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?

Xposts there!!

Chunky, at least you can get it off easily! A rope would be harder to get off, especially during a fire when you are panicking & can't see!

Easy to feel for a look that's location is in your memory & flip it!

And no, of course you aren't bad lazy parents!

Me again!

Just re-read my post, chunky & can see what you think I was saying that 'you' (collectively) were lazy...I wasn't implying that on a broad scale.

Whew, this has really kicked off hasn't it?

FWIW, personally I can't see how tying a rope around a childs door that takes ages to undo in an emergency is remotely the same as a gate, a hook/eye latch or any other type of device that can be easily and quickly undone. The shocking thing that makes a rope different is the fact that it could cause such dangerous delay in a real emergency (as almost happened once already to the family in question).

Like a few others on this thread, I have to say I'm amazed that so many posters think it's basically OK to have a rope tied around the child's door to the extent it takes "ages" to undo. It's not OK, it's hugely irresponsible and moronic, and if you've ever had a serious house fire you'd know that. Rest of the stuff about the clean house etc not relevant IMO and I would prob start by speaking to the parents directly not ringing anyone ... BUT am times a million at anyone who would defend the rope tie as just another parenting style

I don't think anyone is actually saying it's OK, just that it doesn't warrant a call to SS!! There are far more urgent cases for them to be dealing with, than wasting time on something that is clearly not neglect or abuse. This is just a woman who needs a bit of friendly advice.

We are just trying to point out that a particular parenting handbook says it's ok to do this, so perhaps the parents in question have read this handbook & also think it's ok, but have hopefully realised for themselves after their scare, that is is in fact NOT ok.

My personal opinion is that the OP should be raising the issue with this woman, or if she feels she can't do this, asking her DH to have a word with his friend, not calling SS.

Plus she has still failed to answer 2 of us asking what her DH thinks about the situation

Apologies if this has been answered as i havent read the whole thread but if they wont have a baby gate in case it marks the walls,how do they manage to tie a rope around the door handle?

What i mean is,what do they tie it to?Do they have a hook or something screwed to the wall?

No it hasn't been answered Booing. Good point though.

Thanks ChunkyMonkeysMum,i know its early but i was just thinking well what do they tie it to?

But chunky, some people (not you, I realize)have said it is basically all right -- eg "how is rope around the door any different to that or indeed a stairgate?" and a few other similar posts way back in thread.

I agree the best thing would be to speak to the family directly -- I know the OP doesn't feel she can do this as the relationship is not close, but I reckon you'd have to just grit your teeth and do it anyway.

I can totally see why the OP is a bit freaked out by the whole thing and why she posted for advice I'm still surprised that so many people have rounded on her and said not only that rope is not so bad, but things like "am I the only one who thinks the OP is jealous of the clean house", etc. A child is being tied in a room with rope that takes ages to undo, FFS and people are like "Well maybe she usually unties it at night and just forgot"

I don't think anyone said "maybe she forgot", we were just trying to make a valid point that perhaps she uses the rope to keep him in his room until he falls asleep, then undoes it. It does not say in the OP what time of night this incident happened, so no-one knows whether the rope gets untied or not.

While personally I do not agree with tying rope to a childs bedroom door handle, I do also think that it's not a good enough reason to call SS.

I agree with you that the OP needs to grit her teeth & just go for it wrt speaking to this friend. If she feels she gets nowhere, at least she knows she tried, and then she can make the decision whether or not to involve SS or the childs HV.

At the moment, I don't think she knows enough about the situation and could be making a massive fuss over nothing because the parents may have realised the error of their ways after this incident & no longer use the rope on the door. As she said, she doesn't see this friend very often and she didn't ask any questions at the time, so she doesn't know all the facts.

I would say that the mother now realises she should not be tying the door handle up by the way she confided that it was in fact tied on the night in question. If she didn't feel she was wrong, why would she admit that it caused a delay in getting to her son ?

I think the OP needs to give her the benefit of the doubt, not go charging in with a report to SS.

The rope round the door 'trick' is, as mentioned above, something suggested in Toddler Taming in order to stop them wandering around at night. It sounds as if your friend had a shock when she couldn't actually get the rope off the door so I don't expect they will tie it in such a way as to cause the same problem again- why don't you casually ask her about whether she has sorted the rope out. This is the kind of thing that you could have a conversation about, surely?

The stuff about the house - well, it's just a different approach to parenting, not a bad one. When I was little all of my toys were kepy in my room and I wasn't allowed to wear shoes inside the house. My mum wasn't particularly anal or anything- it was quite common.

As for the hospital trip, why didn't she want him to stay? If it's because she thought he was fine and didn't want to be away from him for the night then it's not as suspicious as it sounds.

It just sounds as if your friend has a different style of parenting to what is now considered the 'norm'. You might not agree with it, but it doesn't sound like the boy is coming to any harm. The lack of speaking could be because he is shy, and they say the normal time for children to start talking can be up to their second birthday- I remember my son didn't really speak until just before then and now he's an absolute chatterbox.

