Aibu No security at Daughters dance class

[loveyoutothestars]

My 8year old daughter has been attending the same dance class since she was 5. The teacher is lovely, but she is the only adult in the room (she does have a teenage helper). Since the tragic events at a holiday club in summer last year, I have been growing more anxious at the lack of security at the dance class.

The class is held in a local village club, where there are a few small social rooms and a bar. It is very open and people come and go quite easily. The children enter through an unlocked door and exit through the fire exit, although with the warmer weather returning I noticed she has taken to propping the fire exit door open throughout the class which makes me very uneasy.

Parents drop off and pick up for the session, although occasionally I will hang around outside because of my nervousness.

I don’t know how to approach the teacher with my concerns as don’t want to be seen as an overly anxious mother, but events in the news terrify me and it feels like she hasn’t considered how vulnerable the class could be. It is worth mentioning that 5 mins away there is a Psychiatric hospital and we often see patients out and about in the community, although not always appearing well. Although I’m not suggesting this is my only concern, I do worry how open and vulnerable the class appears.

AIBU to raise this concern with the teacher? There isn’t usually time for any interaction between classes so communication is via email.

Appreciate your thoughts on how to approach, but please be kind this is my first post.

I'm surprised that no parents stay. I assume her assistant is over 18?

I don't think you are being unreasonable. Not in case of mad people, but just in case someone runs off.

Are you thinking a locked door buzzer system type thing, or a bouncer? Sad that this is the world we live in eh but I share your concerns

I think you are being over anxious.

It sounds as though the class is run in exactly the same way as hundreds of other dance classes held in village halls and church halls every week.

How many kids are in the class? Not much chance of an 8 yo running off randomly so I think you are probably over thinking it.
Unfortunately I don't think you can have every environment totally secure and locked up.

Do you know whether other parents are also worried? If some are, a group approach to the teacher may work better than a lone voice.

What security do you want and exactly how do you want it to be actioned. You can hardly have a male security guard, lock the children in etc.

what happened in Southport was horrific but like a lot of things is an anomaly and isn’t indicative of real life

working on your anxiety I think might help - your child is only going to want more freedom as she gets older

Understand fully where you’re coming from on this. I would suggest having a think about what could be done to improve, as a PP said would you want a bouncer style presence? If so, would you be happy paying the extra ££ per week to cover this?

You are over thinking. If you are that anxious, then you need to withdraw your child from all her activities.

Not sure where you are based. My children does music and guides. Both are in venues I can easily get into if I wanted to. For example, orchestra practice is in a local school and you can just walk in if you want. Guides are held in the local guide centre and village hall and it's the same. Cricket is in a field in the local village and anyone can park their car and walk onto the field.

Do you want bouncers at doors for all these events? Then no one can afford to run anything.

Really and how would that be managed, the DBS checking etc finding someone willing to do it and frankly the risks involved in offering a job for a man to watch a child’s dance lesson.

I would be much more put off by that at my daughters dance class than what the OP describes

Southport was horrific but thankfully very very rare. You need to work on your anxiety rather than wanting every activity behind locked doors.

I do understand your concerns, and I share them sometimes. But, I have made a conscious decision that I refuse to live that way and let my anxieties of extremely rare and uncontrollable events curtail mine or my children's lives. It's not just kids groups, it's major cities, big events, walking down the street, flying, and the possibility and likelihood of as yet unknown horrors to come... You can't control all of these, you have to take sensible precautions, possibly discuss this with the teacher, but allow yourself to live. x

I mean I can 'get into' them because all the parents can walk into the schools and wait outside the music room for pick up and drop off. Anyone can run in with a knife and start murdering. I can't think of a single venue that my children's activities run that aren't vulenerable to this.

Unless you have security and bag search, how do you suggest stopping this?

Please do take a breath. Stuff is happening up and down the country without 'security'
Compared to all these classes happening everyday, the instances of an incident is minute. This isn't america where every hormonal teenager can shoot a school.
Look at the stats.

I don’t think there’s anything you can reasonably do about this unless you stay yourself or withdraw from the class. Your anxiety is completely disproportionate to the risk.

You can’t expect a dance teacher or every other provider of children’s activities to hire security.

Thanks for the views. To be clear I am not in the slightest worried that a child might run off, it was more how vulnerable the class is to people entering the room who want to cause them harm or fear.

I have worked on my anxiety following the incident in Southport, but there was something in the news last week about a teenager planning a mass killing at a school and it’s triggered my concern again.

i don’t expect a bouncer on the door or anything like that, but my daughter attends brownies at the same place (different room) and they appear to have been more thorough with their risk assessment. The door is locked after registration and the fire exit is kept closed.

@loveyoutothestars are you worried about careless woman driver driving into the school fields and kill your child at school? Maybe you should given there's a case in Wimbledon https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cwy4w6lqp4lo

I hear those Land Rovers are very dangerous.

The sort of security required to stop a similar attack would be so expensive and impractical as to be unworkable.

I hate to say it @loveyoutothestars but neither of those things are going to stop what you fear. And that is what you are going to have to live with that nothing will stop these things happened but just trust they are so infrequent

But locking the door isn't useful. The doors are opened during pick up and drop off. If someone is keen on killing kids, they could drive a car into a crowd in the city center. Or smash the window with an axe. Or gate crash a school summer fayre.

You really need to calm down

A one in a million chance, less than that even.

It's not healthy to think this way.

DD regularly gets the Tube. What about the 7/7 suicide bombers?

We go to Borough Market - what about the knife attacks?

In reality she is more at risk of being knocked over crossing the road. A girl I was at school with was looking after her little brother and he was killed crossing the road. It destroyed her.

Southport was horrendous. The 7/7 bombings were horrendous. Lockerbie was horrendous. But all were outliers, you can't live your life as if they are the norm.

And your concerns about psychiatric patients are a bit worrying, as they aren't backed up by evidence.

Thanks but not relevant to my question or helpful contribution to this discussion.

I would be far more concerned about a locked door impeding evacuation in the event of a fire or similar.

The reality is that if someone wants to get in then they will. Quite a few dance classes will open doors - it gets so hot and most can’t afford lovely air conditioned studios. Even schools aren’t secure like that - it would be straightforward enough in most cases to scale a fence and then run riot. Thankfully we are so shocked about incidents like Southport is that they are very very rare. The human brain is appalling at judging risk - something is more likely to happen walking down the road or getting into a car.

Oh yeah good point!