Would you call this neglect?

[MrsASoprano]

Well-off parents, good jobs, nice house. Children well-fed and clothed. Extra-curricular treats like horseriding etc.

But..

• Child diagnosed with chronic asthma from age 6. Both parents smoke all over the house. Child has persistent asthmatic night-time cough. Parents choose to treat child's asthmatic cough (which leave child awake and coughing for hours into the night) with honey and lemon drinks rather opposed to administer and monitor inhaler use.

• Child aged 8 left at neighbour's house to babysit. Child is terrified of male neighour and hides behind sofa all day. Parents told of this when they pick child up. They laugh at child.

• Children live near a river but not given any boundaries re: where it is safe to go and not safe to go. Child aged 11 almost drowns in the river when caught in riptide.

• Parents take children on dream holiday to Australia. 14 yo becomes very dehydrated/ill from constant air sickness. When checking in to Ayres Rock resort receptionist has to being poor state of 14 yo to their attention. Receptionist points out that there is no hospital local to Ayres Rock and it is obvious the child is not well and needs medical attention.

• Teenage daughter age 16 experiences a traumatic incident and witnesses murder scene of a child she knew well. Parents do not discuss this at all and go out of their way to conceal the incident from family and friends.

• Teenage daughter age 18 witnesses her brother experience a psyhoctic breakdown and has to seek medical attention for him and sign consent forms to have him sectioned. Parents do not discuss incident with daughter at all and instruct her not to discuss it with anyone else.

Would any of these count as neglect?

I think so. Emotional, certainly, and at times physical - the inhalers, the stuff at Ayers Rock.

Did these things happen in your family of origin OP?

If you're worried which it sounds like you obviously are, then I'd contact their schools and let the schools deal with it. There might well be things in place already via the school and they might be monitoring the situation.

Each and all of those is neglect.
Please speak to NSPCC or Social Services.

Yes. Are you one of the DDs OP? I may be wrong but I'm reading this as if you are one of the children and you are talking about your parents. I'm not sure what you can do retrospectively, but yes, this upbringing was abusive.

Yes, absolutely yes. Even just reading the first I said yes.

Sorry, was this your childhood family?
If so, do you want to talk some more?

Thank you.

Yes, sorry not to be clear. I am the child in all of these scenarios.

I'm trying to pin down a way of describing what all of that 'stuff' was.

Yes.

Was this your parents?

Yes.

The asthma thing in particular makes me very angry, as I had undiagnosed asthma as a child, and being constantly wheezy and unable to breath properly makes you utterly miserable. Proper medication can make a huge difference. (And of course asthma can be life-threatening.)

I don't know if I'd consider the last two neglect, but the others are all instances of neglect, IMO.

Yes, absolutely.

I'm sorry your parents weren't who they should have been. I'm not sure you could sum the behaviours up in one word, other than 'wrong'? Have you ever spoken to them about it?

Cross-post with you OP. I'm sorry you had these experiences . Your parents sound absolutely heartless.

MrsASoprano

Thank you.

I've spoken to them about some of this stuff (this isn't the worst stuff, there's a much bigger thing I haven't mentioned but for now I'm trying to work out this periphery stuff).

I generally get denials, or no response when I try to raise this stuff.

I would describe it as casual disregard for the wellbeing of their child, whose wellbeing should have been their top priority.

I'm not sure, personally.

It shouldn't be an excuse and I cannot begin to put into words how I detest smoking but attitudes towards it have changed very rapidly. Twenty years ago it was seen as not great but perfectly normal.

My own mum and dad made me very ill driving everywhere and I was so sick but they weren't neglectful! I just don't think they realised how much I suffered on those journeys.

The onus used to be very much on children to keep themselves safe round water, playing etc. I don't like it but so many people say how wonderful playing all day was

I don't fully understand the murder thing but I know my parents found it hard to talk about stuff.

No. All of this was common in the sixties, seventies, eighties and nineties. Pretty much everyone I ever knew experienced all of these things. My friend's cough, in the 80s, was treated with honey and lemon because the GP told his mum he didn't believe inhalers were good for Asthma. He had three attacks before a specialist forced his mum to keep him on the inhaler.

Thanks, all views appreciated.

There was a huge issue with alcohol, sexual promiscuity and poor supervision and no boundaries which ended up working out really badly for me. But I know that part was neglectful.

It's just all of this other stuff I can't work out.

Beagle Not meeting a child's emotional needs and supporting them absolutely is neglect

It's all abuse. You deserved better, and still do. But you will need help to process all this, and that means therapy of some sort. I hope you're ok.

The medical ones would count as safeguarding red flags. Any school, for example, would report this to SS as neglect. The rest would be shit parenting individually but taken as a whole picture would be a safeguarding issue.
Sorry to hear that you're working through some rough stuff there.

Op. Can I ask how old you are please? I'm wondering if maybe you're old enough that it was in a different time, the sixties or seventies where much of this stuff was maybe more normal. When there was no internet, no such thing as safeguarding, not telling people about what happened in your family and kids went off and played all day.

Crochet Sure, by modern understanding, but we're talking about attitudes 20+ years ago, which were certainly different.