AIBU to think WTF is going on?

[ScaredWorriedAndAngry]

We recently realised we may had been burgled my DH noticed weird notches and marks on our front door...so he called the police they came and confirmed that someone had definately been into our house and we suddenly realised why small but valuable items had started going missing over a period of about 5months ..3 phones a hand-bag, my husbands watch I brought him for our anniversary last year and probably other things we have not realised...things you might think you have misplaced or lost..anyway the police officer asked to look upstairs so my husband said ok...when she cam back down the stairs she said 'how many children did you say you had?' my DH answered 2 ..she then said well why is there just 1 bed/mattress upstairs?' my DH explained that we will be buying a futon for them and that we are just in the middle of things.

now for some back-ground...my DDs bless their cotton socks are home-wreckers...they had a lovely IKEA bed but they jumped all over it and smashed the slats beyond repair..they have also dug holes in the walls and pulled off their own room door when they made a 'swing' on the handle amongst other things..unfortunately my DH is not a DIY person a nor am I...we chucked out the bed bits and just had the made up mattress on the floor (which they think is bluddy marvellous and like a 'sleep-over'),we have a new bed that we brought originally when we brought the first bed..but decided not to put it up because they might end up breaking it again, we decided to buy a double futon so they can jump as much as they want till we have set up DD2's room...

We have lived in the house for quite a while but we are really struggling with decorating and many things have gone wrong with the property,mould, bolier broken, man half fitted the kitchen and ran off with the money..plus other personal stuff.. so yes it looks a bit of a state decoration wise and at the moment we just don't have the time money or energy to sort everything out and it's also very cluttered not dirty..just messy...and we also have alot of wine bottles in bags in the kitchen because I'm too lazy to walk round to the bottle bank often enough (more fool me)...so it looks a bit much when I look at it from someone elses perspective..maybe they think we are drunks or something?

Well after they left and I came home my DH mentioned what happened and said he thought she might say something..I said no way because our house is a bit messy and you explained about the matress etc etc...

2 weeks later the police return and we thought it was the discuss the break in..no..it turns out there we some concerns with our children and their living arrangements??, 2 officers from the youth crime reduction team are here?? they ask to come in the house is a bit wild because I'm doing washing..they said they have spoken to the school about us and our children and about the time off they have had etc...and last year my DDs caught quite a few colds ansd stomach bugs and the school policy is you must keep them off for at least 48 hrs so yes their attendance looks dodgy but not more so than other children..they asked us if there was food in the house??...we both work and have decent jobs but bills a mortgage and debts and I don't want to get into anymore debt..

so now a day later they are coming back again with another person...and I'm sure I saw them drive pass the house earlier...we asked for help from the police and now we feel like suspects for something we haven't done...am i overrating/paranoid?..is this normal practice?...am i in some kind of denial?..are we on a list?

I have been trying to hold this all in but I'm tearful/angry and worried and too ashamed to talk to anyone about whats happening...

sorry this is so long..

I don't think there was a burglary, to be honest. I think this is an insurance claim and now the police have come round (to give an incident number for the claim) and things have got out of control there.

To be honest, the house sounds a disgrace. How could the OP not think before inviting the police in that she should tidy up a little? What kind of reaction does she think people would have to the amount of wine bottles in the kitchen?

How much is being drunk in the house? Why is ANYTHING being drunk when the house is such a mess?

OP, you sound really, really lazy. I don't tend to come on here and yell at anyone but you really need telling. What kind of home is that for a child to come home to after school? What kind of home did you grow up in? What kind of home did you want to grow up in?

It's no surprise your children are 'boisterous' if they lead such a chaotic home life.

I think the police are right to involve social services. God, this makes me so angry - what the hell did you expect?

Orange I meant from the police, Child protection team (social Services)

I didn't mean some random MNers

That's good of you. Do you also try to gain information before you do it?

My DD (10) is always covered in bruises due to a blood-clotting disorder which has been very well documented for the last eight years with various hospitals, but every so often even though I am constantly trying to keep her safe I have to go through the additional stress of starter investigations instigated by ignorant people.

