To think that an 8 year old is far too young to be responsible for two 4 year olds and an 8 year old in an unsecured park.

[Aeroflotgirl]

I went to the park with my ds 4, to the park at about 7 pm, there I spotted a man with a bunch of kids, and thought some were with him. After a while he left the park with his ds, it transpired from the kids telling me voluntarily that the oldest child who was 8 was in charge of a bunch of very young children, which I feel is totally wrong, and irresponsible of the parents of these kids. I left at 7.30 and the kids were still playing. The 4 year old described where he lived, it was not near.

Surely this is not safe and fair on this 8 year old.

Phone the police.

The police are involved with crime and none has been committed. I sometimes wonder if some of you live on planet Earth. Have you any idea how long it takes the police to investigate serious matters. Well you probably haven't so I'll tell you. When I was a SW we often had cause to report a matter to the police e.g. a young person alleging that she had been sexually abused by her step-father - yes they took all the details and THREE weeks later phoned to check the address!!! This was not a one off by any means.

So NO they aren't going to come screaming out because some young kids are on the park!!!

neglect is a crime. Also, the police have been forced to re-evaluate their approach to matters like these after the scandals of not investigating sexual abuse of young girls in care in various different parts of England came to light over the last few years. In any case, there is a big difference between referring a case of ongoing abuse to the police and ringing to say that there are young children at risk of serious harm right now.

It is absolutely unarguable that leaving an 8yo in charge of a group of preschoolers out of sight of home and with no responsible adult nearby is a huge risk. It beats me how anybody can even try to argue that it's OK. It was never OK, not even in the 60s when I was growing up. Back then more parents seem to have been more prepared to tolerate the risk that their unsupervised children would be injured in accidents or bullied by other children or abused by predatory adults/older children or (once in a blue moon) abducted. Attitudes have changed.

I would be hugely concerned about this. I have a 4,6 and 7 year old. There is no way I would let them go to the park on their own. It is not legal to leave children of that age home alone, how is this any different? I would seriously question the parenting here. What else is the 8 yr old responsible for at home? I would watch my kids in the garden too, they get up to all sorts of crazy stuff given half the chance. It's all very well saying if you think 'what if' you would never do anything but these young kids do not have the sense or reasoning of older children or adults. How would you ever forgive yourself if something went wrong.

I think things have moved on a bit since your days as a SW, nana, for a variety of reasons including those outlined by gasp. We also have the non-emergency number which people can use for advice.

And it's somewhat disingenuous of you to claim people expect the police to come screaming out because some young kids are on the park!!!

In case you've not read the thread, these were very young children alone in an open public space with no adult looking after them. Do you really think the police wouldn't be interested until a crime had been committed?

NanaNina As if SWers aren't vilified enough by the media, you're making an embarrassment of yourself on here by undermining people who do know the score these days. As I said up thread, just because police and children's services don't rush to the scene, court order in hand, doesn't meant it's acceptable parenting. I hate when I heard usually crappy professionals say "it's good enough parenting". Good enough for whom? Good enough not to warrant official intervention but not good enough for the vulnerable human beings that we are bringing up in the big, bad world.

No I didn't ask the mum to watch my DD aero nor did I expect her too. Wouldn't matter if she left, the park is just down the road from home and my five year old is quite capable of walking home from there. She did walk home by herself in the end after she insisted I go home first.

Well, what a laid back parent you are. Where on earth do you live? I've lived in various parts of the UK in my 54 years and can think of nowhere that it would be acceptable to leave a 5yo in a park unsupervised. Looking back to when my children were that age, they had no common sense. My son was only a little bit smaller than that when he pushed his head through the railings on the slide and got stuck. I spotted that at once, fortunately, and with the help of other adults, especially the one who donated a piece of bread and butter to grease his neck, was able to get him safely out before the fire brigade, an ambulance and the police turned up (somebody else had dialled 999 ). If he'd been there on his own it might have been a very different and tragic outcome.

You let a five-year-old tell you to go home and leave her alone in the park?

I live in Finland, in a small town. Its very very common here for children that age to be in the park alone or with similar aged friends. All the children on my street, from 3 years old, play out. Our local social workers don't consider it unacceptable (I did actually ask them as DD has a social work team, they said its fine).

She often wants to walk by herself Rhonda she loves practising a little independence.

That drip-feed might have been useful to know from the start, natsku.

I'm an immigrant here from the UK, at first I thought parents were crazy letting their children out unsupervised so young but its clear now that children can cope far better than I thought if they're just allowed to. Now I don't worry so much, but to begin with I was quite PFB with DD and worried about everything.

I don't think this is about the issue of when a child should be allowed to walk home from a park, or stay at a park .
Its about an 8 year old being in charge of 4 younger children, most adults would struggle with that!
What if something awful did happen?

That 8 year old could have to bear the responsibility for the rest of their life.

Everyone has decided that there was a 2 year old involved, yet the OP only talks of "very young children" and how on earth can you take the word of a 4 year old to describe where he lived! The other thing is we know nothing of this incident other than the vague details of the OP. Maybe a parent/older sister/brother/grandparent was waiting in a car on a nearby car park, or an older sib was playing tennis or dog walking but keeping an eye on the kids. You've all jumped to the conclusion that these kids were absolutely alone and a long way from home.

Purplerain you might be interested to know that Judges in care proceedings very often return the child to the care of the parents on the basis that the parenting is "good enough" - and one on occasion a judge returned a child on the basis that even though his care was "sub-optimal" - he was not convinced that the child was suffering significant harm (which is the wording in the Children Act89) and the standard of proof that social workers must use in care proceedings. So it's not just "crappy social workers" using this phrase and its origins stem from a book written called "Good Enough Parenting" by a very eminent Professor of social work and has been widely used ever since. Please don't worry about your perception that I'm embarrassing myself - I don't feel at all embarrassed because I know the system related to social services and the police - I picked up one or two things over 30 years!

Blimmcheek this is becoming a social worker bashing thread. The cases you hear about on the news are because the parents/step parents have the capacity to ill treat or even murder their children. It's very sad but it is not the fault of social workers. Everyone thinks they know how to protect children and what social workers should be doing etc...........let me tell you it's incredibly difficult and stressful work that keeps social workers awake at night. Parents are very skilled at hiding the truth and can be very intimidating. SWs would need to live with these families to ensure a child is not ill treated. It's small wonder that there are 25% of vacancies in LA social services offices on a national basis. Maybe you could train yourself since you seem to know so much about it.

Yes I know the police aren't arresting burglars 24 hours a day - in fact only 30% of crime is detected. Neglect may well be a crime and an arrestable offence if the neglect was very severe e.g. a child half starved like Daniel Pelka. They are not going to arrest someone who lets their kids play in the park on a summer evening! And again we have this hypothetical 2 year old. None of us know the ages of the children.

ErrNo we don't know there were 4 other children, nor their ages, apart from an 8 year old and a 4 year old. Lots of posts mention a 2 year old but there is no mention in the OP of a 2 year old. The OP talks of a "bunch" of younger children.
I wish we could stick to the facts.

Not really Nina. Most people have bashed you and said your attitude is ourdated and not in line with current child protection.

Wrong thread onenut...

You kidding me? Bloody fat fingers I will report it and asked to be moved ta