Grandfather takes wrong girl to doctor

[CogitoErgoSometimes]

Story

Bizarre little story. Would your six year-old be able to spot it wasn't their grandfather?

More to the point - is he in a fit state to care for a child?

She was confused and thought that he was the grandafther whose photo is in her house, but who is in fact dead, and she is a shy girl

More details in the Mail

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2443729/Kent-school-sent-girl-6-GP-WRONG-grandfather.html

Read this earlier and I still can't Get my head around the GF not realising, even at the Dr's that she wasn't his GD.

Obvs the school should have been moré careful, can't be too difficult to double check the last ñame when there are more than 1 with the same first ñame, can it?

Really odd!

I guess it depends how much time they spend together.. my DD (4) would definitely know her Nanny (mil) but could get confused with her granny, especially if she was calling her the right name.

Poor old bloke was only trying to do his family a favour, there's no suggestion that he didn't look after the girl perfectly well. It's just a shame it was the wrong girl!

Maybe he has a lot of grandchildren or something, but yes I'd be worrying about his cognitive functioning really.

The school should know it's pupils

The handover can't have been at the classroom or the real granddaughter would have spotted him.

The poor grandpa! He must be feeling terrible. No harm was done, I realise it could have been but the fact is he was able to look after the girl and returned her safely. If you don't see your dgc all the time I can see how it could happen. It was a combination of his uncertainty and the girl's and the teachers' error.

A shot of calpol (I think) was dished out at the doctor's. I suppose she was lucky the real GD wasn't being treated for something more serious.

Maybe they look similar as well.

The link says they were the same height and both had blonde hair. I don't think it was the grandfather's fault, he wasn't expecting to be given the wrong child as the mum had phoned the school to arrange everything. If the conversation between them was quite general (how was school today? etc), coupled with a noisy bus then I can see how he wouldn't notice. He probably had to concentrate on the journey to be sure of getting off at the right place as well, if his eyesight was bad.

Prehaps the old gentleman is as blind as a bat and didn't realise he had the wrong child.

Why would a gp randomly prescribe calpol anyway? Couldn't the parents just have bought it?

That's a lot of 'ifs' Pixel....

Maybe so, but they already said he had very poor sight, and the parents of the little girl said she was shy so she most probably just sat quietly on the bus. I still think it was the school's fault not his and it's unfair to question his fitness to care for a child as others have suggested.

This is so strange. A gf who obviously doesnt spend a lot of time with his gd left to pick up the child and take her to the gp. Even if he was blind as a bat the voice/tone of voice, conversation would have given it away?

Obviously the school has to take some blame but also the mother for putting the gp in this situation.

I can not understand why a child would need to be taken out of school to be given calpol either.

If the child (original gc) had a health problem say headache or cough and the other child turned up to surgery surely the gp would have said 'tell me where it hurts' etc?

And surely the child would have said 'I havnt got a headache or sore throat'?

I can't imagine how a Grandfather entrusted to undertake this important task couldn't recognise his own Granddaughter! Regardless of uniform, similarity of appearance, hair colour etc. Mind you, at a recent princess themed party I asked a wee girl in a cinderella dress her name and she was one of my DD's best school friends who I had seen loads of times over a short time (albeit of only 3 weeks). What was more embarrassing was her Dad was standing next to me at the time!

I wonder if he started to doubt himself at some point during the journey but thought the school wouldn't have made such a daft mistake.

Last week I was stood waiting for a child to come out of reception class. Older man was stood next to me. The teachers bring children out one by one and identify carer/ parent and hand them over. The man saw a child, waved his hand and child was sent to him. He put his glasses on, looked at child and sent her back to teacher... He had the wrong one!

It does seem like an unfortunate combination of errors. Grand-dad has poor eyesight so doesn't realise child is not his grand-daughter. Child is very shy so agrees when teacher asks her that he's her grand-dad, even though she's not sure. The most culpable person seems to have been the receptionist, who apparently only took down the child's first name rather than the full name. One assumes she wrote down something like "Lauren in Mrs Smith's class." Most of the time that would have been OK because most grandfathers would recognise their own grandchild.

I do wonder how the parents of the child who should have been taken are now feeling - mortified, I imagine.

Astonishing story.

I don't get the "poor eyesight" excuse. To not be able to recognise your own grandchild is more than just poor eyesight, it's a serious visual impairment. But to not twig that the child doesn't sound right or seems shy and reluctant to speak? Shouldn't alarm bells have been ringing before getting the bus? Or before getting to the GP surgery? Or during the consultation? It just beggars belief that he never twigged AT ANY POINT. Reckon he might have some cognitive difficulties as well?

"Obviously the school has to take some blame but also the mother for putting the gp in this situation."

????

Really?

The father of course, has no responsibility at all for putting the gp in this situation.

You couldn't make it up.

And actually I don't think the mother or the father have done anything wrong.

Asking a trusted family member to take your DC to the GP is not outrageous neglect, it's absolutely normal. But it shows how strong misogyny is that someone on a mother's website can somehow find the mother at fault for this. Incredible.