MA - dad breaks into daycare to get daughter

longtallcold

What happened to Nancy Jenkins?
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http://boston.cbslocal.com/2012/05/02/father-breaks-into-westport-day-care-to-rescue-daughter/

A father claims he was forced to break into a day care in Westport to rescue his little girl, because the staff left for the day and left his daughter locked inside.

“When she started screaming and screaming my name, I didn’t know if she was hurt. So, the patience left and the first thing that was there was a bike and that went into the door,”

Last line of the article is great:
Samantha Jo Paquette started at a new preschool Wednesday.
 
All's well that ends well, I always say.

Really, this story makes Americans look silly. To fly into such a complete panic, and continue that panic after an obvious small error was made, is silly. When you think of what the parents throughout the world are going through on a daily basis trying to keep real harm from happening to their children, an oversight where a child is accidentally locked inside a childproof daycare center for a matter of 15 minutes or so is just embarrassingly trivial. :(
 
All's well that ends well, I always say.

Really, this story makes Americans look silly. To fly into such a complete panic, and continue that panic after an obvious small error was made, is silly. When you think of what the parents throughout the world are going through on a daily basis trying to keep real harm from happening to their children, an oversight where a child is accidentally locked inside a childproof daycare center for a matter of 15 minutes or so is just embarrassingly trivial. :(

I have to agree. Once I read the article and realized a teacher had already shown up, I really think Dad overreacted by breaking into the building. It's unfortunate that it occurred, but I think he overreacted to the situation. I could understand if he couldn't contact anyone, but this wasn't a kid trapped in a car overheating. It was a childproof building and it was 15 minutes. Not quite the same thing, I don't think.
 
I have to agree. Once I read the article and realized a teacher had already shown up, I really think Dad overreacted by breaking into the building. It's unfortunate that it occurred, but I think he overreacted to the situation. I could understand if he couldn't contact anyone, but this wasn't a kid trapped in a car overheating. It was a childproof building and it was 15 minutes. Not quite the same thing, I don't think.

A small child left alone is not a minor issue.
 
A small child left alone is not a minor issue.

I didn't say it was minor. I simply said that dad breaking down the door when there was no sign of imminent danger, when he could have waited for them to open it with a key was an overreaction.
 
This same situation happened to a cousin of mine, and it was extremely traumatic for her 3 year-old. Granted, their toddler was not left alone for 15 minutes but for nearly an hour before his parents each realized the other had not picked up their son. They were unable to reach anyone employed with the daycare and finally the police broke into the building. The little boy suffered from nightmares for some time afterward.

It's not some embarrassingly trivial, small error when it happens to your child, and it does NOT make a parent look silly for putting the welfare of his child first.
 
This same situation happened to a cousin of mine, and it was extremely traumatic for her 3 year-old. Granted, their toddler was not left alone for 15 minutes but for nearly an hour before his parents each realized the other had not picked up their son. They were unable to reach anyone employed with the daycare and finally the police broke into the building. The little boy suffered from nightmares for some time afterward.

It's not some embarrassingly trivial, small error when it happens to your child, and it does NOT make a parent look silly for putting the welfare of his child first.

I think this makes us, as a culture, look silly for putting this in the news.

When you look at the world as a whole, and the danger and fears many cultures have for their children that are real, not a kind of careless procedure that leaves a child in a childproof building alone and safe for 15 minutes, It just strikes me as trivial.

Reminds me of several years ago, there was this huge hurricane (I forget which one) that wiped out whole towns somewhere south of the US, and it hit the US with a much reduced force and there was this man out in his front yard moaning that he had just put in this hedge of shrubs and now THIS happened (showing the hedge a little disheveled) and it was embarrassing.

This is a lesson for the child. Its okay. You're fine. Good as new.
 
I wouldn't care if the national guard were onsite, if my child was experiencing trauma, I'd throw MYSELF through the window.

I'm sure they have some sort of cooking facilities, I'm sure they have staff only areas that are not as well childproofed, and children that are terrified try to either hide (which could have endangered her if she hid in the wrong place) or they try to flee (not good when the only way to flee is through a window.

I stand behind the dad and his reaction.
 
I wouldn't care if the national guard were onsite, if my child was experiencing trauma, I'd throw MYSELF through the window.

I'm sure they have some sort of cooking facilities, I'm sure they have staff only areas that are not as well childproofed, and children that are terrified try to either hide (which could have endangered her if she hid in the wrong place) or they try to flee (not good when the only way to flee is through a window.

I stand behind the dad and his reaction.

A child crying isn't trauma though - I could understand this if it were an extended period of time, or if the child had medical needs, or if it was more like a child being trapped in a hot car.

