leaving young children in the house

Ta. I knew there was something.

For all we know the kids could have been perfectly safe and the parents might have taken every precaution to ensure that the kids came to no harm

Pretty sure this would have involved a responsible adult being there- going out and leaving them alone is neither every precaution or perfectly safe, its not even close

JY – and you know this how? What makes you KNOW that there wasnt a neighbour or closeby family member keeping an eye on them? Baby monitors have a good range you know.

Glupton no problem. Glad 2 see you are focused on what really is the main problem here. Someone being challenged on their lack of knowledge or 2 CHILDREN being left on their own.

My level of knowledge is fine thanks. Mine is one of the more tempered stances in this thread – think of it as refusing to crucify someone without having the full picture and all of the fine details.

She and her husband are stupid and irresponsible, but it isn’t your business to cross into her personal life and especially to bring it to work.

Agreed on that at least,reporting her to the ss will result in her being on a watch list, and may well cause serious upset amongst family memebrs and if they ever go for another job involving elderley or children eg crb checks.

Just perhaps some of those self rigtoeos people who never take a risk will also be reported for some of their failures.

Agreed on that at least,reporting her to the ss will result in her being on a watch list, and may well cause serious upset amongst family memebrs and if they ever go for another job involving elderley or children eg crb checks.

Becasue if something happened to the kids, that wouldn’t cause “serious upset”?

think of it as refusing to crucify someone without having the full picture and all of the fine details.

I think everyone so far agrees with this, that’s why they are suggesting the OP leave it to the trained professionals to investigate and assess. OP, you must not make the decisions for the professionals, you do not have the skills or the full facts, let them handle it.

You need I act on DrP’s advice, he is 100% correct both morally and from a legal safeguarding perspective. Worrying that some people think this is an OK situation. Questions need to be asked and challenges made by the appropriately skilled professionals who will make an informed decision about any form of intervention.

Look.. I’m going to make this my last post as this thread has really got my hackles up and I don’t want to upset anyone or get myself banned..
Maybe I was being slightly unreasonable given that there are kids lives at stake here..
The one question I think that you really need to give your fullest consideration before you proceed is:

were there any eagles nearby at the time..?

JY – and you know this how? What makes you KNOW that there wasnt a neighbour or closeby family member keeping an eye on them? Baby monitors have a good range you know.

Well we could all make assumptions about facts we dont know and make some guesses – if this is the case it will be a short visit from SS Oh if we are playing the lets make wild guesses and assumptions game then what makes you so sure they had not locked them in their bedroom and dont feed them properly after all we have no information about this at all just like your monitor scenario.

here are the facts we have from the OP where she never mentioned your assumption in her defence

why would they need looking after they were asleep. Everybody at the table knows her children are only 3 and 5 and that she lives a good 30 minutes from the restaurant and were as shocked as I was. Several of us challenged her about this but she thought it was fine and from the conversation it was something that happens quite regularly

Preety sure you would have mentioned the mystery momnitor help.

Its not great parenting and the proper peole can decide how bad it is

Just perhaps some of those self rigtoeos people who never take a risk will also be reported for some of their failures.

I would have no issue with anyone reporting me if I do this with my kids if that helps- as for taking risks i am not sure what you mean tbh. its your job to keep them safe not expose them to risks.
I am not advocating wrapping in cotton wool just simple perecautions like not letting a 3 yr old cross the road without help or leaving them home alone- you know being a parent that sort of thing.

Five and three is rediculous, drp all the way.
Safe guarding is not a work issue unless you work in teaching or health care etc. it needs reporting. It makes me sick thinking about what COULD happen. Would you let someone drive home drunk? It is the potential for harm. Disgusting, I see kids at work (as a secondary teacher) who roam the streets at night because they’re hungry or their parent is out or high. What start is that for a human being? If its ok to be left for half an hour at five and three what does the future hold….?

I staggers me the irony of some of these posts in here.

They suggest (in)action, based on a couple of lines of text from a stranger and the justification….the OP doesn’t have the full facts!

And anyway, how do we know leaving them alone for an hour isn’t the tip of the iceberg? To have mentioned it in public the mother must feel it’s OK, is that because there’s far worse going on, so this seems relatively insignificant?

Even if there is nothing worse going on now, what other risks will seem like the next OK step?

Thank god my kids are now so old that I can’t even remember when I first left them at home on their own otherwise I would probably be up for a tar & feathering from the stw crowd. As a single parent there is all manner of things that could have happened to me in the house or garden that would have meant my kids would have had to fend for themselves. Leaving young kids at home for an hour after bedtime is not a crime worthy of social services intervention, although refusing the offer of a lift or taxi instead of partner staying at home with kids does strike me as somewhat odd.

Not read the replies but from the OP’s post and my professional opinino report to social services, you can do this anonymously they will make their assessment and deal if appropriate.

