To think he should take his own child to school?

[ApplesandOrangesandPears]

I have a neighbour who's child is my daughters class, every day this past week this child has showed up at my door unaccompanied to go to school with us - this would be fine but my child has ADHD and mornings are chaotic and difficult. I don't have this child's parents phone numbers, and don't know exactly where they live! However I just saw the parent in their car driving away as I was trying to bundle all 3 children across the car park.....this child is very young and so I don't feel comfortable sending them home alone and clearly the parent isn't waiting for them to get home before leaving themselves! I don't have any contact with these parents so if something were to happen I wouldn't be able to let them know, we are also going away soon and won't be able to take him to school! AIBU to think this is really cheeky of the parents and that you shouldn't just assume another parent will take yours to school with no prior conversation at all!

OP, this is a really strange situation and I'm surprised you have not tried contacting kids parents after the first time. Do you really want to be responsible for someone else's kid? What if he is send to yours in the morning, you are not there, and something happens to them? The fact that you don't even know who these people are is totally crazy and hard for me to comprehend, though I kind of understand how this situation came about.

You should have told the school's safeguarding person about it after the first time. Explain that some random parent dumped this kid on you and you have no idea who they are. Do not do this again unless the parents do what any normal person would do - come to yours, introduce themselves and ask you if you are ok to take kids to school. If they do it again take him to school but tell the school that if this happens again you are calling the police and SS as you literally don't know who this kid is.

Secondary as I said earlier today. (Though I'm also safeguarding lead in a residential summer school where the children are aged 7-17- our 7 year olds aren't allowed to even go across the campus on their own) I also mentioned that my own daughter's primary allows children to go home and come to school alone from the age of 7 as long as the parents have given permission.

I also said there is no one protocol implemented nationally and each school decides for itself about walking to and from school. The OP said she had been told the same by the school. That children can go to school on their own.

All other things being equal, and on the face of what the OP has said, (child's school allows children to go to school alone, child is picked up from school by a parent) there is no safeguarding issue. Obviously there may be something that is a safeguarding issue, but it's neither mentioned or known by the OP.

@ApplesandOrangesandPears is your dc actually friends with this child? Agree the parents should have asked you (and provided details for if you can't do it for any reason, but if they're buds I'd probably carry on.

Speak to the school and explain the situation. They have the child's parents number and while they won't give it to you they can certainly pass on a message as this is a safeguarding issue.

A child being allowed to walk to school and dumping your child on stranger neighbours and being driven in their car are two very different things

This thread is hilarious 😂

Good that you reported this to school but it will be interesting to see if child turns up again on Monday. I think 7 is too young to walk to school if there are busy roads and car parks to cross. Sounds like an accident waiting to happen but at least you have done all you can.

Unless the school talk to his parents though the chances are that he will continue to knock on your door in the mornings.

See I’d say that whether it’s safe for that particular child to walk unaccompanied to school depends on that child’s maturity and ability to keep themselves safe. If they aren’t able to keep themselves safe and know how to respond to accidents, it’d be a form of ‘neglect’ to let them be unsupervised in public according to the definition in KCSIE. That’s regardless of the minimum age set by the school for which pupils they allow to walk there. The fact that there’s no legal age works both ways. But I’d say many 7 year olds aren’t yet mature enough and from the behaviour the OP describes it doesn’t sound like this child is.

@Cornishclio why is it hilarious?

Definitely talk to someone about this, to check all is ok. Your post is very contradictory though! You say the "child has showed up at my door unaccompanied to go to school with us". Later you say "However I just saw the parent in their car driving away as I was trying to bundle all 3 children across the car park." You made it sound as if the parent was sending the to your house so that they could leave before the child was able to be at school. However, if you are seeing the parent leave after you are on school grounds, then clearly they weren't leaving for work before the child is safely at school. Are you sure that the parent isn't happily supervising their child onto school property and the child is just sticking to your gang because if you don't have siblings to walk with, it's more fun to wait for your friend and his parent and sibling, than walk by yourself. My son has a friend in his class, who lives opposite us, and they both walk by themselves, but they almost always end up together on the street first. One will wait for the other, or they'll come out at the same time anyway. Maybe just have a word with the mum.

Because people are clearly not reading the OPs posts and making quite absurd suggestions.

She says fairly near the top of the thread she already had alerted the school who would not (quite rightly) give out address although she knows the child is a neighbour so presumably lives in the immediate vicinity.

Others have said driving a random child to school is not advisable although again she says several times they are walking to school and the child is not random but a classmate of her DD.

Someone suggested taking the child to the police station although her DD knows he is in her class.

She obviously already has her hands full with a SEN child and a younger one she is trying to get to school and nursery and then work so alerting social services as someone else suggested is not her call let alone taking the child to the police station or contacting the police and telling them to come out as another poster suggests.

