A teacher in the US has been fired after they wrote a message for a parent on a toddler's stomach.
The child's 'furious' mother, from Sanibel Island, Florida, shared a post on Facebook on Monday in which she explained that teachers at the Children's Education Center of the Islands leave a daily report in children's lunchboxes.
The 23-year-old single mum-of-two said she must have missed the previous day's report as her youngest returned from school with the message 'Mom I'm out of diapers pls read my report' scrawled across his belly with marker pen.
The mum asked her friends and family in the post if she was overreacting, but clearly she wasn't, as it soon went viral and has now been shared 29,000 times.
Advert
Cindy Carter DeCosta, executive director of Children's Education Center of the Islands, said the teacher who was responsible had been fired.
According to Fort Myers News-Press, she said: "We are aware of the incident at the school, and we are terribly sorry for the distress it has caused the family involved as well as all of our families. It was a breach of our professional ethics on the part of the teacher.
"The school has taken immediate action to remove the teacher from the school. We are reviewing protocols already in place to ensure that nothing like this occurs again."
The school have also met with the mum to apologise, but initially she said she would no longer take her children to the school. However, by Tuesday afternoon she was rethinking her decision due to a lack of other day care options for children her age in the area.
An abridged version of the original Facebook post read: "I need opinions. Am I right to be furious about this? Or am I over reacting? I really need your opinions guys, because I'm about to barge in this daycare tomorrow morning and have some words.
Advert
"I'm a single mom with a full time job and two very young children. SUE ME FOR NOT READING THE REPORT EVERY SINGLE DAY.
"I guess yesterday they wrote on his report that he needs diapers, and I failed to see that. Now keep in mind, I see several teachers at drop off and several at pick up, if I failed to see that he needs diapers a simple, 'Hey, your son needs diapers maybe you missed the report' would have done the trick. From any of the many teachers there I see daily.
"But instead, I change his diaper this afternoon AND SEE THIS WRITTEN ON MY SON WITH MARKER. You can't even see all of it in the pic.. it says, 'Mom I'm out of diapers pls read my report'.
"I've scrubbed it with several baby wipes and it's not coming off. I had plans to take them to the beach to play, and now I can't because my son has writing all over him.
Advert
"In the very worst case scenario, I can't see anything other than 'need diapers' needing to be written. Why a big long message needed to be written across my son's stomach is beyond me.
"OR WRITE IT ON HIS DIAPER OR YA KNOW, JUST TELL ME?!?
"The best part???? THIS ISN'T THE FIRST TIME. They've done this several months ago too."
Featured Image Credit: Facebook