To think my friend isn’t supervising her son enough?

[HelloGoodbye92]

Posted yesterday but then somehow managed to delete it!

My closest friend has a son who is autistic. His behaviour is becoming increasingly challenging for my friend to manage. He is 5 years old. She is a single parent which, be her own admission, is through choice. Dad was a friend who she had a one night stand with. He refused to have a relationship with her once she found out she was pregnant, so she refused to let him have any involvement with their son. She has support from her parents who live about 5 minutes away and babysit for her regularly.

I feel she isn’t supervising her son anywhere near as much as she should. While she can’t have eyes on the back of her head, and accidents happen, I do feel it’s constant in her case. Examples of this:

she will go and lie in the bath for up to an hour or go for naps while her son is awake and had free run of the house. While she is doing this, he has managed to smash a fish tank, get out the front door, get into the cleaning cupboard, wreck rooms (I don’t mean make a mess, I mean break furniture and put holes in the walls), raid the fridge (by this I mean eating raw meat and smashing eggs etc, not stealing a yoghurt).
She also allows him to play in her front garden while she sits in the house. She is sitting at the window but it takes her time to get out to him in an emergency. He has managed to get out of her gate and into the street. She lives beside a very busy main road.
This extends to days out where he has managed to run away in various settings. This has led to him getting into car parks on his own and staff having to bring him back as she hasn’t even realised he has left. He is also aggressive at time and violent towards other children but she will leave him unattended in places like softplay where he has hurt small children while unattended on the play frame.

I have brought this up with her, gently, several times. Her reasoning is that she is a single parent and can’t be expected to do everything, all of the time. That she gets overwhelmed. I understand feeling burnt out (our family is twice the size of a normal family and all the children are still very young). But I don’t think she can justifiably take risks the way that she does. She also admits she can’t physically keep up with him as she is very overweight.

AIBU to feel so uncomfortable with this?

Thank you all. I think I really just needed the reassurance that I’m not massively over reacting. She does have social work involved already for other reasons but I don’t think they know the extent to which this is going on. I feel awful as I know she loves her son dearly and I don’t think she realises just how unsafe a situation she is creating. However, she isn’t willing to take anything on board when myself, her mum, other friends etc bring it up. It’s the same with services- it’s like she feels they are all out to “get” her.

It tells me I should report her. I think I know this in my heart of hearts. Will call today. Thank you.

I don't understand why you haven't contacted social services ? I don't think they know how much she's struggling isn't good enough. If the child gets hurt then you will blame yourself because you didn't alert the people who could /should be helping her.

She has social work input so I was hoping they would address all of this but I realised they weren’t fully aware. I’m going to call today.

She absolutely needs to secure the house at a minimum.

She can't take her of her son, my son is 12 and is on the spectrum I don't even let him out on his own much less next to a busy road. Her son is going to end up getting run over.

Report to social services. Either she needs parenting lessons, or needs to accept she's not the parent that little boy needs.

I know we’re not all the same but I’m autistic and have ADHD. I also had PND which led to psychosis.
Of course I wasn’t the best mum at the time but I never did the things that she’s doing.

Autism can be genetic and if you add that to being a single mum then it can be very overwhelming and it’s almost like her brain isn’t foreseeing the consequences of her actions.
Simply locking the front door would be an easy fix but she’s not even doing that.

His behaviour is pretty typical of a child who is left to defend for themselves.
Autistic people often crave structure and routine and so it’s very possible that if he’s left to his own devices he’s going to do things that may cause destruction.

I would contact SS in this instance, for your friends benefit as she obviously needs help.

You are a good friend OP.

The social care children with disabilities team should be involved OP. They should be able to offer support and advice.
An OT can assess the home and help make it safe (though basic safety precautions like properly locking the front door are her responsibility) It sounds as if this boy needs a sensory assessment as well.

She has social work input

How did your friend come to be on social services' radar in the first place? Did someone else report her? Did she ask them for help? Or does she have other challenges (that are unrelated to the way she cares for her son) that flag her up as a concern.

Your description of her, on the face of it, sounds to me like a description of someone who actually has a learning disability of some kind. Or is mentally ill and on some very heavy medication for it (eg anti-psychotics/sedatives rather than ordinary SSRIs).

It sounds more than poor supervision to me, aside from the danger if he smashes something when she is napping she has to clean it up which doubles her work load and no doubt causes huge stress yet she can lie there and snooze, risking a repeat. That seems very unusual behaviour, like she is totally detached or so overwhelmed that she needs to shut down and is incapable of reason. I don't know if that's depression or something else but it's definitely worrying and not normal healthy behaviour.