Ideally she would speak to the Dad when he actually drops the boy outside the OPs house if she can but failing that she needs to tell the child that she can't take him to school and he is to let his Dad know that.

The Dad is obviously a CF but from the sound of it an uncaring dad as well.

The communal car park is for the houses we all live in, it's not the school car park and you can't see the school from the car park so the parents definitley not surpervising. I only know the dad by sight I don't know the mum at all. I was told today by my child that his parents have to go to work in the mornings so thats why they can't drop him apparently (how reliable that is I'm not sure).

Lazy parenting! I would be trying to find out where they lived this weekend and putting a stop to it quickly

I'm glad you alerted the school. This should not be happening and is a serious safeguarding issue

I'm assuming the child said to her mum I want to go in for 'x' in the morning to go to school with her and the mum has dropped her off, maybe not a case of the mum dumping her child on someone else as free child care.

I don't know how far away from u the school is but I was going to school on my own at 7 and so was many other kids but I'm 47 now and kids get ferried about everywhere these days.

Just go into the school and tell them this child has been turning up at ur door and could they contact the parents and tell them u are unable to continue bringing them to school or just tell the child next time she turns up to tell her mum she can't come in for ur daughter in the mornings anymore or put a note in the child's bag for her mum. I wouldn't make a big deal about it. Getting anyone else other than the school involved is a bit ridiculous. All that's happened is a child has come in for another child to go to school with them.

I don't get why the father isn't dropping his kid off at school. I know schools don't like children getting to school early but if you can see the school from your car park, it must be minutes away. Walking the short walk with you is hardly going to make much difference to the time the child arrives at school.

I agree. The parents, namely the Dad would not be instructing his child to go to OP’s house if he thought his 7 yo child was mature enough to travel to school by themselves.

maybe not a case of the mum dumping her child on someone else as free child care.

This is the case as OP does not know who this child’s parents are, does not know exactly which property they live in and there has not been any communication about this. The child is being dumped on OP’s door for the last week. OP opens her front door and there’s no parent to be seen!

Although, both parents (X’s Mum and Dad) are responsible for their child, the child’s Dad has been referred to as telling the child to go to OP’s house, not the child’s Mum. Let’s not ignore the Dad and talk about maybe X said this to their Mum and OP should put a note in said child’s bag for the Mum, when it is the Dad who is the last responsible adult is charge of the child before allowing them to walk over to OP’s house. The Dad is also this child’s parent, so let’s not put all of the responsibility for this child on the child’s Mum. If it takes two to create a child, it should also take two to raise them.

Christ on a bike the reading comprehension levels on here are shocking.

Try again (I’ve underlined the important bit for you)

The communal car park is for the houses we all live in, it's not the school car park and you can’t see the school from the car park so the parents definitley not surpervising.

Is this for real?

Why should OP just carry on?

In their opening post, OP stated that their child has ADHD and their mornings are chaotic and difficult.

Why does OP need to also deal with this in her already stressful mornings, by continuing to provide free unpaid labour (childcare) for this child with unknown parents?
Would you expect a random male neighbour to also just carry on with it?

And what would happen to this child if OP needs to leave home earlier to take their DC to the school’s Breakfast Club (like they did yesterday) and this neighbour’s child turns up at her door, nobody is in, and their parents have already zoomed off in their car to go to work. The school may only be down the road, but who is responsible for this unaccompanied 7 year old child then??

Hope that helps

I would like to apologise to the OP for reading 'can' when clearly they had written 'can't'.

No apologies to you.

Now that is different. going from an empty house potentially? I'd mention it to school for sure.

It’s also possible that the child’s mum isn’t aware that the dad is sending their child to OP’s house in the morning. Maybe the mum thinks dad is doing the AM school run? Or the dad has lied to the child’s mum telling her that he has spoken to OP and that OP is fine with the arrangement?

Regardless, what is happening is cheeky, wrong and a definite safeguarding issue. This dad is clearly shirking his responsibilities to his child and putting them at risk.

Finding and funding childcare is tough and expensive, but this child is not OP’s responsibility or problem. Again, OP has not met either of the parents and may just about recognise dad’s face in a line up if they had to! I’m addition, OP does not know where this child lives, has no contact numbers for either parent and not one discussion between any responsible adults has taken place.

The thing is, if it is legal for him to let his child walk to school alone, then it ties the school's hands somewhat. They may have no way to force the father to accompany his child to school. It's only one busy road, but that's enough for a child to get killed! I seem to recall the research is that children cannot judge whether it's safe to cross a road (i.e. can't judge regarding whether a car is too close, etc) until age 9. So although the optimal outcome here is that the father drives or walks his OWN child to school, your choices might in fact be: (1) stay out of it, child walks to school alone or (2) you informally keep letting child walk with you.