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Original poster

Did I do the right thing? Found a lost toddler

230 replies

reallifeboogie · 18/09/2024 13:33

So I kept her. Haha. No not really. Obviously.

Took my mum for breakfast at dobbies garden centre. Attached to the restaurant is a massive soft play.
Restaurant fairly busy at 10am this morning. Lots of mums and toddlers going into the soft play.
I then notice a little girl, no more than 2.5, wandering around the restaurant with no shoes and socks on. I watch for a couple of minutes and realise she's not with any of the customers in the restaurant so presume her parent(s) are in the soft play.
I got up and tried to ask where mummy was but she was too little to understand and kept pointing towards a table with people eating. I asked them if she was with them and no she wasn't.

Couldn't see any restaurant staff so I took the little girl by the hand and took her into the soft play.

Lots of parents sitting around tables there but nobody seemed to know who the child belonged to.

So I wasn't sure what to do. At this point the girl started to cry so I picked her up and told her we would find mummy.

At this point a very angry woman stormed up to me asking me what I was doing with the child. I explained and asked if she was mum. She said no... she was the girls childminder and had taken another child to the toilet, which is out of the soft play and restaurant area and in the main garden centre. Childminder shouted that I shouldn't have picked the child up and that she thought I was kidnapping her. Apparently I should have just left her to wander around.

It must have been 10 minutes in total from first spotting the child to handing the child back.

Did I do the right thing picking the child up??

OP posts:
helpfulperson · 18/09/2024 13:50

You should have stayed where you were with the child and asked someone to find a member of staff. The message most children are given these days is not to go anywhere with someone helping them and that their grown up will look for them.

But in the grand scheme of things what you did was fine and what the childminder did was not. I would report to ofsted as the register childminders and wouldn't have too much trouble working out who it was.

Hollietree · 18/09/2024 13:50

As an ex-Childminder, I can tell you that she absolutely should never leave a child unsupervised in a public space. If one child needs to go to the toilet, then all children go with her. The safeguarding of the children in her care should be her main priority at all times.

Is there any way you can find out who she is? I would report to OFSTED. I would be appalled if I found out this risk had been taken with my child, by someone I trusted to care for my child (and paid for the privilege!)

Marylou62 · 18/09/2024 13:51

As an X registered childminder myself you absolutely did the right thing!
That is shocking behaviour and should be reported..
Even though it would have been difficult to round up ALL the minded children and taken them all to the toilet,it is for exactly this reason..
I'm shocked at the childminders' attitude..
I would have eaten so much humble pie and thanked you profusely..
But then again I would NEVER have left any children alone even if It meant we weren't quite quick enough to the loo .
If I was with another minder we often used to watch each others mindees and I know people are human and these things can happen but I would have explained this to you..
Again.. you did absolutely the right thing..

BePearlSheep · 18/09/2024 13:51

I think you did the right thing. Although the other comments are making me question whether the childminder was actually a childminder! If she was looking after the child, I’d probably say she shouldn’t be doing that job.

Bunchesofhyacinths · 18/09/2024 13:53

I would have found a member of staff and explained - 10 minutes was definitely enough time to do so.
When the childminder showed up I would have asked for her name and address and contacted Social Services

lovenotwar149 · 18/09/2024 13:53

2k2j

she should have thanked you and apologised.

So true

Mammma91 · 18/09/2024 13:53

Yes you absolutely did the right thing. I’m glad you soothed her and gave her comfort. If god forbid it was one of my 2 lost I’d be so grateful if someone like you found them and reassured them until I could get to them. The childminder was rude and irresponsible!!!

Coconutter24 · 18/09/2024 13:53

My natural instinct would be to pick the girl up and comfort her but these days you just can’t be to careful. An angry/upset parent seeing a stranger with their child in their arms won’t always go down well. The childminder is at fault here not you, you tried to help, the child shouldn’t have been left in a position where she can wander off and get lost. I bet the parents wouldn’t be to happy with the childminder if they knew about this situation

Marylou62 · 18/09/2024 13:53

Hollietree · 18/09/2024 13:50

As an ex-Childminder, I can tell you that she absolutely should never leave a child unsupervised in a public space. If one child needs to go to the toilet, then all children go with her. The safeguarding of the children in her care should be her main priority at all times.

Is there any way you can find out who she is? I would report to OFSTED. I would be appalled if I found out this risk had been taken with my child, by someone I trusted to care for my child (and paid for the privilege!)

Snap.
OP.. maybe the soft play has details of this person?

GG1986 · 18/09/2024 13:53

The reason the childminder acted like that, is because she knows she is in the wrong. You did the right thing and had compassion for a child that was probably scared. If you had left her, she may have wondered out of the shop and into a road.

Hedgerow2 · 18/09/2024 13:55

I definitely wouldn't have picked the child up. I wouldn't have handed her over to the childminder without question either. I'd have found a member of staff, explained the situation and insisted the childminder provided proof that the child was in her care before handing her over.

