Is this neglect ?

[Rainbowfish1]

I'm really worried about my niece , age. 4, and don't know if I'm overthinking.
My brother got her mum pregnant after a short relationship, they split shortly after niece was born, he pays maintenance regularly via the CMS but apart from that has little day to day involvement, ( yes I know, DB' s a dick). He's 45 and nieces mum is 25.

-My niece is meant to go to nursery 1-6, 2 afternoons a week during term time, ( nursery stretches funding so this includes holidays). My friend works there and says she's always absent , misses at least one session a fortnight, often more, ( obviously nursery can't enforce attendance as nursery is not legally compulsory). When she is in , session starts at 13:00, but frequently not dropped till 13.30/ 13.45 etc.

• When she's not at nursery, ( and she rarely is !) they go nowhere. Literally nowhere. Nursery is Tuesday and Friday, and between they don't go out at all. Absolutely lovely shared garden and play area in their block of flats but don't go there. They don't leave the house for days on end. Sister in law is addicted to gaming etc and basically happy to stay in.
• Sister-in-law doesn't brush her teeth as "niece doesn't like it ", what 4 year old likes having their teeth brushed...
• Niece is only dressed on nursery days, ( where she does seem to dress her appropriately), she stays in her PJs for days on end otherwise. Whenever I visit on a non nursery day , niece is in her pyjamas, even at 2/3pm. Sister-in-law says what's the point in dressing niece if they are not going out.
• Sister in law is very overweight, basically live off take aways each night, ( only healthy meal she gets is the dinner 2 x a week at nursery).
• The flat is filthy. Five cats in a two bed flat , stinks of cat urine whenever I go round, litter trays always overflowing. Extremely cluttered and no space for niece to play.
• Sister-in-law smokes weed daily, ( she says only when niece is in bed ), but the whole flat stinks of it.

I know the simple answer is to report to soical, but I'm worried they won't do anything and it will just end up withe and my parents being cut off
Does this cross the line to reportable neglect?

Def report this is neglect maybe offer if you can take niece some of the time? To help her out has she family herself that might help? Maybe even if she got family support worker.
Cats like that and litter trays not been emptied very dangerous needs to be cleaned everyday 5 cats I'n a 2 bed flat? And smoking weed not good at all.
Child needs to be getting out and should be I nursery at least 3 afternoons a week.

You can report anonymously she won't know where its come from it could have come from a neighbour who smells the flat as the go past or the smell of weed when they go past doesn't have to look like it comes from you. I would definitely report that's not a healthy life at all

Oh yeah…..Here we go again. People can accept severe autism is being non-verbal but nobody can entertain the idea that SEVERE ADHD exists and it’s characterised by extreme under development of executive functioning.

If there is no way of talking to the Mum / Dad about this, & making them both see how wrong this is, when you offer help - then yes, please report as the only one who really matters here is the child.
The mum sounds like she is in depression maybe & the weed doesn't help - perhaps no excuse, but she appears to also need help or a 'wake up' call - as does the Dad.
But, don't expect immediate results, unfortunately....... xx 🌹

I had social services when my son was young. It was all about his school attendance. I have insomnia and a sleep phase disorder and I really struggle living during the day. I did my best but I would often sleep through alarms and things. We were also a bus ride away from the school.

They did nothing to help or support us they just threatened me and wrote horrible reports about me. I mean they could have got school transport provided. It took ages to get them out of our lives and at one point they threatened to take my son and give him to my mum, who was not capable of looking after him eg would not know where he was when he was out playing, smoking in the house although it gave him asthma symptoms.

On top of everything else he was constantly getting chest infections and tonsillitis and taking time off, some kids are just like that when they're young. The woman was a narcissist. I ended up telling the social worker that I had my lawyer and that my son was sick and I would take them to court. She closed the case the following week.

I've been giving the tooth brushing thing some thought. It could be she is trying to brush the kids teeth and she isn't letting her. So I would clarify what's going on there if OP hasn't already

The “someone” is my cousin, who is like a sister to me and lives 5 mins from my house. She didn’t lie. I’ve seen how good a parent she is many times, and was there when she was sat crying her eyes out every day because she didn’t know if she’d ever get her kids back. Who are you to say, ‘it never happens, she must be lying’?! How could you possibly know that? Such an embarrassingly arrogant thing to say. Are you the head of social care for the UK with access to the records of every single visit by every single social worker? Nope, I didn’t think so. Yes, it’s rare but it does happen. In any profession you’re always going to have a few staff who are incompetent, stupid, or inexperienced. SS especially have many inexperienced staff as it’s so underfunded. Newly qualified staff are being given huge caseloads and asked to do things they don’t yet have the experience for. People who’ve only been qualified a year are being made managers. Obviously this is going to be a recipe for disaster.

This just proves my point @SimonWigglesBaratoneVoice
I’m sorry you had such an awful experience @ThatFairy
In 90% of cases the best thing for a child is to be with their mother. If the mother is struggling to care for that child, support the mother. The vast majority of mothers love their kids and want to do their best for them. There may be issues such as illness, addiction, poor mental health, or even just the overwhelming reality of parenthood, getting in the way of them being able to do their best. By supporting the mother you are supporting the child. In this poster’s case, as she said, they could have provided a taxi for the child, the social worker could have taken him to school, the social worker could have advocated for the mother to be referred to a sleep specialist. There’s so many ways that their money could have been better spent than on writing endless, pointless, horrible reports about what an awful mother she is. This only serves to make her feel rubbish about herself and leaves her at risk of developing poor mental health, which will just result in her being even less able to provide good quality care to her son! 🙄

Most local authorities allow you to report anonymously, which means that you are likely to be able to retain your relationship with her.Just because you report, does not mean children will be removed. There is likely to be an assessment, which means that your sister in law, neice, will be visited and nursery and your brother's views will be sought.It is likely that your brother will also be given 'advice' about his own responsibilities to his daughter. There are some good sources of support out there. This may open the gates for them.

