There is a mother whose children attend the same school as mine. Recently within the past few weeks I've noticed that she has been doing the school run minus her youngest child who is four years old, when ever I have asked her about the child's absence, she has told me that the child is at home sleeping, even sleeping downstairs on the couch and she's left her! Her husband was out of the country and she has no family here or close friends, she usually asks a couple of mums at the school to help her with school runs but they were at the school at the time. She seems to not cope well and is always trying to pass her responsibility to others I.e asking some people she barely speaks to let alone knows to look after her children, offering them money even sometimes which never materialises anyway. And she sees nothing wrong with leaving her child at home. Now I think of it, there have been times I've seen her walking around town without any of her children, her husband works full time and does go abroad sometimes so I worry that she could be leaving them more often than I originally thought, which is a scary thought. The thing that really did it for me was the most recent incident where I noticed yet again no younger child, asked and she casually passed it off saying that she was on the sofa at home and she seemed in no urgency at all to get back to her, she was in fact one of the last mothers to leave the school grounds. So for the last few days it just played on my conscience, it just isn't right and if something happens I would know that I could have prevented it. So, I didn't ring social services, I can't bring myself to do that but I did speak to someone at the child's nursery. I just had to, I was nearly in tears doing it. They reassured me that I was doing the right thing and the next day they informed me that they had been in contact with social care and would be looking to have a sit down with mum and dad and may arrange parenting advice/classes. I feel like I've done the right thing for the child but yet again my conscience is on over drive as I didn't know but she's been induced to have her new baby and so now I feel so so so horrible because she's just had a baby and now she's going to be confronted with neglecting her four year old. As a parent myself I just can't fathom leaving your child at home alone, what if something happened? Surely she needs to learn that it's not ok? I don't want her to get into trouble, I just want her to have a warning that it's not ok and that extra support is out there if she needs it. Has anyone else on here been in this situAtion? Does anyone have any advice? Anything? I'm just feeling so conflicted right now