to consider reporting friend to SS?

[sillysalley]

I have a friend who's approach to parenting is just ... well ... worrying really.

Her and her husband have a crazy fascination with keeping the house like a show home and nothing else seems to be of importance other than that. I cant emphasise how much of a fascination it is, not just that they have a tidy house but things like
no baby gates allowed
children not allowed toys anywhere other than their bedroom
children not allowed to sit on the expensive leather sofa if they are wearing clothes with buckles and belts etc

Well i visited recently and their 2 year old is still not speaking (not even a single word, he makes very little noise)

Then she told me something that really worried me. Her 2 year old was really ill recently and she had to send for an ambulance because he could hardly breathe. She said
'I could hear him in his cot struggling to breathe, i was so panicked because it took me ages to get to him, trying to untie all the rope around his door handle to get into his room'

I presume the rope is to stop him going out of his bedroom in the night, as they wont have baby gates becuase they damage the walls.

Then she went on to say the hospital wanted her 2yo to stay in for the night but she refused and took him home.

I cant believe that HV or the hospital have not picked up on this, but I am truly worried. The thing is she isnt the kind of person you could approach about the issue. So all I can think of is an anonymous referal the SS.

Would that be unreasonable?

Actually wannabe there is a thing yu an do there- it'sexactly thesort ofset uop homestart can help with, you wopuld hope that tehre is a HV or someone in there torefer but thats where the system often collapses

PooEx- good, I am glad, I fully expect you are right, having eharing checke dout shows you did ask questions which is all that needs doing.

StillSquiffy- that could be my ds1. We have a read relay (shed type_ alrm on his door, for years we had to check every 2 housr at night, but I wouldn't use the rope. Too scared of fires etc. The alrms are cheap (@ £15) and easy to get hold of.

Actually wannabe there is a thing yu an do there- it'sexactly thesort ofset uop homestart can help with, you wopuld hope that tehre is a HV or someone in there torefer but thats where the system often collapses

PooEx- good, I am glad, I fully expect you are right, having eharing checke dout shows you did ask questions which is all that needs doing.

StillSquiffy- that could be my ds1. We have a read relay (shed type_ alrm on his door, for years we had to check every 2 housr at night, but I wouldn't use the rope. Too scared of fires etc. The alrms are cheap (@ £15) and easy to get hold of.

I tie all cupboards/draws up - simple. ( i have no downstairs but i am in the room that is closer to the door leading out to lounge and kitchen, as the parents should be)

My DS is not old enough to do this as yet, but when he is i will have a minitor in his room so i can hear if he wakes up. He will be told to get back in bed (unless it is for the loo) I really don't see this big issue about kids getting up - teach them not to. They will learn eventually, until then you just keep getting up with them.

stillsquiffy I know someone who put two stair gates on top of each other to prevent her child from coming out. So child could see out, and she could get in easily, but child couldn't get out.

pruneplus2 and yet people were only saying yesterday how mn has a huge part to play in helping someone who is suicidal. So clearly some do take more notice of posts on mn than others.

oh i assumed door was shut and rope was just in place of a lock.
I don't think I'll shut my DC's doors until they're old enough to choose to do it - know i may regret that
Agree with elkie & wannabe, abuse not necessarily physical, and this child doesn't sound as though he has a lot of playing time or friends over. as others have said though, this may only be what the OP sees.

But thats the thing DailyName - people are asking for advice, all i am saying is that if someone feels they should phone SS then we shouldnt give advice. This thread is ridiculous. OP isnt really looking for advice. She justs wants to be told she is right.

"My DS is not old enough to do this as yet" oh but he will be brokkenhearted, he will be.... of course you may get lucky like me and have dc who are not a problem with this stuff... or you could have one of the more challenging ones and then your views and ideals will be challeneged to the extreme! You see it less now with the advent of stairgates everywhere but I recal many posts and conversations about how to stop dc emptying he fridge each night, how to stop them getting the crayons out and draw on the walls... and so on. Night wnaderings can have a little more to it than just "pop them back"!

Yes BH, I said the same last night, TBH the op seems to hav finished with the thread now though!

fwiw I do realize that ss can be a hideous thing to have to deal with. I currently have a friend who is under investigation from ss because someone reported them because their eight year old daughter makes her own breakfast! There is a little bit more to it but the child is by no means at risk...

LOL, don't say that Daily, i am happily living in my dream world here, where DS is going to be an angel!!

at the thought that your monitor will wake you up when your DCs get a little older. And the thought that by that age your DCs still won't know how to open those child-proof catches on the kitchen doors.

