This happened to me yesterday and since I have no other nurses around here to ask, I turn to you, my "coworkers." As most of you know, I am new to school nursing. This is my first year and there is still a lot I don't know.
Yesterday afternoon, one of my kindergarten friends came to me from art class. He had an accident and the aide who walked him down told me that he didn't go to the bathroom before he came to art. No problem. I started pawing through my clothes looking for something to fit him when his teacher (his actual K teacher, not the art teacher) came in like a wrecking ball, ignored me when I asked if everything was ok and started really laying into the student. "Did I not tell you to go to the bathroom before art class? Excuse me?! This is ridiculous! You need to follow directions! This is getting written on your daily report for your dad to see!" The little guy just kind of stood there and didn't say much. I felt pretty uncomfortable about the whole thing. After she left the kid actually said "Ok, where were we?" (teehee) like nothing happened at all so I don't think he was too upset about it.
My question to you guys is this: what would you do in this situation? I really don't understand the teacher-nurse dynamic in terms of telling someone they crossed the line. She wasn't giving him medical advice or infringing on my domain of providing wellness services so it's not like I could say she was stepping on my toes. I did think she was being excessively harsh, especially since it's not like she was the one who had to get him cleaned up, but I didn't want to cause tension between us because she thought I was infringing on her domain of disciplining a student for not following directions in the classroom. I am very interested to hear what you guys think.
Specializes in med-surg, IMC, school nursing, NICU.
Update!
The teacher in question was just walking past my office and came in to apologize to me for her scene last week. She said she totally forgot to come by after the fact but wanted to say sorry. She told me she had offered a bathroom visit to the student 4 times and he refused each time so she was just fed up that he didn't listen. I said I understood her frustration and next time she should maybe insist he go into the bathroom and not let him leave the class until he does if him having accidents is that much of an issue for her. She said "good idea!" and that was that.
zombieghoast
410 Posts
There is no real reason for her to get mad at the student if he isn't a FF. I got kids who will happily wet themselves and don't see an issue.