Gymboree's Answer to Our Letter

Dear Mr. and Mrs. Dulay,

We received your letter today about your experience yesterday at Gymboree Magnolia.
We were saddened to hear that this incident bothered your family.  At Gymboree, we hold children in the highest regard and the mere thought of disappointing a child is very sad for us.

We are in agreement about the Gymboree philosophy and understand that we provide a positive environment for all young children that we always strive to achieve in our centers.  We train our teachers and staff and have the highest standards of behavior for everyone associated with our brand. It appears that we missed the mark this day, and for that I can only sincerely apologize for the experience that your family had at our site.

The Gymboree playscape is meant only for little children and for the safety of all children, we do try to cap the age of our playscape at the maximum of 60 months, whether a child has disability or not, since our playscape is not designed for kids above this age.  We usually (and as you mentioned did) offer the ArtsPlay experience in our classrooms which is an alternative we do offer for kids 5 and above.

We also sincerely apologize for the misunderstanding of our website regarding the age range of 0-5 year old for the playfloor which is actually up to 60 months old, and not beyond.  We will take immediate steps to ensure this is more clearly stated.

Once again, we are very sorry for the experience and we, ourselves, wish we could allow older children, too. We cannot take away her disappointment so please accept our small token of apology for your daughter and also as a token of thanks for bringing your child to Gymboree from an early age.  Our Bubble oodles will hopefully help her continue to experience Gymboree at your home.  Please let us know where we can deliver this for Patricia.

Please forgive us and know that we are moving forward to ensure that we show more compassion and empathy for disappointed children, and your child’s happiness is all that I can hope for.   Thank you for taking the time in providing prompt feedback.

Gymboree Philippines Management

This was sent to us by Ann Tan at 8:26pm tonight. We are glad that they read our letter and replied. We forgive them, but that's not enough. We just want them to re-train their staff and discuss Autism and what they'll do if this happens again. This doesn't happen everyday anyway.

This week is coincidentally the National Autism Awareness Week, and I hope that establishments especially those catering to kids be aware of the condition and be trained to be compassionate and understanding to kids with special needs and their families. That's all we were asking, nothing more.