BY DANI TIETZ
dani@mahometnews.com
EDITOR’S NOTE: In order to protect the child(ren) involved in this situation, names will not be used. Information for this article has come from the mother of a child involved in Monday’s candy incident and her identity has been independently verified.
Information about an incident involving a needle in a bite-sized candy bar that a child brought to school Monday is coming to light through the child’s mother.
In order to protect the child, just as in this article, the Mahomet-Seymour School District and the Mahomet Police Department, did not offer information surrounding the results of the investigation.
The child’s mother, who worried about her child and other children throughout the day yesterday, stepped forward Tuesday to explain the situation.
“I’m not sure how to approach this, there isn’t a written manual on parenting or why kids/people do what they do,” she said.
After receiving a call from Lincoln Trail Elementary, the mother went to the school to be with her child.
“I didn’t want to call my child a liar, and if there was a bad person trying to harm children, I wanted them to be found,” she said.
The mother knew that the child loves to sew, and had been doing so all weekend, so in the back of her mind, there were questions.
The mother encouraged the child to tell the truth. While in a room with adults, including police officers, the school principal and superintendent, the child was scared and said that the needle came from the candy collected over Halloween.
The mother said that the school district and law enforcement did everything appropriately to make sure that children in Mahomet-Seymour are safe.
“I’m thankful for the fast response to protect our children,” she said.
The mother said that when the child got home though, things turned the other way. The child was “crying, stressed and physically ill.”
In the safety of the family home, the child revealed that the needle came from a weekend sewing project, and that the candy had been used as a pincushion.
When other students saw the needle in the candy at school, the story blew up so quickly that the child did not know how to react, and kept going with the story.
The mother said that she and her child are extremely embarrassed, but that kids make mistakes and learn.
“I’m coming in to clear things up for everyone as the statements on social media are extremely vague,” the mother said. “I hope everyone can help me clear up the confusion.”
She said the child is a good kid, and hopefully will not suffer from rumors about a mistake.
That took a lot of courage to come forward with that information. I can only imagine how scared your child was surrounded by all of those adults. I am sorry they felt ill and stressed but glad they told the truth about the situation. No one will judge you or your child for this one mistake and if they do then they need to look at themselves as to how perfect they are not. Thankfully no one was hurt and it was just an honest mistake.