Play scheme worker forced DS into her car

[Longlost10]

My 8 yo DS is in a holiday playscheme, there are two workers there I know. I employ the first one to drive DS home for me at the end of the day. The second one is her boss.

Two days ago, the first one was called away by a family emergency, and unable to drive DS home. The second one made him get into her car against his will, and she drove him home.

I rang her up that night, very very angry. I have taught DS never to get into anyone's car without my express permission, even if he knows them. He was very distressed, and said he had tried to resist and argue, but she had irresistibly over ruled him and forced him in.

When I spoke to the second worker on Friday, she got very offended, and said she thought she was doing a favour for a friend. I am however going to make a formal complaint. She probably was a friend, of sorts, we have been using that play scheme for years,and got to know each other well.

Even so, AIBU to think she should have rung me, and given me the option of leaving work early as a one off emergency, or giving DS permission to get in her car

YABU

Fair no, you can't say to children 'never go with strangers' as this is acknowledged to be very bad advice. If your children are caught up in a difficult, violent, accident, or just lost, they may need to turn to a stranger, as we all usually have to do at some time in our lives. One of my children got lost once and a stranger found them, stayed with them, found me and helped us all home. Should my dd have run away screaming 'no' aged 3 into the traffic?

We talk about what type of person you should look for if you are in a difficult situation- and how you should ask your mum or whoever is in charge of you, so in school that's the teacher, in playgroup, that's the group leaders/carers before you go anywhere. I always tell them if in trouble, to look for the person in charge (e.g. on a bus, the bus conductor or driver) or to go into a shop to ask for help rather than approach an individual, obviously police people are great, but they are not loitering on every corner.

My children have to make daily judgments about strangers, they go to school unaccompanied, the 11 year old on public buses. They need to get clued up and able to function in the public world pretty early on, and I would say by 8, depending solely on the mum for everything, and not having anything delgated to other authorities such as childcarers is overkill and likely to be counter-productive.

Fairuza, it's not a bloody stranger, though, is it?! It's the boy's carer!

If the OP was playing at a friend's house and their mum needed to take him home, would he need to call his mum for permission to get in the car? It's ridiculous.

He's 8, not 3; he's old enough to understand that 'the rule' doesn't include people who are in loco parentis.

*OP's son playing at a friend's house, not OP

But- I completely agree the childcarer shouldn't have done it herself, as she has opened herself up to a load of accusations, and safeguarding issues about being alone in a car with a child (would they not be alone with the child though sometimes in the care situation, our childcarer worked alone?!)

She didn't sort of recognise her, she did recognise her. She knew that she was a teacher at a local church school that her cousin's attend and a keyworker at a religious group her sister attends. She'd seen her there when dropping off her sister with me. As dd doesn't attend church or youth groups, she'd never spoken to this lady before.

Of course I wouldn't have been happy with her getting in a car with someone who might have been a teacher at her cousin's school but she wasn't quite sure and dd would never have gotten into a car with someone she sort of recognised anyway.

Her 'friend' (they'd only met that day) was also in the car. It was pissing down so she'd driven up to get her daughter and kindly offered mine a lift when she saw them walking together.

So what would people tell kids? If you know someone it's fine to go off with them if they say it's okay? That's so unsafe it's scary.
I think dire emergencies can and should be dealt with at the time; it's likely police would be involved, who would be on every parent's safe list. I'm sure they'd be more sensitive than cornering a child and shouting at them till they get in a car.

Some posters are getting confused about the safeguarding message here. It's not that the playscheme worker should be considered unsafe or able to look after kids at a playscheme but not outside of it. The message for children should be that your parent/main carer needs to know where you are and who you are with at all times. You don't ever go with someone without checking that it's ok with mum/dad/one of a few trusted people.

I have local friends who my kids have grown up with, I completely trust these people with my DDs, they have babysat numerous times. I still tell the DDs that they should always check with DH or I first before going off with them. Now there may come a time when there's an emergency and they have to go with them, but it's pretty unlikely. Normally, there will be a message from mum/dad/school saying this is the arrangement, it's ok to go with x. In the OP's case, a 30-second call would have kept everyone happy and it's extremely worrying that no one made that call.

Pearlman Then we are on the same page. Is it that OP is upset because DS was upset? Or is it that DS was unsure at the time and at home, OP is upset because he got in the car/a different driver took him home (thus not recognising the inflexibility of the arrangement of only having approved worker 1 to DS for regular driving instances?)

Still don't know why OP isn't more unhappy about the fact that they didn't ring her to approve it for DS especially when he obviously was uncomfortable getting in the car?

Pearl where are people demonstrating that they are forgetting that (and why is it funny?)
Op has said she would have picked the child up. I would have spoken to my ds on the phone and told him about the change of plan (had I been given the oppoetunity)

It's an interesting predicament and not at all clear due to interpretation of what actually happened.

