Did I do the right thing? Found a lost toddler

[reallifeboogie]

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??

All those saying get the name of the CM, there is no way in hell she was going to give the OP a genuine name and number, given that she massively dropped the ball with a child in her care.

Mindees need to be in sight /hear of cm at all times - esp in a public busy place

So to leave one alone and take other to toilet and not have friend keeping an eye on her Is awful

Ofsted would be interested to know this !!

Personally I'd try and track down the childminder online (trawl the council website/childcare.co.uk, loads of them have photos of themselves up) and report to OFSTED. There's no excuse at all for leaving a toddler unsupervised in public.

That's scary how obviously bad that childminder is

I'm guessing the careless childminder was shocked by the outcome of her stupidity, and jumped on the defensive.

You did absolutely the right thing, OP. Thankfully you were there to prevent a worse outcome.

You did the right thing. Is there anyway to find out who the childminder is? This is so dangerous and such a breach of the parents' trust. OFSTED should be told.

I would pick up only as a last resort as you're liable to be accused of things as you've learned here, but what comes first is the child's safety and you make the decision on the spur of the moment so I think you were probably fine to do what you did. I once found myself in a similar position, leaving a parent/ toddler group, I found an escaped toddler walking down the street, picked her up and took her back, much to the childminder's horror. She'd been standing chatting to the other childminders whilst her other charges were getting their coats on and didn't notice the baby slip out the open door. Funnily enough she never went back to that group.

I've always addressed my answers to the OP. She found a little toddler alone in a restaurant attached to a soft play. Despite asking people around, it took 10 minutes for the minder to aggressively confront the OP.

I don't give a shit if the minder was self-employed or working for a company. I don't give a shit if she took another child to the bathroom. The reality is that she left a toddler alone for 10 minutes in a restaurant.

Which is awful.

This is absolutely gross misconduct from the childminder. Never mind what you should/shouldn't have done here the cm is by far the biggest risk to her children. As pp have said I would be describing the child and the situation on multiple facebook sites. I would keep it simple so people actually read it and I wouldn't muddy the waters with any defence of what you did.

eg 'I came across a little girl in the Dobbies softplay with brown hair tied in a ponytail wearing pink leggings and a peppa pig tshirt. It became really obvious that there was no adult with her so I kept her safe. a good 10 minutes later I was then confronted by a lady claiming to be her childminder who admitted she'd been with another child in the toilet and left this little girl alone in the softplay. This is somewhere that there was easy access to a cafe with hot drinks and an easy exit from the entire complex. I'm sharing this because I feel that the parents need to be aware that this is the level of care their young child is receiving. To me it is a massive safeguarding concern and I'd be having serious doubts about leaving my child with this woman. Please pm me if you want further info.'

This needs to be taken as far as it can be OP. I would be mortified if this was my dd

You did the right thing. She was clearly on the defensive, but thank goodness you looked after the little girl so she didn't wander any further. She should never have left her unsupervised. I agree that she should be reported to OFSTED/ESTYN.

You did the right thing. The childminder was totally in the wrong. Should have taken both children with her, not left a toddler on its own in an area where anyone could walk in and take her.
Which she knew, because she was furious you had picked the child up. She should have thanked you, you not only save the child from harm but her bacon as a childminder as well. If it had been my child I would be incandescent - and sack cm, and report her to social services.

People over thinking OP lifting the child as if there is anything wrong with trying to comfort a lost toddler.

'You could be accused of all sorts'

OP did nothing wrong, let's not forget that, nobody is fining any evidence of wrong doing on OP part.

God if that was my childminder I’d be livid.
No way is it ok to leave a 2.5year old alone like that whilst you take a child to the toilet!

It was very lucky you were there - that's not a childminder I'd trust with my kids.

I’ve picked a howling lost child up before. They are so trusting at that age and look to any adult for help and comfort which is why you should find out who that childminder is and report them.if there’s cctv inside the garden centre there will be evidence. The poor mother of the toddler who thinks they are being well cared for

Not only does the childminder appear to be massively incompetent she also seems to be thick as fuck for reacting the way she did when you were responding normally to an unaccompanied child. I was once leaving my house and saw a shoeless baby running down the street alone. When I asked where his mum was and he didn't reply or stop running I picked him up and walked back the way he came and found a house with a door open just as the mother came to the door. There was another child about to come out the door too and the mother was frantic until she saw me and then was massively relieved. You did nothing wrong.

