WILD About Learning Academy

At first I liked this daycare. The director was nice, facility was clean, and the teachers seemed kind. After the first couple days of taking my two-​year-​old son, he started to have extremely bad separation anxiety at drop off. When a certain teacher was in his class she grabbed him so he would be comforted. But a few times when there was just one teacher in there that teacher would continue cleaning and never attempt to comfort him. He would literally just stand in the same place screaming, scared, and confused for up to 5 minutes before he calmed down. I held my tongue trying to give the teachers the benefit of the doubt knowing they had to clean. After about 9 times of taking him I decided it wasn’t normal for workers to not comfort a child at drop off so I unenrolled him. I worked at a daycare and we would be in huge trouble if we ignored a crying child at drop off, especially if his mother was standing there. He is at another daycare now and there is a night and day difference in him. Drop off is great because the teachers actually bend down and talk to him so he can form trust with them. That is what Wild was not doing. My son couldn’t form that trust. This is the ONLY daycare he has ever been at where this has happened. I talked to the director and she told me, she agreed the teachers could improve on that and she will show them how… but they technically didn’t do anything wrong by not comforting him because the teacher talked to him out loud while she walked around cleaning, which I guess counts as comforting to them. She also said the way I drop him off has a lot to do with why he has separation anxiety. Then, followed that up with, I’m not judging you, I’m just trying to help you. I know that is completely false because he does great at every other daycare he’s been at. I fully think he does well at other places because they take time to comfort him at drop off so he can build that trust. Anyway, what I’m saying is Wild can probably be a great place to take your child; I just had a bad experience. The director asked me to give them a chance to fix their mistakes, but I said no because I shouldn’t have to tell someone to genuinely comfort a scared child. Then she said, «When he wasn’t being comforted you should have gotten me immediately so I could correct the teacher.» That was followed by her claim that they did nothing wrong… Now they are charging me for 2 weeks notice– a period of time in which he will not be attending because I’m not comfortable taking my child there.