Four year old twins left home alone

[MrsDoylesTeaTrolley]

For at least an hour. Is there any circumstance that makes this reasonable?

Don't feel guilty reporting it.

It's nothing personal. the welfare of the children is the most important thing here.

If she had an emergency, then she needed to knock on a neighbours door to ask for help either fetching something or looking after the children for an hour.

Exactly this. There is no excuse.

And far better to report than decide it’s not your business. If she had a babysitter there then she’ll be able to demonstrate that.

As someone who also has twins a) they get up to so much more mischief than a singleton when together and b) parenting twins can be HARD. So I don’t think you should feel guilty, I hope through you speaking to someone she gets some more external support.

Op, it’s not your decision to make or worry about. You can only do the right thing as you have done, by reporting and letting the professionals decide what happens next.

You were absolutely right to report it. There are no circumstances under which children that age should be left alone. For me, children should be at least 10 or so before they are left alone and even then only for a very short time (eg 10 minutes to nip to the shops). It sounds like their mother is not coping.

And as for SS saying it’s not a safeguarding issue to leave 2 young children in a front garden all day - how can it not be? That makes no sense.

OP you did the right thing.

You may feel guilt, but nothing compared to how you would feel if something happened.

2021- 4 children aged around 3/4 year of age died in a tragic house fire when they were left home alone. No no no. You should have called the police immediately.

My thoughts exactly. Maybe gone off to meet some dodgy man in return for drugs or whatever. Why take insane risks otherwise?
No one with a scrap of responsibility would leave two young children alone.
Had it been a true emergency= she'd have asked someone to babysit, surely.

My Mum and Dad did this, even going abroad and for overnights in a hotel.

No caring, responsible parent would do this. There will be other forms of abuse going on too.

All the adults around me just pretended not to notice anything.

If no one ever speaks up, these kids will loose their childhood.

@ChickenNugget86
Was this on the UK?.That is definitely a safeguarding concern...SW here.Whoever told you that was lying.

@Andsoso I wondered if this was because I reality the neighbours were forced into supervising so the children weren't actually alone. Still shocking though

Hope your life turned out OK in the end...because of you.