When a mother packed her 5-year-old son’s lunchbox and placed a note inside, she never expected a response. When her child returned home, however, the mom found that the boy’s teacher had a few words for her. It didn’t end well.
Rocking Horse Day Care Center in Kingwood, Texas (Photo Credit: Google Maps)
Francesca Easdon — the mother of a 5-year-old boy named Kyler, who had attended Rocking Horse Day Care Center in Kingwood, Texas for three years — never had a problem with the school until she placed a supportive note in her son’s lunchbox to “make him smile at lunch time” one day. Instead of receiving smiles, however, the mother was left in “absolute shock” to see her son’s teacher had responded to the note.
“Please tell Kyler that his mommy loves him so much and I’m thinking about him. Thank you,” Francesca’s lunchbox note read. The mom explained why she decided to send the correspondence, telling ABC’s Houston station KTRK, “I wrote this note just so at lunchtime he would have something that would make him happy and I am thinking about him.” Seems innocent enough, right? Sadly, things took a turn.
Rather than fulfill the mother’s request, the teacher decided to write back with a demand of her own. At the bottom of Francesca’s note, the teacher scrawled a mean message, which read “No! Put him on a diet and go away!” according to ABC News, and it left Francesca in disbelief. The unbelievable reply from the teacher stunned the mom, and for good reason.
“It took a minute to register, what I even saw and I just kept re-reading it and I just stood there for a minute,” Francesca recalled. In a Facebook post, Francesca admitted that her son is a picky eater but said she had been introducing healthier options for his lunch, even though she felt her son was “absolutely perfect the way he is.”
“We have been working with [my son] on his eating, he’s extremely picky! I have been introducing new healthy options in his lunchbox and discussed the changes with his school,” Francesca shared in her post on social media, detailing the incident. “And for the record, I feel that [my son] is perfect the way he is, I’m just helping him make healthier choices.”
Sadly, his teacher obviously disagreed with the mom, as evidenced by her note, but it might have been something she should have kept to herself. “Instead of his school being supportive I am in absolute shock at what happened,” Francesca went on to explain in her post. “I was absolutely livid and immediately reached out to the school,” she added, explaining she had gone to the school for a meeting with the director, along with her mother-in-law.
A school administrator told the concerned mother that the incident would be investigated and handled appropriately, but for Francesca, only one course of action was acceptable. She wanted the teacher fired. “When I asked them what are you planning to do about this … I let them know right then that the only resolution is that that person that wrote the note should be terminated,” Francesca said.“The thing that upset me the most is that this is bullying,” the upset mom said, according to Daily Mail. Thankfully, Francesca Easdon’s wish was granted. After confessing to having written the note, the teacher was subsequently fired and a director at the daycare said he was sorry for the incident. The mother was still upset, however, saying that neither the teacher nor the school showed any remorse.
“I am disgusted that I put my trust in these people to care for my child and this is what I get in return,” Francesca admitted. “I’m extremely hands-on with my child’s care and still didn’t see this coming. Monitor your daycares closely and stay away from this facility, they do NOT deserve the privilege of teaching our children.”
While speaking with reporters, Francesca took aim with the teacher directly, lambasting the unkind behavior that the educator had displayed towards her child. “To know a grown-up, who knows how hard life is and how mean people can be, can say something like that, especially about a child is — they’re sick,” she said, according to Newsner. “There’s something wrong.”
Something wrong, indeed. When a parent has to drop their child off at daycare, they assume they are leaving them in a safe, secure, nurturing, and kind environment, where they will grow and learn. We don’t expect their teachers to bully them with unsolicited criticism. If the teacher was truly concerned about the boy’s health and well-being, there’s a time, place, and method of addressing it. This wasn’t it.
Rather than handling her alleged concerns in a caring and professional manner, this rude teacher showed just how unkind she could be towards an innocent child. She also set a very bad example for the children in her care. Mature people do not address issues with a nasty note in a child’s lunchbox. While it’s perfectly acceptable to approach one another with concerns, it should be done tastefully — and this educator failed miserably.
