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?

"What a fab perfect parent you must be." why is it people use this as a retort to something they don't agree with?

Just because someone thinks that something is wrong doesn't mean they think they're perfect!

And fwiw washing a child's mouth out with soap would be considered to be an asalt.

Just because no-one ever died from it, doesn't mean that it's ok.

Where do you get the info from that it would be considered an assault to wash a child's mouth out ?? I'm interested to know.

Your friend is not forcing her son to eat the full bar of soap, washed down with a nice bit of shower gel is she ?! She just uses the soap (probably on her fingers) to run round his mouth when he has done something so bad that she feels warrants it. If she has had to do this more than once, her son is quite clearly not overly bothered if he continues to do whatever it is he does that gets that punishment. Most parents would give their child a warning first before doling out any punishment, so if he continues to be naughty with the threat of having his mouth washed out hanging over his head, he clearly isn't overly bothered by it. Now if he thought he was going to be beaten shitless, that may be another story altogether.

I'm saying what a fab perfect parent you must be because you have been very quick to tell others that what they do is wrong and how certain things should be reported, so you therefore, must do everything right ?

Hando calling the NSPCC does not equate reporting them

It's a safe way to get feeedback and usually reassurance

They enocourage it- thats not the same as wasting their time, and its far better to get feedback and decide than feel worried and ignore IMO

They don't take your name, or adress, or that of the person you call about. It is an informed, willing and experienced sounding board and I think its far better to do that if you are not sure than either jump in and caue upset with SSD, or ignore and worry yourself.

It is no diffeerent in fact to posting on here,e xcept you know where the reply is coming from.

Chunky, it is assault. I twas deemed assualt a few years ago, I can't remember what the case was but parents were done for child cruelty for doing just that.

With the cabin hook and eye locks as well you'd only have to kick or shove the door open and the lock would ping off and be broken. They're not exactly sturdy.

I haven't read the whole thing but I can understand it taking ages to get the rope off the door not because there was masses of it but because of panic. I lost sight of my son in the park and was trying to phone my friend who'd started walking home to get her to help and couldn't get to her number, my fingers wouldn't work.
I've never heard of the rope on the door thing but by the sounds of it it's to stop the door being opened completely by the child. the door must have been ajar for her to hear him choking. I think it all sounds worse than it probably was.

As someone who used to work in child protection, I think you are right to be worried - not because of any particular thing that your friend does but because you feel that overall something's not right and that the child may be affected. I agree that the rope round the door handle would be no big deal if everything else was fine but it sounds like it might not be.

I find it disturbing that so many people have told you to butt out when you have said that you are worried about the child. A lot of posters seem to be identifying with the mother so strongly that they are not taking your concerns seriously. This could all turn out to be a storm in a teacup but there is also a possibilty that the child is at risk of neglect. I think you are absolutely right to want to do something to help.

Social services have their faults, but they support a lot of families with similar problems. I think it would perfectly reasonable to ring them but, if you feel uncomfortable about it, you could also speak to the NSPCC or the HV, if you know who she is. Well done for caring - abuse doesn't only happen in sink estates and it is often the sign of a mum in desperate need of help. Intervention now could save both your friend and her child from major problems in the future.

good post jybay

sillysalley - Where are you ???? Please come back & tell us what you decided to do & the outcome of it. Thanks.

Oh for goodness sake you are being utterly bonkers !
The rope thing is a technique suggested by Dr Chris Green a well respected authority in children's development and behaviour.It works in the same way as a stairgate ie child can see out of room but can't get out.
If the child isn't speaking at all , I would suspect a hearing problem or mouth problem to be much more likely cause than a clean house.
YABBonkers

Whatever the other issues as a paediatric nurse I can say that the'against medical advice' bit will be picked up by the liason health visitor,and referred to the patient's health visitor.

'well respected authority' figures can get things disastrously wrong, you know. There have been other parenting gurus who have given out dangerous information, for instance advice that conflicts with the guidance to limit the risk of sudden infant death. Just because someone writes a book, that doesn't mean they are infallible.

Agree with nappyaddict on hook and eye, was going to suggest you suggest it to her.

If your gut says speak to someone then do, if not you will regret it. good luck.

Son went to hospital. He would have been thoroughly checked by the nurse / doctor, they always check young children for any signs of abuse. If they thought he was in danger then he wouldn;t have been let home. They would have told her they will not let him go home and he had to stay. They let her take hiom so he couldn;t have been in any danger

I recently took my 4 yr old to the hospital with a burn on her arm and was steeling myself for a bit of questioning as burns are apparently quite commonly 'non accidental'- well more so than other injuries anyway.But absolutely nothing !

