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When working parents drop off their children at day care in the morning, they pray they will return to find a happy, healthy child who has been cared for and provided for in a safe environment. And 99.9 percent of the time, that's just what happens. But one day care center in Texas has come under fire after it was discovered that one staffer allegedly duct taped two children to their sleeping matsafter they refused to take naps.
Mom Lorrie Almquist says she received a phone call from the owner of Heart2Heart Montessori Academy, who told her that her 3-year-old son and another boy had been duct taped in an effort to get them to nap.
The owner claims the staffer who did this admitted it after photos surfaced -- taken by another employee who quit -- of a different boy who was wrapped in a blanket and strapped to his sleeping pad with tape around his legs and chest. When questioned, the worker reportedly confessed to doing the same thing to Almquist's toddler.
The mom says she was told her son wasn't sleeping during naptime and that the daycare owner had suggested she buy a "weighted" blanket -- which would have made me raise my eyebrows if I were this mom.
Almquist has pulled her son out of the day care and she and another parent reported the incident to Child Protective Services.
But Heart2Heart's director doesn't think the staffer's actions were all that bad, apparently. In an email sent to all of the parents who trusted the facility, Ashlea Pena called the actions "thoughtless" and "foolish," but then said the situation had been "extremely exaggerated by a very upset parent." Adding even more fuel to the fire, she reportedly said that no child was harmed or caused any distress and that "within 5 minutes he was sound asleep with his arms tucked under his chin. And woke up smiling."
Um, no. That doesn't make duct taping a human being to a mat okay. And it's insulting to say any parent exaggerated the story when she was reacting to seeing a photo of her child tied down to a mattress. How does Pena think that person should react? With empathy for the worker who thought this would be a brilliant idea? Come on.
Assuming these allegations are true, there's only one right thing for the managers of this day care to do: apologize and prove they're serious by releasing the staffer who did this of her duties.
Do you think the parent who was upset by this was overreacting? How would you have responded to it?
Image via hobvias sudoneighm/Flickr
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