You did the right thing. Years ago on a busy street, I lost my toddler. It was the worst 10 mins of my life as me and my husband tried to find him in a panic. Luckily he was picked up by a kind lady who was holding him and comforting him. I was so grateful.

You did the right thing

A few years ago I was walking through Tesco car park at night and I was approached by a man who pointed out a child wandering off on his own

He obviously didn't want to go near the child for obvious reasons

I took the child's hand age 2/3 ish and took him into Tescos

I spoke to the security guard at the door and the child's mum was queuing up at the kiosk and hadn't even noticed he'd wandered off !!!

So neither the mum or the security guard had even noticed him wandering out the door alone

You did the right thing. The childminder was really irresponsible and shouldn't have brought their charges to a place where they couldn't keep all children safe if one needed a wee. She was angry because she realised this - given how long she was, a different and less well-meaning member of the public could have done much much worse.

Try to find out her identity - try searching for childminder services in your area and look at photos. Report to the appropriate safeguarding authority just saying exactly what happened and how long the child was unattended for. Don't include her anger on returning, that's irrelevant. With a single safeguarding incident like this logged, probably nothing will happen. If there's a pattern of repeated safeguarding incidents then action will be taken. You don't have to decide anything, you won't be getting her into trouble you will just be making sure that those whose responsibility it is to spot patterns have all the data.

I wouldn't have picked up a child, I would have called a staff member over instead, but stayed next to the child.

Always difficult to know what is the right thing to do.
Years ago, I was in a shopping precinct with a friend. We noticed a toddler wandering around aimlessly on his own with no sign of a parent looking for a missing child. Went over, asked if he was ok and did he know where mummy or daddy was. He just shook his head and started crying. I took him over to a bench and got him to stand on the bench so he could see and be seen ( holding his hand obviously). Friend went into nearest store and managed to get a uniformed member of staff to come out - the uniform made her look official. Debating what to do when dad turned up, grabbed child, yelled at him for wandering off, and dragged him away forcefully. It was upsetting to see, and more so when ,half an hour later, we noticed father walking fast with crying toddler about 15 foot behind trying to keep up.

OP, in your situation I would have taken the child to the nearest uniformed member of staff and probably stayed until parent/ minder turned up just in case no-one turned up thus abandoning the child and the police were called and needed a statement.

On the whole though, you don't go around picking up or touching others' children unless it is strictly necessary. There's other things you could do first before picking up, such as trying to lead by the hand, keeping an eye on the child or alerting a member of staff to put the message out. OP obviously has doubts or wouldn't have posted. But as I said, in this particular circumstance, I think it was fine.

I'd be acting on this immediately. I'd contact the garden centre, speaking with the manager to tell them there was an incident, date and time, and to ensure they keep the CCTV. Then I'd contact the police to log it, as well as social services, then Ofsted, but with GDPR, you might not get to find out her name, so reporting to Ofsted will be difficult, but you could insist that SS report her to Ofsted.

I would have done the same as you OP. Although, I wouldn't have given the child straight back, I'd have taken her to the manager to report the incident there and then and then the onus is on the manager to ensure that this child should be being given to this woman after calling the child's mother to confirm. This way, you're ensuring the child is going to the right person, and the mother is being made aware of the negligent childminder.

That childminder is a disgrace.

I will add, within reason there sometimes comes a point when you just have to prioritise a child's safety over how you come across. I had a scary moment when my usually sensible 4YOdd was speeding off on her bike. For some reason rather than carrying on down the country path she turned onto a very minor path that was heading straight onto a dual carriageway. My heart stopped. I screamed her to stop but I was too far away to catch her. Luckily a man with common sense put his arm out to stop her. I'm so glad he wasn't overly concerned with how he might come across and just did the necessary because I dread to think what might have happened if he didn't...Unpredictable things happen sometimes. We should be acting as a community and helping each other.

I seriously wonder about common sense in MN.

If you see a small child alone and crying, you go to them. You ask where their parents are, and if they can't answer, you keep them with you. Sometimes parents o minders appear, or sometimes, specially in beaches, they've wandered off and parents are going nuts looking for them.

The OP did what most of us will do, see a small child on their own, ask questions and kept her close until the parents or minder appeared.