Police say Yizel J. Juarez, 23, an Illinois daycare teacher, was charged after she gave chewable laxatives to several toddlers at a childcare center. (Photo: City of St. Charles, IL Police Department)
There is news that leaves me speechless, especially when it involves children, and this is one of those cases. In Illinois, USA, a preschool teacher only 23 years old was fired and charged for giving laxative candies to children under two years old. Her absurd justification? “I was stressed and didn’t want to take care of all the children.”
The parents of the children, at first, thought it was a virus or food problems: for example, the child of one mother had been sent home from preschool at least three times in two months… worried parents took the children to medical visits and changed their formula without any improvement. Imagine the worry and anxiety of a parent at that moment. Only after thorough investigations and suspicious reports did it emerge that the cause was actually the teacher. The woman admitted the act, justifying it trivially and absurdly as being too stressed, and is now under investigation for aggravated attempted assault and endangering minors.
But think about it for a moment: small and defenseless children entrusted to someone who should protect them and instead suffer deliberate harm for the “convenience” of an immature “teacher.” It is disgusting. No work pressure can justify such an act; stress is not a valid excuse. If you don’t like that job, you resign and change it. There are plenty of restaurants looking for waiters or factories looking for workers, you don’t unload your own problems onto children. Stricter supervision is needed; those who work with the youngest must be able to handle pressure without ever putting their safety at risk.
There are always cases of child harm popping here and there, it means not enough is done to prevent all this do happen, a more accurate selection and greater attention to who is hired, video recording if needed, those must be priorities because a single moment of stupidity from one person can shape a child’s life.