I got a bucket stuck on my head as a kid that eventually had to be cut off. I cried hysterically. But I wouldn't term that "trauma." My brother locked himself in a bathroom for about an hour and cried something terrible. Yes, he even had some nightmares about it. But I really wouldn't term that trauma. Not everything that makes a child cry is a traumatic event. We cannot wrap children in bubble wrap.
 
And, it's a bit like falling and scraping your knee. Are you crying hysterically as a toddler because it hurts - or because your parent is reacting to it? Was the kid hysterical because she was trapped, or because of how dad was reacting? Is her continuing "trauma", whatever it may be, from actually being trapped or the way dad broke in and acted?
 
A child crying isn't trauma though - I could understand this if it were an extended period of time, or if the child had medical needs, or if it was more like a child being trapped in a hot car.

I got a bucket stuck on my head as a kid that eventually had to be cut off. I cried hysterically. But I wouldn't term that "trauma." My brother locked himself in a bathroom for about an hour and cried something terrible. Yes, he even had some nightmares about it. But I really wouldn't term that trauma. Not everything that makes a child cry is a traumatic event. We cannot wrap children in bubble wrap.

Abandonment, which is surely what she was feeling, is traumatic. We can't wrap them in bubble wrap, but at that point in time, after finding out that they couldn't even keep a head count, I would not have counted on the childproofing done by those same people to keep my child safe. I would have seen imminent risk in the situation, and gotten into that building by whatever means necessary. That's my opinion, my style of parenting, and I will never believe that something like this wouldn't cause fear and trauma in my child.
 
Abandonment, which is surely what she was feeling, is traumatic. We can't wrap them in bubble wrap, but at that point in time, after finding out that they couldn't even keep a head count, I would not have counted on the childproofing done by those same people to keep my child safe. I would have seen imminent risk in the situation, and gotten into that building by whatever means necessary. That's my opinion, my style of parenting, and I will never believe that something like this wouldn't cause fear and trauma in my child.

Two of my boys wouldn't have noticed, or would have taken the opportunity to get into places and explore where they hadn't been allowed to go previously.

All kids are different, I guess. My main point is, I don't fault the parents for their initial fear - it was a mixup and for a few minutes they didn't know where their child was - but is this really worthy of a news story in a major media outlet? It just highlights -in my opinion - how incredibly insulated we, as Americans are, from real danger that we overreact to something like this, where there wasn't real danger, just a quick blip of lack of communication/supervision.

Like every school year, there is some kindergartner who gets on the wrong school bus and is then safely delivered back to the school to be picked up by parents, and it causes a media story (sometimes national) of parents/people associated with the school becoming hysterically worried about the safety of their children in general, if such a catastrophy as a child getting on the wrong bus could happen to one of them in their community.

I think as a nation, we're losing perspective and resiliency. We just have so little to really fear, so little true inconvenience, so little true want in our lives that the smallest of hiccups seems huge.
 
I didn't say it was minor. I simply said that dad breaking down the door when there was no sign of imminent danger, when he could have waited for them to open it with a key was an overreaction.

He heard his child crying. He had no way of knowing what was going on with the child. That is not overreaction.
I'd do the same thing in his shoes.
 
Now, how did this happen to begin with?
 
I think it's a pretty big deal when a daycare closes up for the day with a 3 year old still inside. I would not have left my 3 year old alone at home, or want her left alone in a daycare center. Luckily, she was not hurt. But anything could have happened.
I don't see why that makes Americans "silly".
 
Way to go Dad! And why did the newspaper feel the need to put the name of the minor child in the article. Not cool, IMHO.

MOO

Mel
 
I would have done the same thing this father did, he heartd her crying and had no idea if she was hurt or not.
When one of the reletives called an employee she was told the grandmother picked her up and oh the little girl was so happy and all that. So pure lie right there. That tells me they are not paying attention.
I know Westport well, nice town with access to the ocean. I don't know why it made national news but I stand behind the father. The place should be closed as far as I am concerned. Things could have turned out much worse.
 
Yes, not only the child was locked up alone, the school had her crossed off their list as being picked up by grandma.
That is not some minor thing.
What if this family couldn't reach grandma and believed the child was with her?
A little kid locked up-she had no means of escaping in case of some disaster such as fire.
 
I think this makes us, as a culture, look silly for putting this in the news.

When you look at the world as a whole...

Yes when you look at the world as a WHOLE you realize in some cultures parents eat first and their children starve in front of their very eyes, and the parents don't have a problem with that.

In some cultures mothers that give birth take the advice of an astrologer as to when to start breast feeding their child, and if the man says "feed the child sugar water for 3 weeks" they do just that!

In some cultures dowries are in force, and if a baby is female and inconvenient it is culled.

In some parts of the world people do not think/feel like those in western society. I am quite proud of the values shown in the West. You can choose to go with the lowest common demonimator and be PC, I choose not too.
 

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