After school won’t let my teenage daughter pick up my son in an emergency

[Fuknstuck]

I’m sick, running a fever, I’m dizzy and fluid is streaming out both ends. I am also disabled so this has a knock on effect on my mobility. It just came on 2 hours ago, there’s no way I can leave the toilet let alone drive one street safely.

I called after school care to request my 14 almost 15 year old daughter to pick up my 6 year old son and bring him home, one street away and they’re refusing because she’s a minor. I explained there is nobody able to help me - neighbours all at work, only one who isn’t is 93 and dying of cancer, my parents live 300 miles away and my partner is working in intensive care and can’t just up and leave. I dont have friends who use the after care.

They are refusing to allow my daughter to pick him up. They know her, they know she’s mature and responsible but won’t let her bring him the one street from school to our home. I’ve asked what I’m supposed to do. It’s the first time I’ve ever asked them to do this and they know it’s an emergency and they’re refusing. I’ve asked how we resolve this as they can’t keep him overnight and I literally cannot get to the school.

AIBU to expect in an emergency situation where the parent trusts the teenage child and accepts all liability, that they should allow her to pick him up?

I was the parent chair person of after school club at the primary school my DC attended. The club was a different organisation to the school, although tested space from the school and many staff were also school staff eg:TAs, lunchtime assistants, caretaker. As a separate organisation to school, we had seperate rules and policies. We invited parents to our monthly meetings too, to discuss/review policies. No one ever came apart from the one about allowing older siblings (under 18) to collect children.

Policy on collection time was:

• club normally open to 6pm.
• If possible, parents who will be later than 6pm to inform the club ASAP.
• Additional charges of £10/10 min apply 6pm-7pm. (This was to discourage parents from being routinely latter than 6pm and paying for the extra hour).
• At 7pm, if no parental contact, social services are informed (we only had to invoke this once in my tenure as Chairperson).
• After 7pm, arrangements made with parents who've made contact put in place. This sometimes meant the club staying open later (this happened when about 20 families were held up by a motorway closure); or staff taking a child home/to their own home.

Our policy was not to allow under 16s to collect children:

• The club has a duty of care to the child that they are released to someone who can act in loco parentis, which they can't if under 16.
• Couldn't get insurance to release a child to an under 16.
• The tiredness and compliance of a primary school age child at 6pm can be quite different to 3pm.
• The school building the club uses is on a very busy road. There is a road accident involving a school child about once every 18 months.
• The rural bus service that brings the teen siblings home from high school is pretty hit and miss anyway!

There’s no law that says sibling couldn’t collect in this circumstance therefore the manager was being a thick jobsworth twit. I’m a solicitor and I love following the law but have very limited tolerance for stupidity and lack of common sense.

at my dc school the jobsworth head of safeguarding hadn't thought about older siblings escorting home until I pointed out it was a reasonable request. He looked into it throughly and the school rule is now that a year 8, 13+ may escort a sibling home. Believe me if there was a law or policy prohibiting it he would have found it.

the fact that the manager was unable to use his initiative in this instance is a massive red flag for the future - I’d remove your ds from their “care” asap - god knows what stupidity they will rain down next.

I hope you feel better soon.

It was a private provider.

Don’t know how to delete msg on here. I commented and realised it wasn’t school it was after school club

Absolutely this. OP is too unwell to collect her son and all that should have been required is a phone call to her partner whose response should have been, "don't worry, take care of yourself, I'll sort it out". The little boy has two parents and most businesses have an emergency or carers leave policy, her partner need to use it.

Her partner works in intensive care, of all the jobs he could have this is probably the most understandable for why he can't just leave asap.

The little boy has two parents and most businesses have an emergency or carers leave policy, her partner need to use it

But he works in intensive care and is presumably further away than the 14 YO who was 5 minutes walk away and the OP had already sent to collect her little brother.

I too am legally qualified (non practicing thanks to said disability) and I did try to explain the law but their policy overrides law 😂

In many ways I respect their dedication to following the rules but rules need to have a degree of flexibility for emergency and unforeseen circumstances. The manager could have looked the other way on this one occasion but didn’t.

