Night and Day

This morning after dropping off Raphaela at Gan, another mother approached me, a parent of one of the "doctors" from yesterday's incident.  She could barely look me in the eye and explained that she had had a long talk with her son, that she understood from him that the game had been done in the spirit of innocence and with consent from all the kids involved.  She apologized profusely, and I told her while I was quite shocked by the appearance of Raphaela's stomach, I certainly didn't blame her or her child for any sort of uncontrolled or malicious behaviour.

We hugged, and we both agreed that we trusted the management of the nursery school to properly handle the lessons that could be gained from this experience.  The manager told me that they have already conducted an extensive review of the safety of the play space outside, and the Head Teacher will be performing a play with puppets for the children, entitled, "My Private Body."

In my head, I compare my feelings to last year, when I defended my daughter from one of the boys in her previous Gan, a child who all year bullied and tortured his classmates.  At the previous Montessori educational institution, not only did I get blamed and in fact get banned; not only did the manager of the Gan continually ignore my pleas and the concerns of other parents regarding the state of perpetual violence;  the parents of this boy certainly did not apologize, unless you count them threatening to report me (!) to the police.

Night and day...