A Winnipeg mother is angry that her 8-year-old son was asked to help clean washrooms:
Christa Lee said teachers at Sister MacNamara made her eight-year-old son Cruz clean the washrooms.“We were talking and he says, ‘Oh I had to clean those bathrooms, they were really gross,’ and I asked ‘What bathrooms did you have to clean?” Lee told CTV News Winnipeg, recalling the conversation she had with her son.
The punishment came after Cruz and his friend flushed a sweater down a toilet.
“I had to clean the toilets and stuff, downstairs and upstairs,” Cruz said.
Lee said as soon as she found out, she called the principal in disbelief that the teachers would make her son clean the toilets.
The Winnipeg School Division said the boys were asked to help the custodian after they caused the toilet to overflow.
“They were given the gloves and options they could do – cleaning the sinks or wiping the counters. One of the options was to clean a toilet,” said Radean Carter, senior information officer with the WSD.
If events transpired as the CTV article states, then I fully support the school's response and I completely disagree with the mother in this case. She mentions that the school could have made him stay in for recess. In the first place, kids need more recess not less, outdoor play time should never be held over a child's head as a barganing chip for good or bad behaviour, and the kids with behavioural issues are generally the ones who need that outside relase anyways. But more to the point, you flush shirts down the toilet, create a mess, and have to stay inside? I don't follow the logic in that at all. By cleaning up the mess he made, hopefully he learned a lesson. Then again, if the school had kept him inside, would she be upset about that instead?
If that was my child who said something like that to me, my response would have been along the lines of, "I bet that was gross. How do you think the janitors felt about having to clean up that mess?"
The crap that educators have to put up with from parents who think their children should be protected from any real-world consequences of their actions!