He’s not the brightest staff member they have there and it showed in his response. He allegedly deferred the decision to the business directors who apparently said absolutely not. None of them were willing to suggest a solution. This is part of the reason I’m looking elsewhere. Life isn’t black and white when you have a disability. There needs to be adjustment and flexibility for emergencies.

My daughters 16 year old friend has agreed to be the responsible person should this ever happen again and she can hand him over to my daughter in front of them.

I wish people would learn the difference between policies which have been made-up by managers of a place and the actual law. It might enable them to use their common sense as it's pretty obvious that there would be no law stating that only someone over 16 years could pick up your child from the club. It reminds me of when a teacher at DDs secondary school wouldn't let her do an activity until I had signed a form giving permission for her to stay after school. When I e-mailed to say that I didn't need to do that because she was over 18, he said that I was trying to make him break the law.

Oh and to the person who suggested covid. I just tested and there’s a faint positive. We only had it at the start of July 😭😭😭 I need to see if I’m still eligible for antivirals having had them 8 weeks ago

Yes but there are a few workplaces where this is harder to put in place, an intensive care unit being one such example.

Glad it's sorted now and if I were you, I'd formally complain. If you are happy to send your DD to collect her little brother from school then they should agree to this.

Ridiculous. Our 15 year old has been picking up our 9 year old from school since they were 13 and 7. As long as you have consented I didn't think they could say no

Sorry you went through this op, it's clearly ridiculous. Our nursery have the same policy but are reasonable and let us write an email confirming that we were happy for a 14yo to collect our daughter (nursery is a 3 min walk away).

I wish people would learn the difference between policies which have been made-up by managers of a place and the actual law

COVID made it clear that a lot of people were unwilling to understand the difference between the law and policies/guidance. People made up all sorts of rules (you can only walk for an hour a day, you must only use the nearest supermarket etc) and insisted that these were 'the law' and if you said that the crap that came out of Boris Johnson, Michael Gove and Matt Hancock's mouths was neither law or guidance and there was no law that prevented you from going for a 2 hour walk then you were accused of 'looking for loopholes'.

@Fuknstuck completely off topic but I bet they would also refuse the most common sense request eg passing on your phone number to the coordinator of a parents’ WhatsApp group “because of GDPR” . The mindless “policy trumps law” nitwits are pretty quick to wheel GDPR out too. If I’m feeling playful I whip out my hard copies of the GDPR and the Data Protection Act ‘18 and ask which regulation or section they’re referring to.

hope you get those antivirals

I’m glad he’s home.

As a PP suggested, I wonder if it’s worth registering your DD as a young carer so she is able to get past the age thing (I don’t know anything about it but it may be worth looking into).

So they weren't going to keep him and refused all your suggestions? What were they going to do with him at 6pm if your husband couldn't have collected?

That's ridiculous 11 year olds pick up from the local primary all the time.

How would I go about doing this? Locally young carers info and clubs only speak of over 16s

Well now that's funny because I actually worked in one of those for 15 years and staff made use of the emergency leave policy regularly (we are a large unit with a lot of staff) and the rest of us just picked up the slack. Needs must and all that, intensive care staff understand only too well how unpredictable life can be.

He refused to answer this question.

im guessing they’d have called the police or something

This is nuts, my neighbours 13yo picks up her 5yo brother every Friday to save her mum some money. And when I was so poorly I couldn’t walk or see properly (migraine) the ASC club manager drove my middle home in his car at 6.30pm. I can’t believe they didn’t just pull together to help you when you needed them to.

Sounds like he likes the drama and was looking for an excuse to call the police, I’d look for alternative childcare asap and make a formal complaint.

Absolutely ridiculous but nothing surprises me in Britain.
I’d have pointed out that a 14 year old could indeed be a mother, would she not be allowed to collect her own child?

Hope you feel better soon.

This is nuts, my neighbours 13yo picks up her 5yo brother every Friday to save her mum some money. And when I was so poorly I couldn’t walk or see properly (migraine) the ASC club manager drove my middle home in his car at 6.30pm. I can’t believe they didn’t just pull together to help you when you needed them to.

Opening themselves to all kinds of trouble driving the child home. I would never ever do that.