WWYD - nanny observes emotional abuse of child

[Lucy87]

Hello,

Wondering what other nannies but parents also would do in this situation. It's incredibly awkward, but I feel doing nothing is irresponsible!

My charge's best friend is treated terribly by her mother, and I now believe the treatment is bordering on emotional abuse.

I hear reports from her nanny, but I also see it first time whenever I happen to be at their house with my charges.

The little girl is 8, and she has a younger brother, 7. Her brother is the favourite, and the poor little girl is constantly being told she is;

• fat (she is a bit chubby but only because her mother feeds her 3 packets of crisps a day and then berates her for gaining weight)
• not intelligent enough
• worthless (this is all implied in so many ways)

Her mother is constantly screaming at her, in front of anyone who happens to be around at the time. Most recently thing I have heard is her mother telling her, "I must have had the wrong baby given to me at the hospital, I would NEVER have had a child like you".

The poor little girl has recently been stealing things at school, I can only presume as a cry for help and to get some attention.

What would other nannies do in this situation?

Or as a parent, if you observed another parent treating their child this way, would you take any action?

where is the dad?

Absent / openly having affairs :S

Exactly what I was thinking mrspnut

Lucy87,

I was a teacher for some years. During this I saw several cases of mild to moderate emotional abuse and two of what I would call serious emotional abuse with some violence towards the children thrown in, hidden a little from view because the families were wealthy and covered it up (indeed one father was a peer of the realm).

I shopped both families to social services because I decided children came first, my job came next and abusive parents came last.

I would do the same again in the blink of an eyelid. It is not always possible to reason with people who hate their children, unless there are many of you around prepared to stand up to them. And this is not the case for nannies, who work in relative isolation.
As other posters have said, all it takes for evil to flourish is for good people to do nothing.

Best of luck.

Cudos to all who have reported child abuse... It's not an easy thing to do.

One thing my mom said to me which lasted is, 'what does evil look like?'

Evil is the absence of love.
Evil is self-interested manipulation.
Both seem to be evident here.

Boffin - of course. Earlier in the thread. Lucy87 said that previously her idea of child abuse was from a lower socio economic group. I think my point was that evil can come with all sorts of faces, and my mom's point was that one has to look at the actions, and sometimes not at the pretty face....

I see it spread across all social groups. The higher echelons are just that bit cleverer about hiding it. The peer hired his own psychiatrist, for example, to get Social Services off his back.