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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

To think a teacher of all people should have had more sense???

187 replies

Mands0603 · 04/04/2011 10:35

Will try and give you the short version of this:
Basically my DD has been playing out over the past week or so with her friend from up the road - our back garden leads out onto a field so they have been playing making dens etc. She sometime plays at the front of the house but always comes to tell me where she is and I am constantly checking on her. They are both aware of where they are allowed to go.

Anyway yesterday she fell over and scraped her face (just a graze nothing serious) she came home i wiped it clean then said she could do with letting me put some cream on - said no she wanted to go back out to play so would come in and have some on when she came in for tea (she was allowed out until 6pm this was about 5.15ish)all ok off they went on the field.

About 5-10 mins later friends mum came knocking asking if they were at our house explained no they were on the field she says they werent - hence mad frantic search which lasted only about 10 minutes but felt like hours.

Basically a woman saw then on the field my DD must have been saying her graze hurt so this woman took them to her house which was past ours and over the road and took them both inside and then put some cream on my DD.

The woman i later found out is a teacher and said that if we report her we could get her into a lot of trouble.
I must admit that i had a very stern conversation with my DD (as did her friends mum) but I was more shocked that this teacher did took them to her house.

I thought about it and if i was in that position i would either take the child back to her home and explain that they were hurt or go home alone and get the cream and take it back to the child.

What made it worse was that once she had put the cream on she let them out of her house alone to cross over the road by themselves - we were searching for them so found them before they attempted to cross over.

Hubby saw woman and he was quite abrupt saying she shouldn't have done that as she is a stranger and she has taken our child away from where she was allowed.

AIBU?

OP posts:

Goblinchild · 04/04/2011 20:04

The teacher was foolish, hopefully her thoughtless behaviour will not have serious consequences for her professionally.
OP, you are over-confident in your very young daughter's life skills. She is not mature enough or savvy enough to be out unsupervised.
You are lucky she isn't dead. She met with a helpful and naive woman, it could have been a hell of a lot worse. So frothing about her actions doesn't excuse your negligence in my eyes.

Goblinchild · 04/04/2011 20:05

Be careful about the can of worms you are opening, do you want to be reported for neglect whenever your child is playing unsupervised in a field?

princessparty · 04/04/2011 20:06

hang on a mo.Whay would she 'be in trouble??' What could you possibly report for ?She hasn't hurt your DD in any way , shap or form.It's not illegal to administer First aid to a child!
i am guessing the teacher was alarmed at seeing 2 very young child , one injured, playing out alone and wanted to keep a very close eye on them .Perhaps she suspected they had been attacked.
If anyone needs reporting , it's you.

QuickLookBusy · 04/04/2011 20:09

Do none of you see anything rather strange about a woman taking a six year old into her house rather than trying to find her parent?

TheFallenMadonna · 04/04/2011 20:11

MY DH once lost sight of our DS. A woman took him into her house, gave him a drink and a biscuit and called the police. DH was cross that he had taken DS where he couldn;t see him, but TBH that was mostly projection because obviously he shouldn't have let DS out of his sight. I don't doubt she was trying to be kind though.

AnyoneforTurps · 04/04/2011 20:12

princessparty makes a good point. Maybe the neighbout took the girls to her house because she was concerned about the welfare of such young children out alone. She might not have wanted just to take them back to their own homes if she was worried about neglect.

NB I am NOT saying the OP was neglecting her DD - she just made a wrong call - happens to us all. However I also think that it was not unreasonable for the neighbour to want to find out a bit more about why the girls were out unattended rather than just blindly taking them home.

vintageteacups · 04/04/2011 20:14

What mercibucket said. Very odd. Why wouldn't you want the community police to check first anyway? Just in case?

boolifooli · 04/04/2011 20:14

How do you know your Dd originally told the lady she shouldn't go with people she doesn't know?

vintageteacups · 04/04/2011 20:15

Surely though, if they are 6, they can speak....... therefore the woman should have asked them where they lived and if they were allowed to be playing out on their own. That is exactly what any caring person would normally ask.

