To report my NDN to Social services?

[Purplecrocsrock]

My NDN is African, so are both of her children, there's a man who goes in a few times a week and I've heard the children call him dad.
We live in a terraced house, and the walls are paper thin. We get up at around 8am most days & she is screaming already, calling the children bastards, c*nts, imbeciles, and shockingly the N word.
Last time i knocked on after the child was screaming for around 25 minutes with her screaming abuse at him, the kids are 5 & 7.
She has friends round often, i see them in the garden smoking, she never shouts while the visitors are there but any other time its full on shouting, then crying
It's dusturbing me now, shall i report and can i do it anonymously, even though she will probably know it's me.

@glintandglide

What about children who have been killed by their parents? Would they have been worse off in care? They would at least have been alive.

I’m sure you can understand the difference between this situation and one where a child has been killed
I’m sure you can also understand that outcomes are at population level

There are many terrible things can can come from a child not being taken into care when they should have been which are short of being killed.

Yes, but the problem is that you can never tell when these tragedies are going to happen. That comes out over and over again, with the over used phrase 'Lessons will be learnt.'

Children left with their parents can suffer all kinds of damage as well. I suffered SA as a child, as did my DSis. Would we have been better off in care? Probably, but it's impossible to tell.

I'm also an adoptive parent. My DD1 in particular has a lot of issues, including Attachment Disorder, but I wouldn't ever think that they're worse off being with us than with their birth parents, where there is DV and drugs. Obviously, in an ideal world, adoption and fostering wouldn't need to happen, but sadly this is very far from an ideal world.

I think it’s fairly obviously Lizzie, but you don’t remove children being shouted at immediately just in case.

People are not saying these children should necessarily be removed, but it needs to be investigated. The concerning part for me is that the mother doesn't shout and scream at her DC when they have guests at the house. Meaning that she's able to pull the wool over people's eyes.

Well done for reporting it.

Don’t forget you can also call 999 if you are concerned about a child’s welfare - the situation you described where she is shouting consistently and the child is crying I would ring 999 and say you are concerned for the child’s safety.

It does sound odd to me Merry. Certainly there are some cultural differences between Africans bringing up children in Africa and British people bringing up children in the UK. Physical chastisement is more common, and that would be viewed negatively by many British people.

However, this doesn't sound like a typical African parent. Specifically the use of the 'N word'. I use that term to avoid getting my post deleted. It's used by racists, particularly, white supremacists, to denigrate and cause offence. When black people use it (usually young men use it between themselves) they don't use it as an offensive word. They have reclaimed it from its offensive usage. But I don't think it is used much outside of gritty, tough, inner city areas.

So it would be very odd for any parent, black or white, African or Swedish, to call their child that. However, people do do strange things.

Quite so, I was not saying these children should go into care, I have no idea whether they should or shouldn't, one would have to know a great deal more about the situation and the people involved. I would express no opinion on that with the information we have so far. I am just saying that this level of abuse has to be reported and investigated.

Irrelevant that she is African, however yes you should report this. It was our neighbours who reported my birth mother to social services and I am so thankful everyday that they did. If not we might never have got out of that god awful house.

I'm glad yiuve reported it, hopefully someone will help the children

OP please record as much as you can!

IME what will happen is SS will visit her and she will deny everything, possibly suggest it’s a malicious report and refuse any support because she “doesn’t need it”. Providing her house isn’t a shit tip, SS will close the case file and that will be it. So record everything!

No judge is going to authorise removing children to care (where the rates of abuse are high and outcomes are poor) on a anonymous report of verbal abuse.

It isn’t a black and white situation of status quo vs removal. Social workers will do whatever they can to support the children to be safe at home. So yes parenting classes and support sessions are part of this.

If they investigate and find evidence of domestic violence, substance misuse, physical abuse, severe mental illness or sexual abuse of course the outcome would be different but anon reports don’t go anywhere unless ‘hard’ evidence turns up.

Call 999 next time you hear her screaming the C and N word at them.

*Call 999 next time you hear her screaming the C and N word at them

Please don't. Distasteful as it may be to hear, it is not an emergency and you would be a complete twat to waste police time like that.

The number you would need to call is 111, the non emergency number.

It’s 101 for non emergencies. 111 is NHS Direct.

If a child is being shouted at to that extent and the op doesn’t actually know what’s going on she would actually be very right to call 999, the same as you would if you heard two adults behaving that way with one shouting and threatening the other. 999 is for emergencies and when there is risk of serious harm or intent to cause harm to another person.

African Mother’s have a stereotype of being firm on their kids. Get away with nothing and very strict on education. I wonder if this is why OP noted that she was African?

My friends and I joke about how harsh/strict our families are (from varying African/Jamaican/Indian backgrounds). Completely different in comparison to a westernised family (stereotype again).

Sorry, yes that's right. Silly me! I've often rung 111 for NHS Direct as well.

To add to my previous post, this parent does appear to be very extreme and might need additional support from social services.

My sons had a flat in a block and my youngest said he could no longer be around women hitting and shouting at little kids. Not all people treat their children kindly

As we weren't there, it's impossible to say whether the OP should call 999 or 101, or call SS. It does sound like the mother is very aggressive towards her DC, though, so calling 999 might well not be an overreaction.

@AnEPleaseBob I've been in the police for years. We would attend as a priority a job where a parent is screaming at her children that they were Nggers and cnts but do feel free to tell me my job.

And 'distasteful?' That's what you call racist and violent language?

It's people like you - the ones who minimise child abuse - verbal in this case by the sounds of it - who contribute to a society in which children are further abused by their carers and worse

Dreadful! You just do not shout at anyone like that, particularly not children. I feel quite shocked.

I think you should report her but it might help to have some proof - can you record her or have a witness? The chances are that SS will come round on the one morning it doesn't happen. It's also possible the social workers will do nothing and the woman will realise it was you who reported her which could be very difficult.

Proceed but with caution and precautions.