Ok so it's 4am and I can't sleep because I'm thinking about an incident that happened today.
I have my kids registered in a Scottish Dancing class at the community center. My sister has her oldest in the class as well. Parents are not allowed in the room. We have to wait outside, as it may otherwise distract the kids. Most of the time either my sister or I stay right near the room staring in at the kids. This time my brother inlaw came and he took his younger one outside to the play ground. I took Martha across the street to get weighed. (She only gained 5 ounces in two weeks- which is the least of my worries at the moment, but still not great news).
When I got back to the playground, it was two minutes till the end of class. I said, "lets go we gotta pick up the big kids". They're really not big, just 3, 3.5 and almost 5.We get to the class at 4:02 (I guess we walked slow) and the next one has already started. Mary and Joseph's class mates are in the hall with their parents, getting out of their dance shoes, and OUR kids are no where to be seen. I panic; my brother in law searches. We find the kids playing happily, like nothing was out of the ordinary, in the little tots room near the lobby.
So what would you do as a parent?
At first I just said, "good job" to the kids for going to the playroom. But now that I'm lying awake thinking about it, I should tell them not to leave the classroom if they don't see us waiting for them. I will talk to them about that tomorrow.
But really it's not their responsibility- they're preschoolers! I realize that I was late in picking up, I take responsibilty for that. BUT the teacher should not be releasing the kids out of the classroom without checking that the parent is there. Is that not true? Am I crazy to think that the teacher should just make them sit against the wall or take them to the front desk until a parent arrives? What if I had been hit by car? Where would my kids have been? And for how long until someone noticed that there was no parent there? It makes me sick just thinking about it.
And now, what do I do about it? Should I call the supervisor at the community center and tell them what happened? Do I call the instructor? Do I wait until next week and talk to the instructor? I don't even want to send the kids back to her class to be honest. But the kids really love going to it.What would you do?
