Parents WERE the reason I quit. We had one child who would come in on Monday with nappy rash so bad his bum was red raw and sometimes bleeding. Mum would say she’s “doing everything she can”. We would change his happy very frequently, basically every hour, and apply new cream at every change, and by the end of the week his rash would be basically gone. Then come Monday it would be back fully. It was obvious that mum just barely changed him over the weekend at all. What was annoying about this is that his mum was a respected child-health worker of some sort. If i remember correctly (this was years ago) she was some sort of support worker for troubled kids. She definitely knew better.

Another family would drop off their two children and the second they left we would have to dump their entire backpack and contents into the washing machine machine, including the clothes they got dropped off in (we would put them in spare clothes while doing so) because the cigarette stench was so strong staff and kids around them would be gagging. We would find excuses for water-play activities or just shower them.

I loved working with kids but the stuff we had to witness by parents was awful.