Leaving a 3 year old un-attended

[Whoopsadaisy82]

A lady in our street, has 2 children agred 6 and 3. The school is about 100m across the road. Every morning this lady takes her older boy to school and leaves the younger one in the house, sometimes leaving him for upto 40 minutes. The father of the children works long hours, and I know he is not in the house. I have asked her about the younger one, asking where he is and she said he was just at home eating breakfast and was fine by himself. It started with her leaving him for a few minutes but now she has made friends with some of the local mums, she is leaving him for longer. I have tried several times to speak to her about this and get the brush off, so what do I do now? Keep my nose out knowing something could happen, or call social services?

I would call social services - but she will probably realise it was you. I can sort of understand why she does it, but its not acceptable, he is eating his breakfast, what if he chokes? I konw its very unlikely but not impossible.

He is not in a high chair or anything, you can see him running around and playing with the curtains. The other day he was crying up at the window, she didn't care :-(

As well as being entirely irresponsible it is also completely unnecessary - the rest of us manage to take our smaller dc's on the school run with us, why would anyone feel they couldn't manage that and better to leave a small child at home? I don't get it. It raises other concerns such as are there stair gates preventing the child from getting upstairs? If not, he could easily slip and injure himself. Most of us fell down the stairs at least once as a child. What would he do if someone knocked the door? It is rather awkward because she may well assume that you are the one who called SS, given that you have called her on this issue before, but the safety of the child is the biggest issue and I would probably ring SS to explain the situation and ask what you should do. They might give some advice regarding speaking to the local health visitor or they may just say that it is a SS issue and you should formally report it. I imagine the latter.

Crying at the window, alone in the house, is awful The more I think about it the more I would just go ahead and call SS, personally.

Call ss.

If he is up at the window crying anyone could have reported him if they pass regularly and have realised he's on his own. Poor him :( :(

It really is neglect.

Thats really shocking to leave a child that age alone i would be very worried about this

Call ss! Good grief If the rest of us can drag all out kids on and off busses or on two mile round trips to school I'm sure 100m with a three year old is more than possible. No excuse

I have done it, feel really sorry for the little boy. Why do I feel guilty though? Hopefully the mother will get the kick up the backside she needs!

Don't feel guilty though. She did this, not you!! Anything coulda happened to him,

Think how much worse you'd feel if something happened to him when you knew he was alone. You've done the right thing - these children rely on kind people noticing when they can't speak up for themselves. Poor little thing

Well done op, don't feel guilty, tbh if she is lax enough to leave him on his own in the morning, you don't really know how else she is failing, the SS will be able to give her support and guidance.

Poor boy :(

You did the right thing

Are you quite sure he is alone? As in SURE.

My husband recently changed to doing a couple of backshifts per week and apparently there had been discussion of where my younger son was while I took my daughter to nursery.

Be 100% sure.

Terra, if the boy is not on his own then there wont be a problem will there.

Sorry, I wasn't clear there.
His shift change meant that he was home to stay with DS, while I did the nursery run/walked the dog.

If there's no problem then case will be dismissed. But op can't sit on the fact that she suspects he's being left on his own. Better a false alarm then missing it. What if he tried to make some toast on his own and got burnt.

Definitely on his own, his dad is in the army and is away a lot. I know I have done the right thing, just never had to do anything like this before so I feel bad but would feel worse if anything was to happen to him

Just read this and wanted to say well done OP. If she's otherwise a good mum she'll get constructive advice, if not you've saved that child. Don't wonder even for a moment if you were wrong to call. You gave her a chance. You've done 100% the right thing.

Just a quick update, she brought her son to the school gate this morning!! She didn't say good morning to me, but I can live with that knowing the boy is safe :-)

Good work op :)

I always think we cannot ever know if a child is safe or neglected or being ill treated. That's why SS are there, because we can't possibly make judgement calls without knowing the circumstances. That's why if you do have any concerns, it's always next IMO to report it to the people that can investigate and find out more.

If everything is actually ok, then there's no problem but I think it's better to be cautious and report it, rather than hearing something terrible has happened.

You did a good thing, OP.