GameOfJones · 18/09/2024 13:55

Honestly OP you didn't do anything wrong. I know perhaps the best advice would be to have crouched down to comfort the child but in the heat of the moment, with a lost and crying toddler I'd have picked her up too.

I'm sure the childminder would have been shouting at you because she was scared but I would be trying to track her down. The poor parents of that little girl would be horrified if they knew.

I'll probably get flamed for this, but this sort of thing is exactly the reason I didn't use a childminder and used a nursery for DDs. I'm under no illusions, I'm sure the care wasn't necessarily better but at least I knew that they were on the nursery premises when I was at work.

My niece was looked after by a childminder who lost her in the park, she had managed to get out through the gate and was wandering by the road. Another parent saw and told my DSis, otherwise I'm confident the childminder wouldn't have said anything.

Drfosters · 18/09/2024 13:57

100% the right thing. Honestly some people are bonkers.

The other day I was walking along a road near home and there was a boy of about 3 on a balance bike waiting at a junction and there was a lady with him. She asked if he was mine as he seemed to be alone as no one nearby at all. I said no but I’d wait with him and see if I could find his parent. I could see a dad quite a long way down the road pushing a pram though and he casually came towards me- as in took several minutes to arrive. When he arrived he said ‘don’t worry he knows to stop at the road and wait’.

like whaaaat? This is quite a main road. Yes he stopped and waited but if for some reason hadn’t (toddlers can occasionally be unpredictable) that dad was never going to catch him in time. words failed me.

so no it is never ok to leave a child unattended in any circumstance and I bet that the parents would have fired that lady of they knew. You did the right thing

QueenOfWeeds · 18/09/2024 13:58

I wouldn’t have picked the child up, but completely see how you did, given the circumstances.

I really hope you got her name to report her, as others have said. I would also be asking for CCTV to be preserved to support this (although I don’t know the GDOR implications on this). I’m also pretty disappointed that there wasn’t a member of staff around to implement a lost child policy, which they must have. I found a lost (slightly older) child at our local farm and was blown away by their response. Within 90 seconds of me alerting a member of staff, there were 3 extra staff members there to support and within maybe 3 or 4 minutes, the mum had been found and brought to us with another two members of staff.

oakleaffy · 18/09/2024 14:03

I’d be reporting that to local social services
That’s an appalling dereliction of duty for a childminder to abandon a child like that.

She could have been snatched.

Imagine what the parent would think?

I too saw a neglected child with his her grandfather/ father

Toddler was wandering off

Male had head in phone.

Has soft play got CCTV?

bryceQ · 18/09/2024 14:04

The childminder was deflecting her anger and stress onto you as she knew she acted negligently. Poor kid.

SunQueen24 · 18/09/2024 14:07

You 100% acted entirely appropriately and if it were my child I’d have thanked you profusely. The CM should absolutely NOT have left the child unattended.

CM was panicked because she lost the child and realised how stupid she had been.

I wouldn’t do that as a parent. Somewhere like that - ie accessible by the public and free open and exits BOTH my kids get dragged to the loo and that’s that. I would be tempted to take her name and report her to the Local Authority and also attempt to make the parents aware via social media.

K0OLA1D · 18/09/2024 14:07

I'd have got her details to be honest. I'd want to know if I was the child's mum. Awful from the childminder

NoTouch · 18/09/2024 14:08

You did the right thing, the only "wrong" thing you did was not telling the child minder she was negligent and should not be leaving a child of that age to wander around unsupervised.

Not much you can do as you don't know their names or the parents names to let them know what is going on.

Nagatha · 18/09/2024 14:09

She's an idiot who should not be looking after children. The CM's I know would never do this. She was pissed off because she got caught out.

perfumehime · 18/09/2024 14:10

No good deed goes unpunished.

DiscoBeat · 18/09/2024 14:10

I always taught my kids never to go anywhere with a stranger and to stay still if they couldn't see their grown up and wait for them to find them. I would (and have done) apply the same principle and wait with them until the parent came back. I'd also flag down a member of staff. But I wouldn't pick them up.

FloofPaws · 18/09/2024 14:11

You absolutely did the right thing, I don't use a
Childminder because they work alone. I used to see child minders locally meeting at our local park and chatting, or on their phones, not engaging with the children, which is ok to a certain point but I'll never forget a child getting lost in the park and there being panic, also another child using the second exit door to leave the play area, he seemed to be running towards the busy car park so I walked him back, and it was one of the child minders children who just said thanks he's a flight risk - yet whenever I saw them again she was never paying any attention, always planing on her phone.
Not sure nursery staff are better as such but they have supervisors and each other to help with kids

DiscoBeat · 18/09/2024 14:11

Anyway why the hell didn't she take the child into the loo with her??

caringcarer · 18/09/2024 14:12

I'd have checked led child around the restaurant checking if she belonged to any table then took the child to reception and asked them to announce a child found.