To have insisted to random 5 year olds went and washed their hands?

[SlugGloves]

I was at a children’s party today in a rather large garden, sat on some grass near my partner and children. I was in eye line of some approx 4-5yo girls who were enthusiastically stroking a slug, in the same way you’d stroke a dog or a cat. I was sort of keeping an eye out for the slugs wellbeing in case the enthusiasm frothed over into violence, as it sometimes does. I noticed one of the girls drop a handful of dandelion leaves down next to it, and then spotted the magenta bell shaped petals of some foxgloves (which were growing all around us), before I could intervene the other girl grabbed them and they’d both handled them.

I got up and said “no girls, they are very poisonous and you mustn’t touch them”, picked the petals up myself and then said “you must go and wash your hands now, don’t put them near your mouth!”. They both followed me into the house and washed their hands, no problems. I disposed of flowers and washed mine.

One of the girls dads had observed the whole interaction and indicated his agreement, obviously happy to defer his parenting to the nearest available woman. The other girls parents weren’t around at the time, but I saw them as they were leaving so I said to the mum “just to let you know I saw your little girl handling the foxgloves so asked her to wash her hands because they’re poisonous”. Mum said “oh thank you, thanks for letting me know”. My motivation in telling her mum was that if (god forbid) she fell ill later in the day her parents would know she’d handled the foxgloves.

It got me thinking about whether I overstepped? Would the Mum think I was nuts? I felt like the vibe was one where I could just as easily have been told to feck off and mind my own business. Someone made a joke that they’d got too many children anyway, so could spare one or two!

FWIW I’m a nurse with paeds experience, I’d have intervened even if I knew for certain that one of the parents would have a problem.

YABU - Mind your own business.
YANBU - You did what most reasonable adults would have done, and I’d have been glad you’d told me if you’d made my child wash their hands.

I wouldn't even know what one looked like let alone knowing it was poisonous to the touch so were I a parent, I'd say thanks for the heads up.

Is digitalis poisonous like that?

But no, it's fine to intervene if you see serious risk.

Telling them is fine, taking them away from the party to do it without their parents’ knowledge is not sensible from a safeguarding perspective.

I would have thanked you and appreciated you looking out for my kids.

It's poisonous to eat any part of it, but handling petals (obviously not eating them) wouldn't hurt them. I would be concerned that a kid could chew on a leaf or flower without knowing what it is though.

I wouldn’t want mine playing with foxgloves so I’d be grateful. I don’t think you overstepped at all.

I’m absolutely ignorant when it comes to plants, I’ve only just learnt about how foxgloves are poisonous. I’d be incredibly grateful if you took the time to watch over my 5 year old like that and educated me in the process.
At the end of the day, no one should begrudge you for stopping their child from getting poisoned!

I’m not sure if this is relevant in the UK but in Australia we’ve had cases of children dying or being permanently disabled from consuming slugs or their slime. So I’d be more worried about the slug than the foxglove. But either way you did the right thing.

Touching can be dangerous. Do some reading

I'm Australian and this is where I thought the story was going. Slugs are incredibly toxic if ingested.

Entire garden and huge open plan kitchen with sink full of other adults and kids. Not taken away from party.

It’s fine. With it still being on your mind enough to post it on here, you’re overthinking it now though. It’s no big deal. Move on.

You did a good thing! I would certainly have appreciated it if my kids were handling toxic substances (heaven forbid)

I’d have been intervening about the slug before they’d even got to the foxgloves. Slugs carry lungworm.

When I was child, it was normal to put the fox glove flowers on your fingers. Every child did it, I never heard of a problem with it.

Slugs are not themselves toxic. They can carry deadly parasites, but this is only really a concern in tropical climates like Queensland where a young man famously died after a rat lungworm parasite reached his brain. This is still an incredibly unlikely and unlucky event, and even less likely in cooler climates like the UK where there is no rat lungworm. Still, it goes without saying that nobody should be eating slugs, or allowing children to eat slugs.

All parts of the laburnum (golden chain) tree are poisonous, including the flowers and they are in bloom right now so keep children away from those too.

There are a lot of common garden plants that are toxic. It is just common sense to have asked them to wash their hands, even more so after stroking a slug.

What you did was fine. What you said about the man was presumptuous. How the other woman responded sounds perfectly reasonable.

If be grateful you told me. dd knows not to touch foxgloves, yew tree etc and very careful to wash hands but like you I have medical training. Ive explained to her before how we got medicine and how amazing nature is to give us foxgloves which clever people used to help others who had heart problems. Think a cbbc children programme mentioned it as she asked.

I think you took a sensible approach and would have done the same taking it away from the child.

I would have told their parents though and suggested they clean their hands rather than take them myself but in the moment I understand that's not always possible.

This was my thought too. You did the right thing but I would have been more concerned about stroking the slug. Bleugh

There is lungworm in the UK. OP you definitely did the right thing.

You did the right thing op. All's well that ends well, everyone was happy, hopefully the children (and their parents!) learnt a gentle lesson and I wish there were more people like you around to normalise "looking out for children" again. x

I would have been grateful for your help but would have seen my child heading off and caught up with them on the way.