So I have made myself rather unpopular at my local gym which is unfortunate as we rather like the place. The thing is, I don’t – and won’t – mess about when it comes to the safety of my child, and I’m frankly surprised at the number of parents who either don’t realise, or have blind faith that someone else will sort, situations that are blatantly unacceptable.
Last Sunday, as with every Sunday, my daughter had Kids’ Club at the gym. She also has Kids’ Club on Wednesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays and most holidays. So, safe to say, we are here a lot. But, this particular day, most of the courts in the facility had been taken over for a pickleball tournament. 200 people from other clubs and various areas had descended onto the club, and it was beyond capacity.
Someone hadn’t done the maths and there was not enough space for them all. So a genius had decided that the Kids’ Club only really needed half a court, and it was perfectly fine for all these strangers to be hanging around/playing on the same court as 30 children. This Kids’ Club has rules on safeguarding where they won’t even let parents stay because we are not DBS checked by the club but it’s perfectly fine for 200 (not necessarily even members) to be on the court with them.
No.
Not only that, when I questioned the staff leading the Kids’ Club over what the hell was going on, they didn’t even have a radio to call for help!
Now you might think ‘what’s the big deal about that?’ Those radios are how the staff call parents down if there is an issue, call for first aid, or clean up. In fact, in the two years we have been attending I can’t think of a session where they haven’t been used so the idea of them running a session, particularly a chaotic one like this without support is insane.
I might have got annoyed, pulled a full ‘internet Karen’ and demanded to speak to a manager. This scared the reception staff who didn’t realise there had been a court invasion and couldn’t get a manager to appear fast enough. When I asked him – politely – what on Earth was going on, he claimed he didn’t know.
That’s easily fixed – I dragged him (metaphorically, but he did look like I got hold of his ear and twisted it) down to the courts and showed him. He did an impression of a guppy and agreed that it wasn’t on. When I started using phrases like ‘duty of care’ and ‘safeguarding’ he immediately found the Kids’ Club a radio (amazing) and ordered the court cleared (why did this take me intervening?)
Through all of this, with me standing there making demands of space for the kids, and that their staff were given the equipment they needed, it took 20 mins to be sorted. By the end I was shaking and trying to control a panic attack, and all I could think was ‘why am I the only parent complaining?!’ Every other parent seemed to think that whining at the Kids’ Club staff was the acceptable thing to do and then went away grumbling.
If you can see the situation isn’t acceptable, why are you accepting it? Why are you not stamping your feet and saying no? Why am I standing alone and saying ‘Will someone please think of the children?!’
…ok that was a bit dramatic.
More importantly, how are you comfortable leaving your child in an environment that has already made you feel twitchy – I can’t do it, I have to make it safe, despite knowing it embarrasses the hell out my daughter. Yes, I know that 99.9% of the time there isn’t a problem and there isn’t a single person in that tournament that would do / say something untoward to a child.
But that 0.1% exists and to pretend they don’t is naive to the point of recklessness. We have safeguarding for reasons, and you might say that it will never happen, but I’m sorry, history proves you horribly wrong.
Raising the Modern Fae 