What Are Acceptable Punishments For Misbehaving Children In Daycare?

When choosing a daycare for your child, it is important that you understand what kinds of disciplinary actions are legal in Texas daycares as well as how each daycare you visit deals with issues of discipline and rule-breaking. Some disciplinary practices may vary, and choosing one that is in line with your own parenting strategies is ideal. Punishments that involve physical abuse, emotional trauma, pain, or shame are absolutely not acceptable and may very well be altogether illegal.

In many cases, daycares will disciple misbehaving children through reinforcing positive behavior, time outs and loss of privileges. In extreme situations, the parent of a misbehaving child should be called and the child will be removed form the daycare for the day. In addition, parents will often times be notified if a child is breaking rules or not cooperating with other children or teachers. In many cases, well-run daycare centers will provide each family with a list of rules as well as a guide to how rule breaking is handled on a day-to-day basis and with children of various ages (disciplining a two year old is different than disciplining a six year old).

Here are some forms of discipline and punishments that are never okay at day care:

• Hitting, slapping, or physically harming a child.
• Feeding a child hot sauce, salt, soap or other unpleasant foods.
• Withholding food from misbehaving children.
• Shaming the child before their classmates.

If your child has been mistreated in daycare, talk to a lawyer about your case. While some forms of discipline are necessary and legal, others are utterly unacceptable and could have long-term consequences for your child.