The Flip Zone — Local services in Plainfield

About a year ago we made the unfortunate decision to send our daughter to the Flip Zone following a raving review from our close friends. After only 3-4 weeks it was clear to us that we needed to pull our daughter out, because something clearly wasn’t right.

At the time our daughter was only 2 years old and was peeing but not going #2 on the potty yet, and we told them about this up front to which they said it was “ok” for the young threes class she was enrolled in. If you had ever met our daughter you would know she is one of the most lively, obedient, and excitable children out there, but every day when we would pick her up she had clearly been crying and acted more like a zombie. Begging not to return the following day.

Being that this was her first experience in a “preschool” setting, and she was young enough that she wasn’t able to completely communicate the problem, we decided to give it a couple weeks in hopes it was just nerves but things did not get better. We ultimately trusted our instincts as her parents and decided to remove her after seeing Miss Cara in action at a field trip. We immediately noticed the way she spoke to the children and the genuine fear of our child when she saw her teacher from across the parking lot.

Many months later we discovered the devastating reason(s) for her emotions surrounding school, which long term has caused her to fear both going to school and using the potty. We found out from another teacher at the Flip Zone that one of our daughter’s teachers, Miss Cara, was constantly screaming at our daughter and removing her from the other children to do so. Specifically yelling at her for not going on the potty, despite being told she didn’t need to be potty trained to be enrolled and for holding her favorite stuffed tiger or otter at school, despite never being asked to keep her favorite plush at home. To the credit of this other teacher, she tried to comfort her after she saw this happening.

Looking back, we wish we would have removed her much sooner after hearing some of the strange things our daughter was trying to tell us when she got home, but lacked the language skills to do so as two year old, and the way we saw Miss Cara treating her when we were around.

I hope this has been confined only to our experience, as it has caused a great deal of long term struggles for a wonderful child. We have never experienced this kind of thing anywhere else that she has attended.

We feel extremely betrayed by an organization that promised to love, nurture, and teach our child. It is difficult to imagine extending this delicate trust again after having been harmed so greatly. We hope the school chooses to seriously evaluate their staff and their treatment of students, especially the teacher in question, and even go so far as to remove this teacher if major changes...

I have my oldest enrolled here and she has been going for about 3 months and has loved it. After watching his big sister, my 3 year old son kept asking if he could do gymnastics. I decided to sign him up for a trial class before enrolling him to make sure he actually enjoyed it. We went to the trial class and I went up to the staff and informed them that he was there for his trial day. Once they started, he was basically ignored the entire time. All of the instructors just jumped into their normal routine that all of the other children were familiar with, but of course, my son had no idea what he was supposed to be doing and no one corrected him or helped him. They moved on to the next activity and again, he was ignored. I understand that the instructors each had 4 children to handle, but if all of the others are familiar with the exercises and know what they are doing and only require minimal assistance, it would have been nice for them to help him out a little bit. We left about halfway into the trial and we won’t be back. I am now considering taking my daughter to a different place where her brother will also...

My daughter is on team lvl 6 since we had to switch gyms due to Covid. We drive, with our carpool, 45 minutes to be at this gym. We have had nothing but great experiences with this gym. The coaches are extremely motivating and my daughter has learned much from them. She was co captain last year and a captain this year for her team. I read one review in which a parent was bashing TFZ for parents being on their phones and not conversing with other parents. I’m not really sure how that is a fault of TFZ. That doesn’t take away from the energy, discipline or determination of the coaches. There is a reason why our teams come home with mainly 1st and 2nd place team trophies…not to mention the MANY podium medals all the girls take home. I believe TFZ will continue to make great headway in this field and we are already becoming well known for not only our great gymnasts, but our awesome coaches. Both have been complimented at meets for being amazing and caring. And that is what I have looked for and have found. Thank you to all our coaches, gymnasts and gymnast families! We are super happy with...