To think this is no way to punish a child!

[Justalittlelemondrizzle]

Neighbours arrived home. Dad shouting and swearing at 7yo lad. Don't know what he's done obvs. They went in house where their neighbour heard banging before the crying 7 yo is thrown out of the house and the door is locked. He's knocked on the door about 10 times. It's raining so he keeps going under a shelter in the garden as he doesn't even have a coat on.
Dads just come out to take football off him before going back in the house and locking the door so the kid is now playing with rocks. He's been out there 40 minutes now 😒 surely this isn't normal behaviour?

@Justalittlelemondrizzle

Was the incident reported to child protection? If not I can find the number to call.

Schools make children go out in the rain .Dd had to do netball for longer than that today outside .It wasn't that cold today in fact pretty mild.i do no t really think this meets the threshold for police involvement

^^ not the same!!

Of course it's not the same.

I have friends who put their 4 year old outside when he's naughty. They were telling a "funny" story about him calling in through the letterbox that he was scared of the dark and monsters might get him. My heart broke a wee bit at the thought of that. I once leant them a book with gentler discipline methods. I don't think they read it though. It wouldn't be my choice of discipline but you can't get involved unless a child is actually being abused

Just what exactly DOES constitute abuse in your mind then? Because what you've described IS abuse.

By sitting by and letting this happen, you were complicit in the abuse of this little boy.

@Joskar
@Justalittlelemondrizzle

It is an offence not to report this abuse. If you feel you can’t report it to the police, please tell the school at the very least.

My dd was frantic when I once went inside the house and the front door swung shut while she was still in the car. I was going straight back for her and was just bringing shopping bags in. She thought I’d shut her out and was petrified. She was perhaps 4/5 and took at least 10 mins to calm down even though I got her within seconds. We don’t have a Yale lock so she could have come in herself.

I know her reaction is extreme. But this is how a child is actually feeling when their parents deliberately shut them out even though they aren’t allowed to show this to their parents for fear of scorn or ridicule.

To all, who suffered abuse as a child.

As Mummy said, anyone who fails to report abuse is guilty of neglect.

Children all have the right to feel safe, no punishment should make them feel unsafe.

If they're prepared to do this in full view of the neighbours much worse is probably happening behind closed doors.

I don't think you need another person telling you to report op, I hope you have.

@scotsrule maybe in your area social workers would go out on an emergency duty visit out of hours but not in mine! If it is a case of a child being at risk of immediate harm they would send the police. If the risk is not immediate they would refer to the duty team to pick up the next day.
There simply are not the budgets to have out of hours responsive services. The only thing out of hours do in our area would be to identify foster placements for children taken into police protection out of hours.

I would be very surprised if none of the social workers in your area attend duty visits, your area must be in the minority as most councils in the uk have a 24 hour response team. I don’t doubt most if it is phone call advice and filtering to the day teams, but they should be doing emergency duty calls. As it is a statutory service, social care is one of the few areas that has managed to avoid being hit by budget cuts in this area.

I hope that if you haven't already phoned please make it your priority today to do it. Please let us know if you have as we are all worried about this little boy it the best thing you can do for him and his family, then the experts can do the rest.

Honestly - anything that requires immediate attention is dealt with by police (as they are the only agency with powers to remove children from harmful situations) and everything else is picked up the next day. I cannot imagine what would be the value in a duty social work visit after 6pm. No solicitors, schools, gp surgeries would be working, the courts are closed, there would be no purpose to such a visit that could not be undertaken during the day to better effect.
Given the additional costs that social workers working overnight and weekends would incur, and the health and safety aspect of out of hours working (obviously nobody could do lone visits, so you would need at least 3 social workers, a manager and an admin on 24/7) as well as the pressures on recruiting social workers to fill the 9-5 vacancies I would be fascinated to know which local authorities have such a system?
Although social care is a statutory service it certainly has not avoided budget cuts I can assure you. Hence why a 4-5 staff strong 24/7 social work team would be a total impossibility in most areas, I would have said all, but apparently you have knowledge of a local authority which has a huge staffing budget for a pointless 24/7 response team! Who knew?

Sorry for the late reply. I've been busy!

Firstly I am not a troll! Why is everyone a troll nowadays? I've been here for the best part of a decade and haven't even name changed for this post. So not sure why anyone would think that.

Secondly, I didn't sit there and watch for 50 minutes! Ppfft! Another neighbour told me what she'd seen and heard. Then I looked out of the window and saw what happened.
I didn't think much of it (for all I knew the kid had been violent to his sibling and was sent out to play to calm down?)
I kept checking back and every time he was still there but not crying anymore and playing football. So I thought everything was fine.
I did keep checking on him and the ball was taken etc. Then it started raining and I realised he wasn't wearing a coat and I became concerned. Especially as he kept knocking on the door. I checked how long he'd been out there by this point by looking when my other neighbour messaged me about it.
That's when I asked for advice on here. After I received a few replies he was let in. Yes, I was watching and looking out for his wellbeing at this point.

I contacted the school and told them I was concerned as opposed to the authorities. Maybe this was the wrong thing to do. But the school know this family personally and can make the call if needed. They'll also see the boy this morning and begin to deal with this themselves without causing any distress to him of someone knocking on the door late in the evening etc.

I know, I get really fed up with the troll hunting on here. I think people were hoping it wasn't true because it was so triggering for some of them.

Posted too soon. Informing the school was a good idea as they may well have safeguarding concerns. But I think you should also call SS anonymously as well, then it's logged with them. You could also call the NSPCC to ask for advice.

Good you called the school.
Please call police as well. God knows what goes on indoors.

I would report it to SS too, mainly because if something did happen to the poor boy months/years down the line I would hate to think that there was something I could have done. Report it and you know that you have done all you can.

Haven’t schools got enough to do? School may work with social services but they are NOT social services. Next time, call the right people.

Would seeing a child in a garden in the rain, part of the time playing football trigger a visit off the police/ss?

I would contact school too op. They will have a much bigger picture of the family and are more likely to know if it's a one off type situation or part of a bigger picture which needs reporting and investigating further. If your report is the one that pushes it to the latter, I imagine their build up of evidence is more likely to push ss into acting than a one off call to the police/ss with only one thing to report.

Would seeing a child in a garden in the rain, part of the time playing football trigger a visit off the police/

No, almost definitely not.

Would seeing a child in a garden in the rain, part of the time playing football trigger a visit off the police/ss?

Not if they were well wrapped up, door open to them to go in and warm up, and out there of their own free will

Surely kicking a ball around to keep warm/mitigate the fact they’ve been screamed at and locked out is a rather different matter?

Probably Kochab but I don't know how seriously they take calls like that and i doubt it would be a priority call out for them, that's why I asked. I don't know if a police visit would trigger an automatic ss visit? I don't know if ss would visit based on a one off report like this? That's why I would report to school the same as op has.

Call police! And report to social services! This is horrible and abusive behaviour. If he's being locked out I wonder what else he is subject to.

Just seen that you told school. I really think you should phone social services too. Anonymously if you like.

mini yup so I suppose the context is key. The report should be that a child has been locked out in the rain after being screamed at. If the caller only mentioned the football they’d be misrepresenting the situation