@Eiumer
What kind of friend are you if you couldn't bring yourself to speak to her about your concerns? A good friend would have said something to the mother FIRST before involving other people or the authorities. You mention her child having ADHD meds, in addition to having many children (not sure how relevant this is to your concerns) have you ever asked her how it is for HER (emotionally, physically, mentally) to parent a child with ADHD? Or what it's like to parent many children? From the sound of your post, I doubt you have. Parenting is difficult with a healthy child, and with a SEN it gets increasingly hard and soul destroying. And yet, parents of these children do it on an ongoing basis and many without respite. Maybe she needs a breather or a friend to confide in (who won't call cs). If you really care for your "friend" and her children, do the right thing and let her know what your concerns are and why you called cs. Hopefully, she and her children will get the help they need and maybe she will make some new real friends along the way.
Do you know what its like being a child in a similar position?
Fuck what the mother feels like, she is giving her children double the dosage of medication that the child requires. She also hit her child around the head for no reason.
I was the eldest of four within our house.
My 3 siblings all had ADHD. 2 were undiagnosed until later on in their childhood.
I never really had a childhood. I had to "help" with my siblings. Except helping was to fulfil many of the parenting duties that my mother should have been fulfilling. If the younger ones were uncontrollable, she would hit me. Infact I vividly remember one of my siblings running away from me, when I was 7 or 8. I remember going home, I was having a panic attack (wasn't aware at the time just I was very upset and scared) when I managed to choke out what had happened, she smashed my head into a wall. It wasn't rare for her to hit us for nothing.
I don't remember my mum actually ever speaking to me like I was a person, I remember her screaming at me because I wasn't helping her enough, or something was wrong. In those situations you just shut down through fear anything you do is going to cause an angry reaction.
I've tried to only include the abuse that's similar to what OP has mentioned, but there will be other ways these children are being let down by their mother.
People who are like this, when they're confronted they lash out at the person confronting them. A teacher confronted her when I was 13. He knew previous SS referrals had not helped. He tried to talk to my mother to change things. She tried to have him sacked, and had me removed from his class. She managed to turn his concerns for my wellbeing into him having an agenda against me. Then I went home to be beaten.
Before this, she would be confronted by someone about something or another, it wasn't irregular for her to fight them, or to try and have them sacked, or pack up and move, or move the school me or my siblings attended.
Please don't make excuses for people who treat their children like this.
I have C PTSD, GAD, OCD, Depression, Binge eating disorder, agoraphobic tendencies and EUPD because of my childhood.
Their childhood might just put them in a position where they can never escape the damage that's been done to them.