My DD only has bruises. Abused children tend to have a mixture of injuries. She is smiley, happy, well-fed, with perfect skin, shiny hair and lovely teeth.

Sadly she doesn't want to go swimming any more because she is fed up with having to explain, even to her peers.

You know what, good on the police for taking this further. There have been a series of burglaries, of fairly valuable stuff, over the space of 5 months that has only just been noticed combined with loads of empty wine bottles. The police, presumably, thought there could be some kind of drink problem going on which naturally lead them to consider how the children in this environment are coping.

It is not OK for children to have no bed of their own, no door on the bedrorom and holes in the wall.

That's good of you for reporting everything orangeeyebrows I mean.

How about trying to educate yourself instead? My DD suffers anyway. She doesn't want to swim or do P.E and she is frantic that she will have a bleed on the day of her dancing show in June.

Well never mind that, perhaps because of people like you we might have to give it a miss and let everyone down anyway even though she has been preparing for months in order to attend a meeting with SS

Come back op, I think people are extrapolating from the original posts. Let us know how it went?

God from the checklist posted I would probably be under suspicion, my children have beds with clean bedclothes etc we have food and what not, but things do get on top of us and clothes are generally unorganised and food mess is frequently found on the floor until we tidy up.

If ss came into my house atm I dread to think, tomorrow though when dp is home and we do a big clean, it would be fine.

I find it very hard to do housework with my 2 youngest under my feet,they follow me round and seem to have a sixth sense for where I want to be.

I think I do need to make more of an effort from this thread though.

sorry thats inconvenient for you flamin

maybe i should not report my concerns just in case eh

sod the poor kids who are being abused eh as long as you dont get put off your swimming

I would be amazed if the Op comes back on this thread given the tone of some of the posts on here.

has anyone reported the thread to hq if they think it might not be genuine?

The Op should get off the bloody computer and sort her life out. She has got bigger things to worry about than what a bunch of Mumsnetters think.

Read my post orange. My swimming?

As I said. Educate yourself. Bruises alone do do mean abuse.

And a SS investigation is hardly just "inconvenient" especially when you have one child with a life-threatening condition and another with SN and you are also in the process of moving house.

You try it.

I am a former teacher and know about safeguarding. And punctuation.

When you have a higher medical degree and experience then I will accept that you can terrorise parents like me with "concerns" which supersede all accepted evidence. It does happen and you are the type who would do it if you had the intelligence. So no worries there.

Whoa, whoa, whoa! I never said I thought this situation wasn't bad, I just thought that saying things like "you've been a shit parent" isn't particularly helpful at this juncture. Of course the needs of the children have to come first!

FWIW I am entirely in favor of SS intervention; I've worked and testified with/for them many times over the years I've worked with children.

But at this point as far as we know the OP just needs to be told that, yes, SIBU and what to do about it. If there's more to find, SS will find it. "You've been a shit parent," doesn't need to come into it, a "yes, this isn't the way most people live and for the well-being of your children you should get it sorted," may be more helpful.

I've just attended a gvmt course on reporting abuse and neglect. The point is that in recent cases where children have died or suffered extreme abuse and neglect is that these indicators were apparent to professionals (teachers, doctors, social workers) and members of the public (friends, neighbours) but were ignored for numerous reasons (embarassment, "passing the buck", lack of putting 2 & 2 together etc) and for the child it has catastrophic consequences.

Therefore the idea is now NOT to take the parents excuses as fact but to really place yourself in the position of the child and look at how, however well-meaning the parents may or may not be, the effect of this neglect (for in this case it does appear to be neglect) has on the child/ren.

Being a loving parent is NOT just about loving your children, it is about being responsible for thier care and welfare. This means taking on board the more difficult and tedious aspects of parenting. ie Keeping a reasonably clean, tidy and ordered house (I say reasonably NOT spotless). Keeping food available. Maintaining the house to the extent where all people feel safe.

This is important.

This thread is bizarre. The OP's house sounds like it is in a right state, and even on her own facts, it is entirely understandable that the police had real concerns.

