[SCA-AE] ANNOUNCE: Background Check FAQ

[myfanwy at nauticom.net]

Greetings from Myfanwy!
Kazi wrote:
> And for those of you who might be concerned that the kid will
> poke
> themselves with that file...a parent is right there.
Unfortunately, that has not been, in my experience, the case.  The problem
is that a parent is *not* there -- the parents are off doing what they
want to do (which has been a complaint I have heard in the past about
childrens' activities in general: that the parents basically dump the kids
off at childrens' activities and treat it as free babysitting for an hour
or two, instead of staying there themselves the way *I* understood was
supposed to happen).
I taught a class a number of years ago at an EKU.  The 10 year old
daughter of the people we were crashing with (and some other girl about
the same age) came to my class -- no parents to speak of.  The 10 year old
was having some problems, so I said that if she wanted I could re-show her
when we got back to her house that night.  Boy, the look I got!  (After
all -- we had rolled in the night before long after her bedtime, and she
and her parents had gone early to the site in the morning because her
parents were running troll; add  to that seeing someone you've never met
before that weekend in garb vs. in mundane clothing.)
Maybe if the parents talk to the instructor ahead of time: "My kid has a
relatively short attention span.  How detailed are the
instructions/lecture?
How dangerous are the tools you're going to be using?" (etc).  But I have
yet to see it happen.
People in the SCA tend to be pretty trusting, and then when something goes
wrong the BoD/autocrats/etc. have a knee-jerk reaction, scrambling to keep
themselves from getting sued.
Lady Myfanwy ferch Rhiannon
Ruth Morrisson
myfanwy at nauticom.net