Orwellian prats abound.. Saints preserve us 😆

yunki – Member

once again I am absolutely astounded by the awful, awful people that think it’s completely acceptable to take their moral outrage straight to the authorities for them to deal with..

no wonder communities are so splintered and isolated..

For god’s sake get a sense of community will you.. I blame a generation brought up to run to teacher.. And for members of the community that are meant to hold positions of responsibility to be perpetuating this nonsense is despicable..

What’s wrong with communicating our ideas to one another instead of all this passing the buck at the soonest opportunity..?

I would say informing people who are professionally trained to deal sensitively with these issues is demonstrating a sense of community

if challenged by the OP the likelihood is that if she is doing something that is inappropriate she’ll lie and fob him off with any one of the explanations above

by reporting you start to track concerns for the kids welfare that if others report similar issues will lead to an appropriate intervention

if nothing else happens the file gets dusty and nothing happens

communicating what’s unacceptable about ingrained behavior in someone’s home life isn’t a work place conversation for the OP

yunki – Member

Orwellian prats abound.. Saints preserve us

those will be the people who believe in “Big Brother”?

do you belong to the Tea Party?

🙄 orwellian

When I was two, my sister would’ve been five, I hit her over the head with a mallet. Quite firmly. So I think it’s reasonable to say leaving two small children at home unattended (with no-one to call for help) is a bit silly. Anything could happen.

Wunundred!

Not often prompted to post on ‘serious’ threads, but the misunderstanding of the roles and procedures of social work in child protection is astounding so, as a social worker (not working in the field of children and familes, but trained to do so) I feel I need to correct some of the extreme myths being propogated here.

Having a social worker look into your circumstances relating to your parenting does not automatically put you on a “watch” list. There is no such thing. A child can be put on a concern register, but only after lengthy investigation and agreement from a child protection panel.

A contact from a social worker would not affect your CRB records, they are “Criminal” records, onto which you are only placed if you are convicted of a criminal offence.

A report of this nature would prompt a visit from a social worker to discuss the circumstances and probably some education on what is and isn’t appropriate/risky at different ages and stages of a child’s development.

Social work with children and families has a focus on trying to keep families together where possible.

A report of this nature would prompt a visit from a social worker to discuss the circumstances and probably some education on what is and isn’t appropriate/risky at different ages and stages of a child’s development.

^this
A more official bit of advice may be more listened to than a well meaning boss…

Emphatically don’t invite her to any more dos, and tell her why.

what makes you so sure they had not locked them in their bedroom and dont feed them properly

I make no claims about being sure about any of their circumstances. I merely point out that making a decision based on very little information is a bit naive and perhaps unwise.

OP doesn’t need to make any decisions other than to refer to appropriate authorities. They will investigate as necessary and make decisions as necessary based on the full facts.

yunki – Member

orwellian

I suggest you scroll down your linked page….

anyway, are you a member of the Tea Party?

😆

Way too young.
I didnt leave my girls till they were 14.

They were probably too busy out having sex and taking drugs, to be left home alone at that age 🙂

Anybody else utterly surprised by this thread? I never really thought anyone would appear saying it’s probably okay to leave a three-year-old (or even a five-year-old) alone in the house for an hour. Bit speechless earlier when I first read it.

Saying that, you’re all probably sick of talking about it by now!

Apologies for the source – but:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2250522/Drunk-Sussex-couple-left-toddler-home-takeaway-crashed-car-baby-sitting-mothers-lap-Crawley-magistrates-hear.html

I’ve only just read this OP and it sums up nicely a ‘trend’ I’ve spotted amongst some parents who don’t supervise their kids properly.

They are kind of ‘daring’ themselves to go one step further because “we’re such confident parents that we just know nothing bad will happen”.

In actual fact they are just vacuous twunts who shouldn’t have had kids in the first place because they simply can’t face not being at every social function pontificating about how great their lives are.

It’s just attention-seeking attempting to mask social insecurity.

If I were the OP, I would try to gently canvass some opinions amongst her friends at work (if possible) – that way you build up a consensus that something is amiss. You probably need to mention it to someone independent. I wouldn’t put it past people like this to blame you for ‘not stopping them’ if the worse were to happen.

People who can’t face up to their responsibilities are often the ones who try to blame everyone else.

Idiots.

Those people who suggest it is nothing do with him as her “line manager”, I would suggest are a little misguided: many employment contracts will have a clause in then about not bringing the company into disrepute. Headline story of “Kids left alone whilst Mrs X is drinking with ABC Ltd” would do just that. If he is any line of work where caring fo vulnerable people applies then I would suggest it is even more relevant.

