For considering leaving young DCs in car...

[slightlystressed]

...while I pop in shop to buy bread and a few bits? They are 2.8 and 0.8, Answers ASAP as need to leave in 10 mins thanks.

If an out-of-control car smashed into your car while you were in the shop, how would you feel?

Just wondered.

I have seen a very distressed kid about 2yrs screaming in a car whilst his parents weren't in sight. It was in a supermarket car park and I looked around in case they were just popping their trolley back or chatting nearby or something. After 4 - 5 mins and no sign of anyone returning I went and told customer services.

When I came out with my shopping the car was still there but no kid so don't know what happened but think the adult was totally unreasonable as the kid was clearly not alright.

When DC3 was just a few days old, DH took the elder 2 (4 years and 18 months)and to their ballet lesson. We had no found in the house (bit lax with the old shopping post-partum) so he popped into a local express to pick up a couple of croissants for them to eat on the way.

When he came in he told me he did it (not his usual thing) and I gave one of those resigned-but-lucky-no-harm-done sighs and don't think we would do that again but then we wouldn't be so madly sleep-deprived etc etc.

However, two weeks later had a knock on the door from the local police. Is that your car? Are you the mother of these children etc etc.

He had been reported to the police.

I had to give all my DCS d.o.b, Doctors name and address etc to the PC, and I think it was then sent to Social Services.

So, I think we are now a family 'known to social services'.

no FOOD in the house (typo)

My aunt lives in Canada, last year her neighbour left her kids (one 4 one infant) in car while she went in a paid for petrol. A truck came onto fourcourt crashed somehow into petrol pumps, caused fire, car caught fire and even tho they got the 4 yr old out the 5 point buckle on the infant seat had melted and they couldn't get infant out in time!
Always haunts me, know it's a freak accident, but it happened none the less.
At least we are aware of the dangers and make our decisions based on them.
You're kids, you're choice x

I took them in the shop with me, all is well. I didn't actually know it was illegal to leave kids in a car.

I know I'm a bit of a paranoid woman but I remember my mum doing exactly the same thing but not only to nip in somewhere; she left us for about 15/20 mins sometimes. I remember me and my sister were old enough to undo our harness and climb about. I'd have prob been about 5/6 but I was petrified that a stranger would get into the car and so made my sister crouch down behind the driver seat so nobody could see us! I even remember putting up an umbrella and putting over myself whilst crouched down so I was hidden. My mum used to laugh and say how silly I was and that of course nobody would get us. Perhaps that's why I'm scarred for life and constantly worried that something bad is gonna happen to DCs!!!

Nonnomum, I wonder what the police thought the point of coming two weeks later was?

And numpty2, that's a horrific story, and I feel for your family, but the outcome would have been the same if an adult had been in the car, surely?

I think parents need to use their judgement, sometimes leaving children in the car IS the sensible option.

If you google search any activity, you'll always find someone who died doing it. Doesn't mean we should all be hermits. does it?

Yes, abbie, perhaps not number one on their list of priorities but bloody horrible nevertheless.

• to check that the children were being well cared for (?)

Oh, don't take me the wrong way, Nonno, I'm on your side! I'm sure it was awful.

But your DH made a one off decision, that sounds sensible to me from the way you describe it.

If someone was concerned enough to inform the police, why didn't he see them? If that was me, and I really thought the kids were abandoned, I'd have stayed by the car until an adult turned up, then probably given that adult a piece of my mind! If no adult turned up, I'd have rung 999 and got the police out immediately.

The person who reported your DH sounds more like a busybody than a concerned passer-by.

It just annoys me that those of us who agonise over the decision of leaving our children a few metres away for a couple of minutes, or feel guilty about a tap on the hand occasionally are made to feel like child abusers, when those who genuinely neglect their children don't give a shite.

I can't remember the circumstances right now, but the other day I found someone solicitously asking after my child when I had left him apparently alone but I was about 25 metres away waiting for him. I said "thank you for caring" to the person who had stopped to check he was ok - he was fine, just having a strop about something. I was really pleased that this person had bothered to see a weeping child apparently alone and done something about it.

God I sound totally neglectful, don't I?

Not neglectful at all, specialmagiclady, just normal!!

And, yep, I'd be pleased that someone had bothered too! I saw a lost little boy in a shop last week, and took him to customer services. Couldn't believe the amount of people who walked past oblivious!

I sometimes leave my DS's in the car together when I pop into my local village shop for one (only over one) item but I never leave the little one on his own (17.5 mths). I did once or twice but had the most overwhelming dread coming back to my car I decided it wasn't worth the risk.

My most bizarre horror was that someone I knew would spot that I'd left them for the one min, take him out and hide round the corner with him to teach me a lesson . DS1 (6) is left with instructions what to do if I don't return within a set time.

No way would I do that.

You do realise that if a passers-by see two young children in a car, alone, they may well call social services or police and they have a right to do so.
I wouldn't ever leave my DTs alone in a car, never.

'they have a right to do so. '

I don't think this is true. If someone called the police because I'd left my children to buy a pint of milk in the village shop, a procedure taking 2 minutes maximum, in full view of the car, they would be laughted at.

Plus I'd have been in and out of the shop long before the call could even be put through.

I think a little commonsense and discretion applies here.

Our neighbours are both police and they leave their youngest asleep in the car while they pick up the older one from school

I don't know if anyone has mentioned it, I see lots of potential danger scenarios to the car/children....but what if something serious happened to YOU whilst you were away from the car that prevented you getting back to them? Would anyone know they were in there....alone?

I do leave them though, I park right outside the local butchers and stand in the window pulling faces at them to entertain them whilst shouting out my order out