I am not sure how easy it is for hospital staff to stop parents taking a child home unless there is some very compelling medical reason and I then they would have to get a court order.One of my DC was born a couple of days before xmas and I discharged her against medical advice because I felt it was not necessary and i wanted us all to be home together for xmas.

Spoke to her HV. Thankfully her HV is aware of her discharging her son against advice from doctors, the hospital must have contacted her so she had planned a visit anyway.

She thanked me for the call and explained that she will check things out as she has other concerns too, although obviously didnt share them with me. So I guess my insticts were right.

I feel so much better after speaking to her. She assured me the rope incident wont be metioned for anonymous reasons, and she will explain her visit is due to her taking son home from hospital when asked not to.

So how is the rope thing different to a stairgate.Surely they fulfill the same function.The fire thing is a load of tosh- modern internal doors kick/punch through very easily ( I speak as someone whose bathroom door handle fell off and who didn't want to spend all day nude in the bathroom til someone came home !)

Crikey the HV told you all that !I think the she has breached some confidentiality issues there !

Just because a child is allowed home with their parents doesn't mean there isn't a problem or suspicion, it is dependant on 1 professional opionion who knows very little about the previous history.
Baby P and Victoria Climbie were both discharged from hospital to the care of their parents/relatives.
Police can prevent a child being removed from a place of safety ie: a hospital if it is deemed the child would be at significant risk.They do not need a court order.

Chris Green does advocate the use of a rope in his books but it doesn't mean its totally ok, social care etc would frown upon this as they would any method of preventing or restricting a child's exit from their room.

hotpotato - I don't think there's any suggestion of physical abuse here, so how could medical staff have spotted signs on the child? In any case, it is not at all easy to distinguish accidental from non-accidental injury and we don't routinely check all admissions specifically for signs of abuse (though obviously we keep an eye out for any odd injuries).

In defence of the HV, she was very discrete, I mentioned the hospital visit and she said she was aware of that and had already planned to visit. And then later in the conversation she said she had other issues to mention too - not sure what they are.

But yes, she may have broken confidentality rights. Yet, its nothing I didnt already know I suppose.

well i think you have acted in exactly the right way. i would urge anyone who has any concerns about a child to air them. i was a victim of child abuse and i suffered it because no one had the balls to speak up and when they did they were not taken seriously. yes i got a little impassioned last night but i am still absolutely stunned that anyone can think it right to tie your children into their room with rope.experts get it wrong. accidents happen. fires start.

like i said - it sounded like the sort of top tips you would read in Viz comic...im so sad that so many people think that this is an ok thing to do. if it saves a child from harm then report it - if the parent has nothing to hide then it will quickly be resolved - hopefully. i agree with Jybay totally. there is so much empathy for the "wronged" parent that everyone is missing the fact that a child could actually be at risk. its not worth ignoring - it really isnt.

sillysalley im really glad youve acted on your feelings. so many people just ignore their instincts and thats why so many kids suffer.

how and why are people comparing tying a door shut with rope to a stair gate? a gate can be vaulted over, a child can be picked up over it. a roped shut door stays shut - even in a fire or if the child as in the OP's post cant breathe - it takes time to open.

if someone went wrong - and your door was tied closed with rope you would get the book thrown at you - and rightly so imo.

i am trying to see things from all sides here - but on no account can i ever see a justification for actually tying a door handle with rope to keep a child in their room. im sorry but i cant. i spoke to my DH about this today and he thought i was joking. ive never ever heard of anyone doing this before and i do think its extremely risky and just shouldnt be done.

agree with you, vicar

Thanks Vicar. Am sorry that you didn't get the help you needed when you were a child. It's brave of you to talk about the abuse and I hope it will make some of these posters on this thread think twice about telling Sally not to interfere.

Sally's friend may be vulnerable but at least she is an adult with some ability to stick up for herself. What is worse: informing social services about what turns out to be a false alarm or missing the opportunity to stop possible abuse? I'm delighted that Sally acted as she did. If more people did the same, there would be fewer children enduring nightmarish childhoods. In any case, tackling abuse is not about taking sides with a child against an adult (except in really extreme cases) - it's about working with families as a whole.

ABitBatty,
I frequent a forum for adults who had abusive parents. A suprising majority had either squalorous, messy parents OR OCD clean-freak parents. There was enough people who experienced the extremes to draw conclusions.
NObody is suggesting that OCD cleanliness is a sign of abuse, or that messy houses are a sign of abuse but coupled with other signs, it could be an indicator. THat is why I said it was noteworthy in the context of this thread.