Neglect or just crap parenting?

[selly24]

Leaving a child age 5 alone in house while running an errand taking 15 mins.
A friend seems to do this a lot. Not witnessed directly but from what parent had said eg ' DC woke up and I was on errand so was upset with me' and from what child refers to or assumes.
Eg when babysitting -' oh, why do I need to come when you go do X? Parent always leaves me here.
Was mortified when first heard bu thought prob a one off, as parent's OH was away, but seems to be a regular thing...am increasingly concerned. Should I be.?

I'm wary of this as so many unforeseen things can happen. Something I feel very bad about is leaving my 4 and 6 year olds in my house whilst I popped next door to pick up a parcel fro my neighbour. I said I would be a minute, but she got talking and I couldn't extricate myself for ages. I hadn't even gone into her house, I was outside on the drive but my DC couldn't see me from our window and when I got back they were in such a state. My DS had even worked out how to phone my DH (away in America at the time) to say that Mummy had left them and what should he do. I still feel so bad for how upset they were, due to 1 minute turning into 10

2 million wow . and of course not only the risk of an accident to the child in the home but other factors that could hold you up from getting back home quickly
The time I got ran over I wasn't exactly planning on that to happen ! ( years ago this was , not that I left my ds and this happened )
Or stuck in traffic . Very likely round here !!
Or the random spate of day time burglaries a few years back were I live , 2 houses along my small terrace block alone were broken into in broad daylight one while the people were upstairs !

its just really not worth it.

I wonder where do you people live that own home is such a dangerous and terrifying place for a child to stay for whole 10-15 minutes

I wouldn't have thought that the location of your home would make any difference to the statistics of having an accident around the home

I mean -- conditions in the house itself.

I don't think it's so much that as just general hazards from normal day to day stuff .
For example my ds tripped on the stairs hit his lip on the next step up and split his lip open . Blood everywere . He wasn't doing anything out the ordinary just rushing about like a normal 5 year old . But I was there to comfort him and clean him up. I wouldn't want him to have sat covered in blood panicking alone for 15 minutes

I'd say that's neglectful. Unless it's an emergency that is way too young to be left.

I agree Crashdoll that a nearly 9yo is different to a 5yo, I said that in my post. I also said that the OP should try to find out a bit more about the situation just in case. Personally find it difficult to imagine that leaving a 5yo for any significant length of time is acceptable.

However, I suppose I felt I should put in writing my assessment of risk on my 8yos. I don't know if there is competitive lax parenting on Mumsnet but I find in real life there is competitive super-cautious parenting where people brag about how cautious and careful they are (to an over the top degree imo) and that these people are actually more anxious parents rather than better parents as they would believe. I ask my daughters (aged 8) to wait outside the front door of the church for me after choir as I can drive up in the waiting area and they can just get straight in the car. This means I don't need to park my car a 4min walk away, get my young son with asd out of the car possibly in the rain (I say the asd as he is extremely resistant to being moved in and out of the car and I will have to carry him and he is heavy) just to walk all 3 of them back to the car. However, despite my granting permission for this, they are not allowed to walk to the front door on their own until they are 11. It annoys me, they may have to give up choir because of it as its blinking stressful getting DS in and out of the car. I have also had well-meaning people stay with my daughters in the church whilst I am waiting for them in the hall next door and not allow them to leave to meet me where we said we would meet as "they shouldn't be on their own". I will allow my children to walk from one building to another without an adult if I choose to do so. Then only risks I can see in that is that they decide to run off/run across a road they don't need to cross or they get kidnapped. Based upon my knowledge of them/experience of the world I live in I don't consider either of these things to be high risk. Sorry rant over.

Wow, I'm shocked that people won't leave 7 year olds alone at all, pretty sure I was going to the corner shop by then albeit this was abroad.

Also, my mum had to leave alone for a couple of hours every month or so when I was 6 and I was perfectly happy with that. I had been taught roughly what to do in case of fire, earthquake etc.

I can't say what I'll do when DS is 5, a definite NO! if he doesn't become a bit more cautious and a hell of a lot less feral. By 7, I definitely hope so.

I'm concerned about the attitude of a very small number of posters and enb in particular.

The complacency is frightning. It's wholly ignorant.

I would also back up comments by some posters who have been involved in the investigation/reporting of such parents. Former colleagues of mine have removed children from their parents in similar situations.

It is neglect.

Still thinking about this thread. Only in the last week or so, random things have happened in my house that I wouldn't expect a five yo to manage appropriately. The big one is that a quite large picture just fell off the wall and shattered all over the place, my son heard the commotion and started coming downstairs asking what had happened, barefoot in pjs and luckily I was able to tell him to stay upstairs as there was glass absolutely everywhere. Second thing was a crazy banging and frantic ringing on the front door that gave me a real sense of panic, and I'm not normally one to freak out over nothing but, it was really strange. I went upstairs to open a window rather than actually open the front door, which sounds ridiculous - anyway, just a yodel driver. Another thing, a ball came flying over and the next thing you know there's a teenager I don't know that had scaled the fence and was wandering through my garden looking for his ball! Back doors were open and again was quite shocked! What if my five year old was sitting there watching cartoons while I'm at Tesco buying Chardonnay??! I still don't get the point of adding risk to things. What's so important?