I have twice represented people being prosecuted for neglect based on their childrens' living conditions and some of the things the OP describes were present in both cases - along with a lot of other things admittedly - but these sort of issues can be indicators of neglect. I think a lot of posters are struggling to see the difference between indicators of neglect and neglect itself. The OP may well not be a neglectful parent, but she has let her house get into a state that makes it very difficult for the police/social services to be sure of that. Or she might be exactly what they suspect she is. I agree with TSC/Scottishmummy etc. There is no point everyone saying "oh you are a great mummy". The things described are not the markers of a great mum. They may not be the markers of a terrible mum either, but they certainly are things that need to be addressed for their own sake and not just for the sake of getting through this assessment.

Also, Flamingallah - I am shocked that you think OrangeEyebrows is wrong to report concerns through her work (I am assuming teacher, doctor, nurse or similar). It is unfortunate that you have to defend yourself against unfounded accusations but you can't really be suggesting that someone should do nothing simply because there might be explanations for a proportion of the cases that look worrying. What on earth makes you think that orangeeyebrows has not educated herself?

No I don't think I have been unfair. My DD's condition has been well-documented since babyhood and yes it was scary until dx.

I accept that some children are thumped as you say but my training and the training of every person involved in safeguarding on this thread will have said that a variety of injuries, sadly, are most common.

So I do object to an ignorant person commenting on DD's bruises. It could be Leukaemia for example. We thought it was for a terrible few months when she was small and then we realised that she could in fact die terribly quickly from a minor injury.

So we are quite careful to keep her with us at all times and being "reported" spuriously would quite easily end in DD being kept from the people who love her while she was passing away. It is that serious and it can and has happened.

There's no working boiler and mould in the house?!

Maybe that's partly why the children's school attendance seems poor. Mould can be very hazardous to human health.

And I would query why they have spare cash for umpteen phones, special watches/other small valuables and plenty of wine, but can't find the money to get someone in to fix the DIY problems they have.

I have a mental image of these parents just sitting watching tv, drinking wine, whilst the house continues to gather grime, disease and fungal infestations. It is astonishing that she is surprised she's being investigated tbh. (I don't understand her phraseology either - she's doing the washing so the house "looks a bit wild" - what the heck does that mean? Sounds like an excuse to be a slob to me...)

orange has no idea of a condition which affects 1% of the population and which causes severe bruising and bleeding. Not many people do.

But she will report.

Don't be shocked. Unless you want to know about the poor children who have been adopted forever and taken away from loving homes because very few people know about it.

How on earth do you know she has no idea about this condition? You ahve jumped to some almighty conclusions based on a very brief post.

Maintaining the house to the extent where all people feel safe.

It sounds like the adults are the ones who need keeping safe in that household from the monster children.

We've just had to spend £15,000 on our house and it now looks like a normal persons home but up until that point due to buying a crap house which fell apart before our eyes the moment we bought it we've lived in a dump for the past 3 years.
But no doubt because my children have Laura Ashley duvet covers nobody would bat an eyelid. It's not easy working full time and then having children undo all your efforts.

Hope it went well today OP and you'll know next time you let somebody into your house to keep them in the tidy bit.

Flaming, I really feel for you, as this must be very hard to live with, but surely what else can you do? You can't ignore severe bruising on children just on the off chance that it is caused by a rare disease. Any professional person that did that is just asking for career termination. And that's without thinking of the poor children who need protecting in the 9/10 cases that their bruises are caused by something entirely different.

The OP said that her DC had had no more illnesses than most other kids of their age. A lot of schools are currently obsessed with 100% attendance (and simultaneously telling parents to keep DC home for 48 hours after any signs of D&V, work that one out). She also did not say there was no food.
People with immaculate houses can abuse their DC as well you know - sometimes, spotlessly clean houses are places where the DC are miserable because they are not allowed to play in case they make a mess, and are punished for spilling things or whatever.

Manatomy I don't understand your post.

Well she said that she would report away for anything. If she can name the condition, the very common and frequently undiagnosed one which Social Services often overlook and take children away for ever when parents don't know the children have it then I will apologise for the assumptions I made and eat my profile.

That is fair enough surely?