Originally Posted by spedmommy4:
I rarely term, but I'm in agreement with the majority here. The biggest red flag for me here is that the parent is not concerned. The parent SHOULD be up in arms about this. Her child was missing for 20 minutes. So much could have happened.
It concerns me a lot that parent was so lax about it. My last parent that was so lax about her "runaway" turned out to be an accomplice. When I worked for a center, I had a parent who was coaching her child to run away from school. The short version of the very sad story is that mom was hoping the child would get injured so she could sue. Her plan was discovered by staff and the mom was turned in to protective services.
I would not keep a runner unless parents were concerned and 100% on board with working on it. There is so much risk involved. There are strategies for prevention, and eliminating the behavior. If parents agree to work on it, you can message me for more information.
Some parents only see dollar signs. Something like that happened when I used to work at a hs. The mom also told the child to run into the kitchen, because her mother (the grandmother of the child) worked there. The child was moved to another hs and the grandmother was fired.