Former colleagues of mine have removed children from their parents in similar situations

I doubt that vey much, you're being hysterical.

There is something that really grinds my gears about people saying 'well my parents did that when I was a child and I worked out fine'.

The reason social services take issues like this seriously is not because they are mini risk-averse fascists. The reason these things are now considered neglect because there have been many instances where such actions ended in the serious harm of a child. It's great you weren't harmed but clearly some poor child was and that's why we now are more careful. The risks have not increased, however thankfully we now live in a world that takes child protection and safeguarding slightly more seriously than it did in the 70s.

Appalling parenting. DD2 was asked to a friend's house for tea when she was 4 years old. Went to pick her up at the agreed time, only to find that the au pair had buggered off upstairs to her room and left them alone as the other child's mother had gone out. Their house was next to a busy main road in London, and anything could have happened.

What is the child at risk of when being left home alone for a short period? Especially if they're asleep? Presumably care has been taken to not leave out the knives, lighters and barbed wire?

'What if you're in an accident while you pop out?' - surely you'd thank god the child wasn't with you and in the accident too but rather home alone, safe and sound?

I don't get what the problem is.

Bullshit has anyones child been removed because they were left in their own home for a short time.

I know a family where the mother took all her children (overloaded) into a car without belts on. They had an accident, youngest child was killed instantly purely because she wasn't in a seat or had a belt on. None of her other children were removed or pursued by SS. Thats taking a stupid fucking risk.

I know a family at the school who's 3 year old son is so fat he can hardly run. Kid constantly has a bottle of coke and sweets in his hand. Thats neglect. No SS involvement at all.

Kids removed because mum popped to the shop and left them home. Utterly ridiculous.

"At telco buying chardonney" see now you're just being silly and trying to paint a picture of uncaring mother after her own interests. I happen to believe that my children are more independent, street wise and mature than most children their age. I think thats a good think and tbh if my 6 year old was hysterical because I was next door for 10 minutes i'd be wondering wtf was going on. That is ridiculous.

Ignore typos, thats why I never come on these threads, my blood ends up boiling!

Inyournightdress,
Your post is utter rubbish and so is your memory .
You think we live in a world that takes child protection and safeguarding more serious than it did in the 70's well not for Baby P it didn't , no one looked out for him.
Think before you post.

inyour

Agreed . There is a lot more awareness now regarding safety and accident prevention . ( for example I believe that wearing seat belts in rear seats only became compulsory in the mid 80s , I wonder how many people of the " it was ok for us when we were kids " mentality would apply that same logic to this example )

Awareness of issues are also much more widely reported through social media , the Internet etc . We were allowed to go out on our bikes all day as kids . We had plenty of minor accidents and one friend was run over by a car and taken to hospital . I split my head open in a seperate incident and remember the panic of neither me or any of my friends really knowing what to do !

I remember my cousin coming over hysterical because a man had tried to get him into his car on the pretext of he had been seen misbehaving and his mum had sent for him . Luckily my cousin ran off . There were other Similair incidents . Now a days this would be posted all over Facebook to warn other parents in the area but back then we'd be told to be careful and that would be about it because our parents were just doing what their parents before had done in allowing children so much freedom. Didn't mean bad things never happened they frequently did to varying degrees just so much less awareness .

A century ago I'd have been out of education and at work by about age 12 does that mean that kids of today should be too ?? Sorry my rant has gone way off topic !!

Its not illegal unless it can be proved the child is in danger, so if you are sure its happening regularly and the child is aware of it that could be classed as neglect as its causing the child emotional distress which is classed as danger. That would be looked into by social services seriously.
If its a one off and theres no other concerns about the family then it wouldnt get very far if you reported it as its not actually illegal in itself.

Blue folly

Don't be so ignorant. I was a lawyer for 14 years in a large local authority.

I'm aware that child protection cases have been instigated based around similar reports of neglect that when concluded have led to the removal of children. Some temporarily, others on a permanent basis.

Other than sheer laziness, why would anyone choose to leave a 5yo at home alone?

I would also back up comments by some posters who have been involved in the investigation/reporting of such parents. Former colleagues of mine have removed children from their parents in similar situations

After all the child abuse cases involving children in care, I would think it is really frightening that a ss would think that a child should be removed from their family for such a flimsy reason.

What if there's a fire?

avamiah I don't think we live in that world I know. Yes there are awful horrendous cases where social workers have failed, as there are failures in every profession. But I know that child protection measures are better now than they were in the 70s. I think your post was a bit of an overreaction to be honest.