a book show and tell day or something like that. Ask the parent what kind of books their kid is into lately, ect. It tends to be a good idea to get a bigger feel on things than an offhand comment by the kid and running with a pretty big assumption.

I'd be tempted in the same way by this situation though. I don't get non-readers at all.
-Kitty, mama to Fiona, Thomas, and Dylan.

Jeez, Kitty. I took that to mean you normally never agree with me! I'll insert a "ha ha" here since I haven't a clue how to work the smilies. Its good to find a common ground with someone, ha.

I just want to chime in here with nothing new to say! This is a tough situation to know about. Maybe this kid never cleans up his toys at home, so when his mom put the books where they "should" be, he can't find them. Maybe this kids rips up all his books, so his mom put them somewhere for safekeeping. Maybe this kid told you a story to get some attention from you (and even well-loved kids sometimes tell stories if they can't think of a better way to get attention). Or, maybe his mother is some kind of weirdo who doesn't let her kid have books. This is a delicate situation, so I'd try to be very tactful about it ... maybe say something like "Hey, lady, are you some kind of weirdo who doesn't let your kid have books?" and see what she says.

Danna =]

Ok,ok...perhaps this issue was a bad place to start with venting about the mom in question.

It's a long story,I suppose. No,she's not illiterate. She's a professional career woman and well educated.

My guess is that Mom sees reading to him as a hassle.

The mom in question spends zero time with the kid. He's with me or the grandparents most of the time. I've tried "reaching her" as far as saying,"Hey,lady...you gave birth to him,not me. YOU be the parent." She is not receptive to listening.

Anyway...forgive my senseless ranting. I suppose you'd have to know the whole story to really be sympathetic to where I'm coming from. It's just that yesterday was my breaking point.

My husband says I need to "let go" of what happens when he's not here and just concentrate on making the most of when he's here.
Maybe taking some deep breaths might help *breathes deep*

Now,here's a nice clincher though...
I found out (from the mom) that when they leave my house in the evening(on the days she does pick him up),he falls asleep in the car and she just takes him in and puts him to bed. No dinner or anything. Now THAT is bordering on neglectful. It also means she's spending less time with him than I originally thought. Hmmm.....

I think my biggest problem with the whole thing:
Why do people have children if they don't take care of them

QueenBee, I didn't mean to make you feel bad with my post, I was just offering ideas as to what may be going on with the Mom & her attitude. Actually, your reaction would probably be the same reaction that any of us would have had if we were in your shoes. Where you are closer to the situation and have more info, all we were going on was what was in the post.

I'm certainly with you on the why do people have kids if they aren't going to take care of them thing. It amazes me to see how some people continually sluff their kids off on anybody and everybody that will take them for a while.

Lynn, thanks for the smiley help, but it isn't working for me. They don't show up on this page at all for me. Also I keep getting messages "you aren't allowed to post on this node". ?? Trying again.

Your right, knowing the backround does make it more understandable why you are frusterated. I do day care, and I occasionally end up with parents who shouldn't have been parents in the first place. I do night time day care (for parents who work nights), and I've had to deal with a lot of partiers. One child never came with panties or shoes, another always comes in pi$$y smelling clothes. Frankly, I would NEVER vote for it, but I sometimes wish that people had to get a license to have kids. (Like, I said, if it ever came up for vote, I'd vote no, but nonetheless. . . you know what I mean.) Anyway, good luck dealing with the child, and his mom.