Ask Dr. Helen: Should Men Be Kicked Out of the Church Nursery?
Based on the language and terms used in the post, I believe I know what church is involved here. As a member, here’s how it was described to me.
There is a two-teacher rule for young children, not only to protect against *actual* reports of abuse but *imagined* reports of abuse. As I recall, there have been studies shown how adults can influence a young child’s memory of events and get them to recall instances of abuse in shocking detail, that didn’t actually happen, when they repeatedly question the child in an effort to find the “truth”.
In the strictest case, a husband and wife should not be considered a fulfillment of the two-teacher rule, because if something were to go wrong, it may not be enough of a legal defense that a husband or wife would definitely watch out for the inappropriate actions of the other. It would be reasonable to suggest that, if one is an abuser, one’s spouse is likely to be a victim of such abuse themself.
So in this case, I don’t know if it was strictly a problem with a “man in the classroom” or the fact that the man was the other teacher’s husband. It’s usually ok, for instance, for there to be two men in the room. Except that is usually avoided as well, because when you need to go get a parent for a breakdown or a diaper change (not even women teachers should do diaper changes, which I agree with, otherwise you’d never get anyone to accept a nursery calling), that would leave just one guy again.
It’s a hard situation to deal with. I don’t envy bishops or child care center owners or anyone who is in charge of putting adults in charge of kids. I hesitate to make any judgments as to what is the right or wrong way to handle it, because there doesn’t seem to *be* a right way to handle it.