I’m not sure that the OP is coming back to this thread.

I agree with this and also none of her business what days/ times she drops the child at nursery! I take my daughter late all the time and if we feel like a day off we have one! The other things like the state of the house and the drugs could potentially be a safeguarding issue. I mean she could also take the child out for the day or to the little park or even have her overnight once a week. That would ensure that 2 more days the child gets out that would be 4 of 7. I wonder if she has asked mum if she needs any help/ support since her deadbeat brother isn’t involved. Sounds to me mum may be depressed and using weed/ gaming to cope and that’s likely due to the brother knocking her up at a young age and leaving them both.

He should have worn a condom then shouldn’t he?!

The house would have had to be absolutely infested and a health hazard to trigger an immediate removal, which would take longer than a bit of getting over covid.

Otherwise it would have to go through court.

They don't come in see a sink full of dishes and some washing needing done and remove kids.

The bar is stupidly high for removing kids.

The nursery worker is required to report anything they think is abuse. However, they are breaking the rules by telling you all this.

Goodness, what do your parents think of their son?

These are some ideas of what you can do while you are thinking about it which might make a huge difference:

(a) take your neice out to the local parks, forests, beaches for a few hours every week for a runaround and long walk at least once a week, this will make a huge difference to her life. Try to get your SIL or your DB along and model for them how to play and engage with neice.

(b) take books and read them to your neice when you are there every week

(c) make food with your neice, both nice food (cakes, scones) and healthy food, take ingredients

(d) take your neice out regularly to whatever you have locally which is aimed at her age, so that could be zoos, theme parks, soft play, to watch classical music, art galleries, museums, talk with her in relation to everything you see

(e) as a present offer to pay for tennis for tots and offer to take neice or to go with SIL at first

Just having one adult away from home who cares, who they can talk to, who has their back, will make a difference to your neice as she grows up, even if you are not living with them. Uprooting a child or getting children services involvement, at the moment, can sometimes do more damage than good like others have explained.

I think you need to talk to SIL about the serious things, but without making her feel judged, so you could say "I was reading this article about the effect of screens on young people, especially violence" and lead this on to "it could affect long term mental health as she is too young to put it in context or process it as an adult would" and things about children who spend all their time on screens find it hard to learn in the conventional way, etc. That if she doesn't clean dd's teeth every day after just a couple of days gums will start bleeding when she does clean them etc. That if she were reported to social services, they would likely take a dim view of the smell of dope and smell of cats and so she does need to do something about that and you can help her. That dope can be smelt outside the flat, it is terrible for developing brains, and there are the dangers associated with buying it; I would tell her that if she does not stop it, then it increases the likelihood of her daughter being removed, so she needs to just completely stop it...

Your SIL and DB sound as though they could be "avoidant attachment" and this is likely to be related to their own upbringing and experiences in childhood - it isn't an excuse but it is a reason. Your sil sounds as though she is addicted to screens?

If you have limitless funds, input from a good psychologist as to changes needed for neices life, communicated to SIL and DB, and also some therapy for SIL and DB about intergenerational trauma and trauma and inspiring books on child development

I think sometimes it is fear of being found responsible if they didn't act.

If this information is correct, then the “poor mother” is neglecting her child. Being over weight isn’t relevant no, but maybe the Mum needs support in all aspects of her life. The poor little girl

Thank you, yes the stress of it all just made it even harder for me to sleep at night. They never acknowledged that I or him had medical conditions affecting the attendance and I really did try my best but it was so hard and transport would have really also made a big difference

I feel the full focus here is throwing the mother under a bus with an aim of having the young child taken away. It does not reach that threshold.

Perhaps as a wider family try love, support, some food sharing (who doesn’t cook too much!) and help support this young woman.

as for your brother “the father” he should be the one this post is aimed against by OP - at least the mother bothers to turn up and provide a home.

I feel this aimed at the wrong person in terms of its brutality and simple help would be a massive support.

It isn’t throwing the mother under a bus, it’s protecting the child. The focus of child services isn’t on removing the child unless it’s an emergency situation. They will work with mum and they can put support services in place, which the family won’t have access to without referral. The situation is beyond ‘simple’ help from family, it would be papering over the cracks. It needs professional support and monitoring as well as clear consequences for non-compliance. The priority here is the child.

Nope. Not a chance. The threshold for removing a child is ridiculously high and your friend is either exaggerating or there’s something she’s not telling you. And you’re perpetuating a dangerous myth that SS remove kids at the drop of a hat. It stops people reporting, sometimes with tragic results. The child is the priority here.

Absolutely!!

you are sooo wrong. The mother isn’t the priority here; the child is. This is neglect and yes mother may be overwhelmed, depressed etc but that’s why SS need to be notified. I worked for them and I can tell you removal is the last thing they want to do: there are limited places in care / foster care and the only focus SS will have is working with the mother via family support workers in the home and trying to make things better for both of them. Maybe this would be a wake up call for the mother that she needs? The child is 4, she will be going to school soon and so how will her mum get her to school every day? If she doesn’t attend then she will get involvement whether she likes it or not. The little girl needs to be able to live in a clean, drug free home. Weed smells dreadful so I can’t imagine living in a flat with this and 5 cats and dirty cat litter.

Sorry this was meant as a reaction to turtletots post not yours: I fully agree with you Dotandcarryone2