But I like the idea of an alarm, peachy - do you know if you can ones with a snooze button so you don't have to swing into action if they are only going to the loo?

"parents should be in the room nearest the lounge"?WHY?
" doors should be open behind stairgates" again why?
Theres no one answer to everything? I live in a narrow 3 story 2 bed townhouse, kids are on the ground floor, stairgate on door....middle floor is lounge and kitchen, then top floor open stairs is master bedroom where we sleep with the baby. We have a 2 way monitor to the kids room and the hall door open. It works fine for us (not that we have a choice anyway!)

no I didn't say doors should be open behind stairgates but I thought they would be.
I struggle to think of shutting/locking children in their room but realise I'm in a minority!

well pooexplosions, for me this is the room closest to the exit/entrance of the house. If anone were to break in or a drunk neighbour (not that there are any really) get in (or somethin of the sort) I hate the idea that a child would be closest. but of course, this is an ideal.

stillsquify The monitor may not wake me up but the child would. I wake up at the slightest of noise, and our floor would squeek. But hey, like i say, i am in a dream world as for the catches etc, good point but cutlary would be moved UP!!

The rope is the concern, more so than an overly tidy house.

You can call social services and talk them through the situation. They then decide if it warrants a referral. They might already be involved, or have had previous referrals, or have other information which makes your observations more relevant.

SS_ I honestly don't know, but I can't see how that would work with ours tbh- they're basic read relay, so if the foor opens you get a 90 (or something similar) db blast

however, I would say that a read relay on the kitchen door is a good solution- allows child to get to bathroom but not access kitchen.

Our last house had bolts across doors so that you could only get into the dining room where there was a phone if the boys got downstairs: they'reold enough to call for 999 if there was a fire. This house is oler and a bit of a warren with additions and extensions so not so easy sadly- downstairs = front door. Luckily after eyars of it (ds1 is almost ten) I now wake at the rustle of a footstep.

"I struggle to think of shutting/locking children in their room"

I might have said the same when I had my easy to manage, quiet little DS1. Now I have DS2 though, its a different story! If I didn't have a gate on the door (or soemthing else if that didn't work)I imagine I would wake up to the house falling down around us... the list of things the child manages to get up to when I am right there next to him is amazing, if I take my eyes off him...trust me you don't want to know. Toddler proofing the house for this toddler would be to have a completely empty house. Wrapped in bubble wrap. With padlocks on. And him in a straightjacket.

In fact I think the reason he doesn't talk yet is that his mind is far too busy dreaming up evil schemes to torture his poor mother to the edge of insanity...

Bet next do toddler straightjackets with "Mummy's little monster" on!

haha there is nothing quiet or easy about my DS, after all his genes came from me and DH but he is small enough to be managable - so still an angel in my eyes. I might put a baby gate on lounge door, to keep him out of lounge/kitch (and no fire risk there because we have HUGE single glazed windows in bedrooms, easy to break through incase of fire)

HAHA, if they do someone let me know

All these people who think that doors at night should always be left open - do any of you have cats, no outdoor space and small toddlers? Thought not! What works in one house doesn't always fit in another...

yes, i said i realised that. I never shut our door either, would feel odd to shut theirs (well dd only 4 weeks so in with uis). What happens if they do have a nightmare or are sick though?

theres a middle way milkmade

have toddler, cat btw.... as well as older kids with SN (just as difficult)

my door stays open, and the others closed- with alarm on if needed.

I don't leave doors open unless essential(so just mine for observation purposes) as I watched one of thsoe fire demo's once where they showed a room with a closed door fine and the rest of the house decimated. Much rather use lots of ideas together than leave allopen, but all closed impossible (ds's very sneaky)

So, has the OP telephoned the HV, SS or the NSPCC or what?

who said that doors had to be left open.

There is a difference between shutting a door and locking a door. And if you are tying a door shut with a rope to the extent you cannot get in then that is to all intents and purposes equivalent to locking the door. And for the child on the inside he has been locked in his room - how is he to know that it's a rope and not a lock?

I shut doors at night. No issue with that. When my ds was small I had a stair gate on the stairs.

If he had been one for wandering about at night I might have been inclined to put a gate on the doorway.

But I would never have put a lock on it/would never have tied it shut to an extent that A I potentially couldn't open it in an emergency, and B, the child believed he was locked in.