That said, if your instincts are that you should report your freidnt hen maybe you would feel better if you spoke to a health visitor about the porblems and leave the decision as to whether to take things further in their hands. This might make you feel a little less uneasy.

Sillysally this woman as far as i can tell from you post is not abusing her child, just a bit obsessive mabey she has a problem. Before calling SS, NSPCC you should frist see if the child is a uneplained bruising or marks on them, undernourised and clearly neglected, showing concerning signs of sexual awareness above and beyound what is expected for their age, are they withrdrawn, behaviour erratic etc. If not then dont call, if you are a friend discuss the rope thing with her. Some kids dont talk till really really late nearing 3 so her hv will probably pick that up in the check, no need to interfere.

The behaviour symptoms that i highlighted at the bottom of my post are not enough to warrent abuse but may go with the symptoms that i highlighted at the beginning of my post

I didn't read abuse into the original post, but I do wonder about whether the emotional needs of the child(ren) involved are being properly met. I think phoning Social Services may be going too far I guess, and probably wouldn't be the answer. Do they take the children out much? I'm glad to see that other posters are distinguishing between safety measures that are fairly quick and easy for parents to open and the rope which clearly isn't easy enough.

The underlying point for me, is that what ever this ladies reason for using a rope on a door, it's nobody's business but her own.
She did get to the child in time, maybe she's had a fright and changed her mind about it now, but the point is what does it have to do with anyone else how she runs her house ?

The OP doesn't even know any of the other details or circumstances. She says that this woman is the wife of one of her DH friends. She has assumed in her OP and gone on more about how clean the house is. If she was so shocked then why didn't she just say 'What? Do you tie his door up?' and listened to what she said. Rather than assuming the kid is tied up and then phoning SS later on.

Aside from that, some rental properties don't allow damage to wall or door fixings. I've just thought also, keeping the house clean etc may be part of a tenancy agreement with inspections etc. For all we know this family have had a £800 bond withheld for not keeping a rented house in good order. In sort, none of us, not even the OP knows anything surrounding this family.

I hope she is on MN!

Oh and I'd like to see someone kicking off a stairgate! Mine is fixed to the door casing so impossible to kick off!

am new to this stuff having just registered. have read through some of the replies so here's my thoughts for what they're worth.
can see where they're coming from with the belt and buckle thing but do feel they're being a WEE bit obssesive with the nice tidy house routine. If you have aleady said something about the rope when she told you then you need to back off. Especially if she is only a distant friend. It is not your place to get child agencies involved. that(should there be a concern) should be down to someone much closer to home.
No am not SUPERNANNY but am sure she would have something to say on the subject!!!

The child was taken to hospital..if there were physical signs of abuse the medical staff would have noticed and called ss

They would also have called SS if they really hought the child was in danger from going home rather than staying in hospital. Sounds like hsopital would have like to keep in him just in case but reckon on balance he would be fine at home

so op.. did you call ss and what did they say??

Hmm

the rope is a no no imo, what if there was a fire? But I wouldn't call SSD, I might speak to HV if they were good. you can also call NSPCC helpline anonymously for non referring advice, that's useful I have found.

So has she got an OCD do you think with all the clreanliness etc? Just thinnking- if so (and I am not saying she has, don't know the owoman and am bioased as DH had a mis4erable childhood being raised by a woman with OCD)- if it was and there was speech delay in a child that could be a red flag for developmental difficulties. There seems to be some link between OCD and ASD's.

But probably not. Speculating into the sky, really.

"The underlying point for me, is that what ever this ladies reason for using a rope on a door, it's nobody's business but her own.
She did get to the child in time, maybe she's had a fright and changed her mind about it now, but the point is what does it have to do with anyone else
how she runs her house ?"

So when does it become your business then? Have asked the question numerous times on this thread but nobody seems to want to answer. but at what point is it justified to make how a child is treated your business?

Or do we never have the right to question anyone's parenting ever?

Our stairgates gets kicked off BTW, we have one of those folding door numbers and the gate can only be tension attahced to the doors so comes off quite often (rented house so cannot drill in, though would like to- ugly doors LOL)

Good point Wannabe

We were advised many eyars ago by a behavioural chap to tieds1's door shut; we refused, and we were told later by a SN advisor that ahd we done so and been spotted by SSD we could ahve been in big trouble (Behavioural bloke was taken from post soon after but no idea exactly why, though can guess after our encounter)

frasersmummy abuse doesn't have to be physical.

peachy I advised op to call nspcc further down the thread too but was shot down by other posters.

Tbh I am shocked at how the op has been treated on this thread.

No perhaps she shouldn't be calling ss, but comments such as that she must be jealous etc are totally uncalled for.

What's wrong with having concern for the welfare of a child?

How do we know if this woman only ever cleans up before people come? I often make my house spotless when having visitors, depending on who it is. The rest of the time though I hardly bother and it's a tip. I bet people have gone away from my house saying 'her house is too tidy for someone with three kids' but they don't see the real slobby me