Getting worried

[bright sparks]

I get the sense there were other 'issues' with this daycare but it is so easy for a child to just decide to open the door and wander. Whether in group care or at home. As adults we are responsible to make sure they know it is NOT allowed. My 28 month old DCG likes to open locks and doors and I get the sense home allows her to (they allow many things). It bothers me. She's never made any motion to leave here, but when we are getting ready to go out and play the second she is dressed she goes and unlocks the door and starts to open it. I have to firmly remind her that NO she is not allowed to open the door, she is to wait until everyone is ready and I will open the door.

I used to babysit for a 3yr old boy. One day when the local fair was in town (up the road) he woke up early, left the house in his pj's while his parents slept and went to the fair. He walked past the ticket entrance and roamed around. When his parents woke and found him gone they panicked and the dad went running to the fair to look. They had told him the night before he could go to the fair when he woke in the morning. To THEM that meant with them after everyone woke. To the 3yr old child it meant "when I wake I can go" so off he went!! No one thought to stop this child roaming around in his pjs. His parents were by no means neglectful, they were average folks raising a young child that thought he was doing what his parents said he could do! How scary is that. Anyways, point being that I see stories about toddlers wandering alone quite often lately and I realize that it really could happen to one of us, it is not just neglectful parenting!

That said, we need to take the proper precautions.

When my son was 2, he opened the front door and wandered down the drive way. The only thing that stopped him in time for me to realize he was gone was that his dads tools were on the drive. This all happened in less than a minute that I took my eyes off him. He had never fiddled with door handles before and my older child had never tried to wander so I guess I'd just never thought that he might. Needless to say from that point on, we added bolts at the top of our main doors until he was old enough to comprehend that he wasn't allowed out the house without adult supervision. This was the first and only incident thank goodness but it became apparent very quickly that he was a wanderer till he was about 4!

I'm not sure reading anything in the media these days is going to give us a true and factual picture from all sides on an incident like this or any other. Clearly this shouldn't have happened, and there's more going on if she has been shut down, but it also happens really easily to those who are giving 100% and are not neglectful.

I am always amazed at how many people do not lock their doors. I understand I am coming from a different place where safety is more of an issue, but regardless, when in a job where you are liable for the wellbeing of others, even more so a higher risk sector such as children, why wouldn't you lock your doors?? One of my families back up provider keeps her door unlocked and has an open doors policy, a real open doors policy, not the kind where parents are free to come and go as they please but they have to ring the doorbell and granted access to the property, but come on in whenever you feel like it unbeknownst to me kinda setup. I actually have a clause that nobody shall enter my home without being let in. If on an occasion my door is unlocked, which is even rare on the weekends because it is auto pilot for me to lock it behind me now, they are not allowed to enter. This would only happen say if I have just nipped out to the car for something and there are no children here yet. I absolutely hate when a grandparent who doesn't know my policy comes to pick up and they knock on the door and then immediately I see the door handle going vigorously. You don't know me, why the hell would you think it's okay to just walk on up into my house even if it were unlocked. I think this is the height of rudeness.