Kidstrong failed my child - This is hard share because a program that had been good for my son has caused a great deal of aggravation, and the bad has outweighed the good. While on some level this feels like a personal failure as a parent I want to share what happened so others can learn from our experience - this is a warning against KidStrong Natick (the family who owns this location also owns Westborough, Stratham NH, and soon to be Wayland, but there are a few center directors.
1st bad experience: We dropped off our son for camp on New Years Day, and were worried because he can be shy in new environments. The coach running the day kindly called us mid-day to let us know he was doing ok, but when we went to pick him up he was miserable, and she was uncompassionate to his discomfort, and visibly annoyed that he had clung to her most of the day.
2nd bad experience: We wanted to switch to a center closer to us (they are owned by the same family), but the membership director (Jim) made it very difficult. The owners said we could seamlessly transfer, so he was in direct conflict with what the owners said we could do, and was unwilling to be flexible. We finally had to go around him.
3rd bad experience: Due to the flu and some travel we requested a hold on our membership. The same director (Jim) and his assistant (Sarah) were so resistant to this, that 3 weeks later we were still asking for this hold to be put in place. They were quite pushy and instead kept trying to get us to attend more classes that we were very clear we were unable to attend (flu and travel). The cost difference was only $35 so the push-back felt very unnecessary. When we saw them in person and shared that we were frustrated by this delay and lack of helpfulness, we got only resistance and defensiveness. They threatened to kick our child out because we had expressed our discomfort, and refused to admit any responsibility for their actions. After all that, they double charged us in January for membership and hold.
The owner Costa called us post all of this happening, and agreed that they had handled it badly and they should have apologized, but then he never followed through.
I'm sad that a program that has so much potential for children is run by a team who don't care at all about the families enrolled.
We finally quit, and should have done so earlier.
Other considerations:
* As of early 2023 there are not enough coaches to have 2 in each class. Perhaps the staff is stretched too thin?
* I would no longer trust the junior coaches alone with my child (post the camp experience). I do not feel they are well equipped to handle the size of the classes without the parents present.
* They promote "level ups" which are really glorified participation trophies. So after you've attended 24 classes (basically you've spent ~$600) your child can get a new tee-shirt (which you have to buy for $20). This is not promoting skill, and only trying to maximize their revenue.
I hope this can save you all some time and energy. I wish I had known this all when we enrolled. read more