I'm reminded a little of the candy jar thread. This is a nice little extra that your daycare centre is providing and you're complaining that they're doing it wrong. I think it would be nice of you to give them a light, sorry I was a bit silly, apology.
That's an interesting perspective - all of my friends children are in different daycare centres (different brands, philosophies, locations) and they all get a daily email with photos of the kids and telling them what they've been doing. The exact style and content vary, of course. I believe they do keep some paper records in the room as well on the kids, but I've never seen them. The book tells us what activities the children have done today and pictures of them engaging in those activities, the email also tells us what lunch was served. Is the email book an Australian thing?? (Actually somewhat related, one of my friend's daughter just started daycare at a different centre and is really, really struggling with separation anxiety - she literally cries all day - and my friend said to me a couple of weeks ago "You know it's not been a good day when there's no picture of your child in the email!" Because in her case, her child was crying so much that she didn't participate in any activities and wasn't playing at all, she just sat and cried all day. She wasn't upset about her child not being in the pictures, because she knew why and was dealing with a much bigger problem, but clearly she thought it was an abnormal thing for a child not to be included!)
Yes, I'm aware the most Australian daycare centres are doing this now, my son's daycare does it as well. Just like many workplaces have a candy jar, but it's still not something that the daycare centre or the office is required to provide. And this is why it reminds me of the other thread - it's become such a commonplace thing in your mind that you're seeing it as part of the essential service and overreacting when your son isn't included, instead of being grateful for all the other days that you have received photos of your children.
Yes, they know their kids, but it sounds like they grab the camera and take pics through out the day. They are not going to remember who they took a pic of, and compare that with who the other teachers took. Seeing as how it's never happened before, I think it's just something disappointing that you need to let go.
They upload all the photos onto the laptop, then go through and pick ones to use for the report. So they can see the big picture of what they have before putting it together.
Yes, I will obviously let it go, as was always my intention. This was most definitely a retrospective question! (And yes, I know it's a trivial matter. All of my etiquette questions are trivial matters. My real problems I deal with in real life not on the internet
).
Have you ever worked in childcare? I only ask because you keep impressing on us how easy it should be for the daycare providers to include pictures of everyone but, speaking as a former daycare provider, it's not. It's really not. As a mother yourself, you should know how often your child does something cute but by the time you get the camera and take a snap he's stopped being cute and is now facing away, crying, picking his nose, etc. Now imagine doing that with twelve kids.
So you take your pictures all day long, not really paying attention to how many you've got of whom because you've got twelve kids to look after, meals to prepare, nappies to change, cleaning, paperwork, tantrums, naps, and then you upload all the photos and maybe you notice that today you didn't get a picture of Cellach's kid but hey, you've included him every other day so it should be okay, you don't have the time to try and get another photo now. Or maybe you don't even notice because you've got a bunch of other stuff to do and it's not like you're putting together a professional yearbook, it's just an overview of the day so parents get an idea of what their children have been doing. It happens. It doesn't mean anything.
If you're concerned that it means your child has had a bad day, then ask the providers if he had a bad day. But pointing out that your child wasn't included... I'm sure that it really was light and breezy, the way that you brought it up, but I know how lesser complaints than this can turn into big deals and if I were the provider, I might be worried that you were going to make this into a thing. Which is why I think it would be a kindness to say, "I was a bit silly yesterday, sorry."
JenJay posted before me and her wording is perfect.