15 May 2015

Kid In The Cupboard: My Crèche Phobia

This week I was horrified to read an article that was spreading like wildfire, about a child at a crèche who had been locked in a cupboard for bad behaviour.

The incident was alleged to have taken place at Cotlands Day Care Centre in Turffontein, Johannesburg.

The child's mother alleges that she dropped her son off at the centre on Monday morning and returned early in the afternoon for a parents’ meeting, but he was not among the other children. She said that when they saw her, the daycare supervisors suddenly remembered her son and fetched him from a storage cupboard in his classroom.

To read more about the incident, click here.
Image Credit: Google Images
Now I have had a long-standing hate for crèches in general.

Every year there are horror stories about kids being abused or mistreated and the problem is that you never know if the crèche is good or bad until you hear the horror stories.

Just last year there was a viral video from a crèche where a 16-month-old child is seen with her hands and legs tied and left on the bathroom floor crying, while her care giver watched television.

This is the reason why I prefer for Danielle to be with her granny rather than at daycare.
Danielle has been staying with her gran during the day since she was 3 months old. 
The fact that Danielle will be taken care of by a stranger is one reason. The other is that we don't always see how a place is run behind the scenes.

They may show you around the place when you first visit to assure you of your child's safety, but once you've enrolled them at the school, they can change completely.
Danielle being awesome at her gran's.
A friend of mine told me a story about a well-known crèche in Phoenix, where caregivers were giving babies Panado syrup to sleep, so that they wouldn't cry and bother them.

The only reason this parent found out about it was because the child threw up and the mum could smell the syrup, which she did not administer.

She also told me of how she would make a bottle of milk and send it to the crèche for the baby to drink, and how it would come back home, still full, with the milk gone off, because it had not been used.

Image Credit: Google Images
All these stories may be unreal or made up, but these are real encounters.

One begins to think whether government is even doing anything to curb these crèche incidents.

Do these crèches have to get approval and a license to run before they even open their doors?

Do the caregivers have to have qualifications as well as experience in courses such as First Aid in order to work at a crèche?

I would say that I strongly believe that government needs to get more involved. Every crèche needs to be approved first, then monitored by the Department of Social Development.

What is your take on this situation? Do you think government should get involved?

Tell me in the comments below.

3 comments:

  1. It is disturbing to read this happened at Cotlands as this is an Orphanage is it not? If this allegedly happened to a child who has a parent coming to fetch them what would happen to children who are placed in their care as a place of safety taken from abusive homes -

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    2. Hi Guys. It really is sad. Cotlands used to be a sanctuary for abandoned babies. They are now a non-profit early childhood development organisation that's established early learning playgroups and toy libraries in poor communities. This was their response to the incident: http://www.cotlands.org.za/cotlands-responds-to-recent-news-article/

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