First of all, this is an 8 year old. If he were 7 or younger, he'd come under stricter childminding standards. If he were under 5, it does explicitly state safeguarding regulations, many enshrined in law, in the EYFS.
But he's not. He's 8. So a bit of a grey area there. We rely on the best practice that we use for the younger children.

The childminder. I'm assuming she's an experienced and registered childminder so would know the rules about insurance etc.. I would also expect a childminder to inform the parent of any problem like this.
However, this childminder had an emergency to deal with. Depending on what the emergency was, it's conceivable that all thoughts of the arrangement flew out of her head apart from a quick word to her boss to please deal with it. Yes, she should have called herself, but how many people would hold her to that if she had a dying relative, a seriously injured or sick child rushed to hospital or something like that?
In fact, we had a similar situation where one of our taxi drivers had a sudden bereavement and couldn't collect. He rang his company to tell them and assumed that was all dealt with. It wasn't, but I wouldn't blame him for the resulting muddle. He had other things to cope with.
I've also known a childminder whose child was rushed to hospital with meningitis. The parents rallied round and were hugely sympathetic. I can imagine how we'd have regarded a parent so self-absorbed she complained about not being personally notified about the situation.

Then there's the boss. She had an exhausting and stressful day running a playscheme with one person down. She probably didn't get a moment to herself to even get to the loo, never mind call the Op.
At the end of that stressful day, she realises she was supposed to call the Op - probably when the boy is standing there waiting to go home. She makes the decision to take him home anyway. He refuses to get in; she insists. "Shouting" could be anything from speaking firmly and raising her voice to shrieking "Get In The Bloody Car!!!!" in his face. She doesn't manhandle him, there is no epic struggle - he gets in and is dropped off. She almost certainly didn't realise the Op would want her to wait, she's had a godawful day from hell and she just wants to get home. It's been described as just a lift and Op is on her way so she leaves him.

Then she gets a furiously angry call from the Op just to round off her day. I'm not surprised she was a bit stiff about it.

No, it should never have happened. Yes, several bad calls were made. In the circumstances, though, I can see how it happened.
Wouldn't it have been better to calmly discuss the situation with the childminder and the playscheme and decide how it would be avoided in future? The best of us make mistakes while trying to do the right thing. Do we all deserve to be raged at like naughty children when it happens?

You don't ever go with someone without checking that it's ok with mum/dad/one of a few trusted people so who are these 'trusted people' if they are not the boss of the playscheme? Would a teacher be a 'trusted person'?

They are who mum and/or dad have said they are, Wind

Pearlman just wanted to add that in your post to Castle, in a complete emergency where there was no way that a child could check with parent, or parent could approve to child eg. parent has accident on way to meet child, teacher/other parent has to care for DC temporarily/take them home) then that's different, but it's so unusual that I'm not sure you could confuse a child under a certain age with inclusion of complete emergency situations.

In other words, that kind of emergency situation might happen once in five years. If you said "In an emergency, someone you don't know well or that I have never said you can travel with might take you to their house but that's OK because it's an emergency". How can you explain that without it looking like you're approving going off with people they don't know very well?

Kids don't tend to know their parents phone numbers

Can I suggest that everyone reading this makes sure their children DO know their phone number? I was amazed when I worked in a library for a year that secondary-aged children didn't know their home phone number and made sure from that moment on that my ds did.

Hmm they're actually very good points tanith. I also hadn't appreciated the difference between an 8yo and a much younger child in terms of best practice.
I'm also revising my opinion. I'd ring the school and ask the school secretary to pass on the message to my dc that a friends mum is picking them up - in fact I've done exactly that when my car was being fixed and ran on longer than it should have done. Of course I expected them to believe her when she said she'd spoken to me and the arrangements had changed. So I think id have been happy with this woman, trusted and in charge etc, telling ds she'd spoken to me and arrangements had changed. But I wouldn't be happy with her expecting him to just do it on her say so.

Also, the basis of stranger danger is that someone says "Jump in - Mummy's poorly, but she says it's OK for me to take you home today". That's what we want to avoid. It could be another parent or someone from a group or the man from the sweet shop e.g. someone the child recognises - or not at all - but how are they to know if it's an emergency or not?

X post pearl man. I suppose this is why we have passwords etc so the child can be sure. However in the same way as id be happy with my childminder saying "change of plans, I've spoken to your mum and my husband is bringing you home" I wouldn't be happy with her husband just doing it in her absence.
(Though in reality I would...but in principle I wouldnt)
Agh it's complicated.

To be honest though Tanith, whilst I think you've given a very measured account of things as they could have happened, there is absolutely no way any member of staff in a childcare setting should be taking it upon themselves to take a child home without the permission of his parents or forcing him in if he resisted.

I would be sympathetic to that version of events if the boy had been compliant and jumped in. It's the fact he was forced.

The thing with emergencies is that they will not involve a total stranger telling the child to get into the car with them, so it isn't a comparable thing really.

You know as well as I do that an adult can force a child to do something against his or her will without laying a finger on him.