Mom Says ‘Dehydrated’ Son’s Kindergarten Teacher Didn’t Do Her Job Because She Didn’t Show Him The Water Bottle In His Backpack
It's completely unclear how the teacher could possibly be to blame for what happened.
FamVeld | Shutterstock Whose responsibility is it for a kid to know he has a water bottle in his backpack? That was the question posed by one mom. Her son just started kindergarten, and she sent him off to school prepared with a water bottle in the side pocket of his backpack.
When he came home from school, however, the little boy complained that he had only had one sip of water all day. Outraged over what she deemed an injustice, the mom turned to TikTok detailing how she believed her son had been wronged, and the teacher was solely to blame.
A mom claimed her son was dehydrated because his teacher didn’t show him where his water bottle was in his backpack.
Marie Camuso made a post on TikTok in which she explained what happened when she picked her son up from his first day of kindergarten. She said he was thirsty and asked for a water bottle. “He said, ‘Mom, I haven’t had water all day.’ And I was so disgusted,” she recalled.
Apparently, the problem was not that this boy was sent to school without water. The problem was that he didn’t know how to access it. “And my son did not know that his water bottle was in the side pocket of his backpack the entire day,” she said.
Camuso claimed her son only got one sip of water to carry him through the whole day from the water fountain. She insisted that she had done the right thing by packing a water bottle for her son, but from there, it was his teacher’s responsibility to make sure he knew where it was so he could use it.
Another teacher from the boy’s school responded with some tough love in a video of her own.
A woman who identified herself as a team teacher in the kindergartener’s “situation” who goes by the username @FakeNameTeacher shared her own sarcastic take on Camuso’s complaints. “So one water break for the entire day in kindergarten?” she asked with fake incredulity. “Like, was it lunchtime, or was it, like, after recess, or … ? Like, just one water break, correct?”
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And, of course, she completely understood why Camuso felt the teacher bore the responsibility in this situation, even though Camuso said she told her son where his water bottle was. “Yeah, I can see why you would think it was the teacher’s fault,” she said mockingly. “She was probably trying to dehydrate your son. I mean, let’s be real.”
“Um, teaching him to be an advocate for himself and raise his hand when he needs a drink or, um, to be responsible and listen when he’s told that he has a water bottle, like, that kind of stuff, that’s probably, I mean, he’s only in kindergarten,” she concluded. “So I support you 100%. Good job, Mom.”
This was not quite the dire situation that Camuso made it out to be.
I don’t know about you, but when I was in school, we couldn’t have water bottles at our desks without special permission. We could, of course, ask to get up to take a drink of water, and the teacher would often have us line up for a water break. Still, it was really only a few sips, and everyone was just fine.
As for whether or not Camuso’s son was dehydrated, the Cleveland Clinic said that dehydration occurs when your body loses more fluid than it takes in. Technically, as soon as you begin to feel thirsty, you are already experiencing mild dehydration. To treat this, they said to drink water and a drink that has electrolytes in it, and you’ll feel better within just a few minutes.
Quite honestly, this seems like a situation in which a young boy didn’t know how to care for himself because he is so used to having an adult do everything for him. It’s understandable that Camuso was upset, but now that he is attending school, he’ll have to learn to become more self-sufficient, just like every other student.
Mary-Faith Martinez is a writer with a bachelor’s degree in English and Journalism who covers news, psychology, lifestyle, and human interest topics.