Goblinchild · 04/04/2011 20:16

'How do you know your Dd originally told the lady she shouldn't go with people she doesn't know?'

Because a child faced with an angry parent will tell them what they want to hear, what they should have said. Whether they actually said it or not.

Goblinchild · 04/04/2011 20:18

She shouldn't have got involved in the first place, I wouldn't have done. Far too risky. I need my job and my pension.

babybythesea · 04/04/2011 20:20

vintage - both points I was trying to make but obviously not very well! That's what I was trying to get at when I said about not even putting water on something unless it was necessary.
Also, I was trying to say that she should have know, if she was a teacher, how to help without putting herself at risk of allegations. She should have that information. However, I think there may be people out there who don't know how to protect themselves, get worried about it, and react by not helping at all which is not what we want either!

Goblinchild · 04/04/2011 20:22

She's a stranger who approached a child. That's enough in some people's eyes.

Supersunnyday · 04/04/2011 20:25

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

thinkingkindly · 04/04/2011 20:26

Goblinchild, 'You are lucky she isn't dead.'

MrsWitcher · 04/04/2011 20:28

Well...I think you have over estimated how savvy your DD is. 6yrs is still very young these days and clearly she is immature enough still to go off with strangers. That's not a criticism, just an observation.

As Pagwatch says at the beginning, use this to make more informed choices. If I was you, I'd go in and talk to her teacher, explain what happened and ask if they could squeeze in an ad-hoc lesson on stranger danger. Most primary teachers would happily do this.

The woman was silly and naive but nothing untoward seems to have happened so she probably was just trying to help. I totally get why you're upset by it but I'd count my blessings that she didn't encounter someone more sinister and make sure she is better prepared before she's allowed to play out again unsupervised.

Goblinchild · 04/04/2011 20:29

Do you want a list of the children I have known killed playing on railway lines, knocked off bikes, fallen out of trees and generally come to harm because of incompetent parenting?
How many searches have you participated in for missing children? I've been part of several
Yet all the OP can do is blame an unwary stranger.

MrsWitcher · 04/04/2011 20:31

Also, whereas the vast majority of adults she will encounter outside are not predatory, that small percentage will definitely increase when you look just at the number of adults who will gladly invite two young girls whom they have never met into their home. Especially since Soham.

surelynotnormal · 04/04/2011 20:36

"although I am not stood watching them every second i am constantly checking on then every couple of minutes"

"About 5-10 mins later friends mum came knocking asking if they were at our house explained no they were on the field"

You're obviously not checking on them as often as you think you do.

vis · 04/04/2011 20:40

odd very odd- the actions of this lady. I however don't know what I would do next.

buttonmooncup · 04/04/2011 21:05

Mands you said that whenever your daughter wishes to go anywhere she asks you first - well that's clearly not true because she went into a womans house without asking you first.
More importantly though the fact that your DD said that she wasn't allowed to go with anyone and the woman insisted that she go anyway - without letting you know first - without wanting to worry you would be ringing alarm bells for me. Have you asked your daughter exactly what happened? Could she be persuaded into keeping anything from you if she thought a 'teacher' had told her to? As I say don't mean to worry you and it's probably entirely innocent (if not a little naive) on the womans part but I'm struggling to understand why anyone, let alone a teacher, would encourage a 6 yo to go to their house with them against their mothers wishes.

ForShizzle · 04/04/2011 21:08

What this woman did was misguided at best, and your DD was temporarily in the care of someone who was not fit to care for her (she left her to cross a road unattended, and possibly lied to you about her profession).

Personally, I would stop her from playing unattended in the field until she is a bit older.

echt · 04/04/2011 21:44

It is only right and proper that higher standards of conduct are to be expected from teachers, even, indeed especially, when off duty.

The errors of judgment permitted others are not permissible for them.

Dob her in, especially about not taking the child back home.

TheFallenMadonna · 04/04/2011 21:46

When the woman took my DS into her house, the police came and nothing happened to anyone. What would happen to this woman do you think if you did contact the police?

vis · 04/04/2011 22:10

Consider a telephone call with the police giving scenario and getting advice from them?

I agree with all that if this was a man- you would not think twice about it.

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