I hate hearing these stories. I'm glad she has a concerned friend in you OP.

I'm autistic and i understand completely that leaving a small child unattended for an hour is unacceptable. Let's not make autism an excuse for shitty and neglectful parenting

We don't know if they have been involved ?
They don't stay involved infecting have resolved current issues we have had then involved at several points .

Yoy cannot possibly know that based on a,few posts on a thread .

I didn't say that I knew that.

I said that is how the OP's description, on the face of it, makes it sound - so I was wondering if that might be why social services were already involved in her friend's life.

I'm not diagnosing anyone, but the OP's description of her friend's behaviour simply made me wonder if she some additional challenges in her life that were stopping her from caring for her son, and that perhaps there were some details that the OP had left out, that's all.

Clearly, being a single parent to an autistic child is really fucking hard and I'm sure many parents would struggle to cope, but the OP's description of her friend's behaviour (which is all we have to go on) sounds like a description of someone who genuinely isn't fully aware of consequences or responsibilities, rather than a parent who is struggling to cope with her child's additional needs. But of course I'm aware that I don't have the full picture - nobody who is on the thread and offering their thoughts and advice does.

Chiod is perfectly "typical " asd behaviour Report and suggest ss provide in home respite support each day so she can take bath etc. Or respite with foster carer. Or ss approach dad to have him 1 day a week.

You can request respite all.you want it doesn't mean you wull.get the amount you want or need
My son currently gets one day a week in the school holidays in a special needs day scheme and every other Saturday in the same scheme ,we are also supposed ti.have twi.over nights a month which haven't materialised yet due to.staffing issues ,and this is a child with very high needs .
Plus,it all.needs to.he assessed and go to.panel.and agreed upon.

"Report and suggest ss provide in home respite support each day so she can take bath etc. Or respite with foster carer. Or ss approach dad to have him 1 day a week."

Dream on dreamer.

If her son's sleeping pattern is totally fucked (as is often the case with ND kids) and she has no partner to tap out with, then she might be in a constant state of sleep deprivation, which isn't the best state to remember to lock the door or decision make etc. When DS2's sleep was worse than it is now, I had a couple of naps where I was "just going to lie down for a minute" and then had DS1 wake me up!

She has always maintained it was because of her ex but couldn’t ever rationalise how that would be the case (he hadn’t had any contact for a year at that point except via lawyers). She placed him in nursery on the advice of her health visitor as he wasn’t meeting milestones in terms of speech, development etc. The nursery raised a few concerns about things- his weight being one of them (he is obese, now under the care of a dietician). I’m sure they also raised concerns about her initially denying there were any developmental issues- as she initially refused any sort of assessment and maintained that he was just a bit slower to meet milestones. She still seems quite out of touch in that regard. She frequently tries to initiate potty training by just going cold turkey but her son really doesn’t have the insight to understand what’s happening and was going to nursery having wet himself on the way there etc. I know they spoke to her about this and she felt it wasn’t their place.

one of the biggest I’ve issues found is that she buries her head in the sand a lot and it’s hard to always know how honest she is being.

I think he sleeps well when he has the routine of nursery there (he starts school soon). But she actively plans naps. She will text saying she is away for a lie down then texts a while later, incensed as he has done something he shouldn’t have.

Have you tried helping ?im.not saying what's she's done by is right but it's alk.very well.you judging her but not actually doing anything I'm in the middle of schiol.holidays right now with a 13 year old who.is cognitively around 2/3 and its hard work I'm not single but my dh,works shifts walk.a mile in her shoes etc

I can offer advice but I can’t look after her son. He has very complex needs and would be impossible to look after him properly with my own 5 kids (including a small baby). Even when he is here with her, he is very aggressive at times and much bigger than most children his age so he needs someone literally within arms reach at all times. This is one of my concerns about when we go places like softplay, she will let him go on the playframes unattended and more than once children have been hurt. She has been asked to leave softplay in the past due to this.

As an example, throughout nursery he was kept on one to one supervision at all times due to the risks to himself and others.

Yes I get it my child has very complex needs too ,and goes ro.a special.school.for children with severe and profound learning disabilities but sometimes it feels people are quick to.judge without offering any practical help
Are there any special.needs groups in the area she can access?
Respite isn't easy to.access and she would need assessment for it
If you feel.the child is in immediate danger than I guess all.you can do.is alert the relevant authorities.

That’s the thing, I’m really trying to be supportive and not judge. I want her to get help as I feel like if the situation escalates then the input she will have will feel more punitive than helpful. There are local groups for ASN families, but convincing her to attend is difficult.