In the past I’ve had various events where I was really keen that people came and brought their partners etc. In order to make sure nobody who was rural or had kids was put out I had the company (I had a very good office manager) arrange for everyone to be picked up by taxis and dropped off. She also organised baby sitters for a couple who were new to the area (I can’t remember if we paid for them or not but I would have if it made a difference). I believe that night really made people feel valued as part of the organisation. As a cost it was pretty trivial. In another company we put people up in a hotel (including their kids in the hotel so they could use the hotel’s baby minding services). If you as an employer are putting staff under any pressure to be there and at the same time not making it easy then you may be part of the problem. I think it would warrant a ‘what can the company do so this never has to happen again?’ question.

In reality though 360+ days of the year my children at 3 and 5 would have slept through the night without a peep out of them. On those other nights though they might be unwell, the odd wet bed, a bad dream etc. It would be unpleasant for both of them to have to wait for a long time for a cuddle. Worse choking, a very serious illness, a fall down some stairs or waking the other one up and it turning into a serious fight – the outcome could be very nasty. A fire would be horrific (although is not necessarily any better if you are in the garage, garden, etc – and is realistically unlikely). At five both my kids were well tutored in dialling 999 (mum’s diabetic – so they have been briefed just in case) and actually are surprisingly responsible in any sort of serious situation. They may go and get a neighbour if they somehow woke up and we weren’t here; although wandering the streets is not necessarily to be encouraged.

Realistically though, our children are much more likely to come to harm playing in the street, garden or park, and whilst mine are never 30 minutes drive away, I can go that long without actually seeing them (9 and 5).

Interestingly if she had said that a neighbour’s 14yr old daughter was sitting with the kids nobody would have reacted. Probably even a 12 yr old would have not raised more than an eye brow. But I’d rather leave my 9 yr old in charge than some 12 yr olds.

So I wouldn’t leave my children even at 9 and 5 for an hour to pick up my wife (but like most singletrackers I can afford to cough up for a taxi if needed). I did consider it recently to pop out to get some milk & bread (5 minutes brisk walk away – but decided not to). I have popped 3 doors along the street to help a neighbour push start his car. I’d guess if I lived in a mansion I would have been no further from my kids than in the “east wing” though.

You may have a feeling about whether it should be mentioned to SS based on your own knowledge of the family; if you genuinely believe the children are in any danger then you must. If you think the risk is no worse than letting them play outside in the street on a sunday afternoon with no supervision then you might come to a different conclusion. Either way social services have likely seen much worse and won’t be taking the kids away without a lot of other signs of neglect. You may want to suggest that your colleague doesn’t broadcast it though as it would only take one morally outraged colleague to cause her a heap of hassle.

Bear in mind also that parents who never get out and feel “locked” in looking after their kids are not necessarily the best either. Perhaps next year you could do something that is inclusive of the kids e.g. a trip to the panto (matinee), or a summer BBQ etc…

Read a nice article about a woman who managed to sue her work after a sex sustained injury in a hotel room on a two day conference. That makes the point that what happens at work social functions is your responsibility as her line manager so butting into her childcare arrangements is not “none of your business”.

We all have a social and moral duty to protect those who cannot fend for themselves. That group includes the children of others. We all certain corporations excepted pay good money to ensure society provides a good social services to efficiently support those who need it.

So report to social services and sleep easy having done the right thing.

Personally I would haul her in tell her it was unacceptable and why and if I ever got a sniff that she had done it again I would report her to social services. But that would be the wrong thing to do I’m just a coward

3 words… get a cab! 😀

I’d be less worried about break ins and the like, and more worried about my kid waking up for any of a dozen reasons and realising that we were gone and he was alone. You don’t do that to a four year old.

Sadly, they might be used to it.

At the end of the day the duty to look out for the wellbeing of children surpasses the feelings of the neglecting adult.

It’s every adult’s responsibility, (whether they chose to ignore it or not), to protect the welfare of children.

It’s not difficult really.

I’m one of these people that think parents today worry far too much about their children, and they need to realise that kids heal and there isn’t a child snatching paedophile on every street corner.

Leaving a 3 and 5yr old alone at home though?
**** right off! Are they mental!

I personally wouldn’t call social services as I despise them with great venom, but I would use the threat. Show them this thread.

Mrs CD is a social worker in child protection. The only CORRECT answer to this thread is to REPORT IT TO SOCIAL SERVICES. They will investigate and get the facts, there is no need for people on a internet bike forum to make suppositions about those facts. If there is an innocent explanation the parents will not go on the register as some people have wrongly suggested.

On the flip side, hysterical Daily Mail esc posts like Simon_Semtex’s do not help either.The children are at far more risk from the distress of being left home alone and the dangers of harming themselves with knives, ovens, fires, medicine, bleach [delete as appropriate] that may be found in the house that any non CRB checked people that may realise that the kids are home alone.

Has this been reported yet?

We can then let the appropriate services and authorities take what ever action may be required to safe guard the kids.