Panorama - I want my baby back

[BeyondTheLimitsOfAcceptability]

Anyone watching?

This promoting of the idea that SS want to steal babies makes me very uneasy...

Wizardpc, do you accept that removing a three year old from her adoptive parents with whom she has been placed for a long time would not be "no problemo"?

Please, do not resist getting your children medical help when you need it because of scaremongering. The consequences for your children could be much worse if they dont get the care they need - particularly if you neglect your duties as a parent by not getting medical help when you need to.

By contrast. My ex H was playing a game with my son aged 7 and he accidently dropped him and broke his arm. (I saw it happen) We took him to hospital and told them exactly what happened. Ex H was visibly distressed.

Doctors asked us seperately what happened. Asked son, whilst we were outside the cubicle, and decided that they believed us. Took weeks in plaster to heal, but we never heard from social services.

That is ridiculous and way OTT, wizard and I would udge you for not accessing the appropriate medical care for your child

what next ?

set your own child's fractures at home ?

you comments are dangerous and stink of advocating child neglect

are you really saying children's A+E doctors are waiting just to snatch our children ?

they are far too busy for that....only very dodgy histories and clear signposts to abuse and/or neglect would be picked up in the way you are insinuating

*judge you

(my j is sticking)

well you with your sticky J - what I am saying is that there are many parents who do not now go to doctors because of this.

My kids are all but grown up.

Then wizard you are an awful parent if you would not seek medical care for an injury.

A friend has a child whose shoulder dislocates fairly regularly due to an underlying condition. She has been visited by SS because of it, as the hospital should report these cases just in case there is something more sinister going on. They chat, she cooperates, they go away again because she has nothing to hide and understands that they need to investigate in order to discover genuine cases of abuse.

There is a lot more to these "stolen" baby stories than meets the eye. SS need (or certainly should need, the good ones do) a lot of evidence to remove a child. Adoption as others have said is the last resort.

As someone who has read a lot of children's adoption profiles, the impression I have is that they are often left with their birth families until far too much damage is done (particularly with neglect, much more common than forms of abuse and far harder to prove) because SS have to be sure that they have supported the family and - in cases where children are eventually removed - are making the correct decision.

There are families where four or five children have been taken into care already, but the next is not removed at birth so that the parents have an opportunity to show that they can care for this one appropriately (and are given support to learn how to do so). This is not an unusual situation, at least in our local authority.

The emphasis is on keeping children within birth families wherever possible, though the scaremongering suggests otherwise.

I had similar trip to A&E where DD insisted on having a piggy back on me, then let go. I thought I heard something pop when she landed and when she couldn't put weight on one leg when she stood I rushed up to A&E. I do not understand how a loving parent could NOT take their child to a hospital if they think they are hurt. I think not doing so says a lot more to SS, especially if there are pictures of injury and no medical records to match them!

I was asked if I have a social worker (I don't) and I have heard nothing from SS at all since. I was asked by the doc when we went for her flu immunisation why we had gone up to A&E, but again, it just seemed like a friendly-ish double check. It relieved me that they asked if I am honest!
I can understand that if your child is forever hurting themselves this could be more of a concern however, but scaring people into not going to hospital if their child is hurt does make the parent look worse in the long run.

There may be some parents that are swallowing dangerous scaremongering, but they would be wrong to deny their children medical care

Is that a strange concept to you ? Do you think we should do away with all children's medical services whatsoever and go back to just having the local poultice applier ?

It would certainly save a lot of money in training these professionals and the astronomical costs of providing the excellent care on a 24 hour basis we take for granted in this country

I guess it would fund more government officials pay rises though.

I like most parents had occasional times when I seemed to be constantly in A & E with one child or another. Never had a sniff of interest from social services.

I once yanked my toddler daughter very roughly out of her high chair as I feared she was choking

I hurt her leg in the process and took her to A+E. Not one eyebrow was raised, I was treated very kindly in my obvious distress and reassured that they see this kind of thing all the time

ditto the time I thought she might have punctured her eardrum when she toddled out of the bathroom with a carelessly discarded cottonbud in her ear and then promptly fell onto it as I watched in horror from another room

This is why sites like MN are such a godsend to parents, being able to share our own A&E stories shows just how infrequently children are investigated for real accidents.

Oh dear. The @@@'s are really obvious

Now this is degenerating into the same old "lets make the adoptive parents (who are REAL parents, deal with it) into bogeymen and the enemy because that makes everything much simpler in my imaginary-land". I see no great difference between the birth parents and adoptive parents. The birth parents don't love the children any more than the adoptive parents do, and the child is more bonded and attached to the adoptive parents. If you took the child away from the adoptive parents, then guess what, the adoptive parents would also be wronged parents who have lost their precious child despite the fact they have never abused or harmed their child. I don't think we should be removing people's children when they haven't ever done anything wrong, and that includes adoptive parents!

Which is why the childs interests come first

Maryz do you think wizard also might know some helpful rules for parents who come into contact with SS?

Well, Spero, I suspect wizard would suggest, (in the child's best interests, natch) that if you think your partner is abusing or physically assaulting your child, you shouldn't tell the police or social services. Just a guess, mind.

I'm sure he does Spero

Something about child sexual molesters...don't call police...that kind of thing...don't co-operate with ss ever...basically whatever is most likely to harm your case, do that

most people dont have a problem at hospitals - however some do.

I wasn't advocating not taking children to hospitals - I said Im not surprised some dont.

Perhaps if your partner is sexually abusing your child, the correct course of action is to flee the country so that he/she can carry on doing it with impunity ?

Lianne Smith anyone?

I'm guessing that Wizard would suggest that this high profile case, in the US was highly satisfactory for everyone involved and is what we should strive towards as an ideal.

And like many parents, we're A&E regulars with the boys. They're always covered in bruises and we've had to point a few bite marks out to school after fights have broken out. As both boys have SN and challenging behaviour, it's almost a certainty that we will need to invite SS into our lives, at some point. I have no paranoia about them "stealing" the boys. I am more concerned that they would prove to be under-resourced, over-stretched and ineffectual.

I havent really read all the previous posts - but as I said earlier the debate is so polarised in this country which seems to be obsessed with child abuse far beyond the fact that 99+% of parents do not abuse their children. Unfortunately it does mean that if anyone does speak out against the system that they are quickly portrayed as abusers themselves. This is how some of you are trying to paint wizard for some reason even though he is quite reasonably not rising to it. I can only speak from personal experience of children and families social workers and I do not trust them at all to have a balanced view of my family and our parenting and my wife lives in fear of them. In my experience their views have been warped and entirely unbalanced and in some cases clearly vindictive. I dont paint all social workers as evil and fortunately my wife's adult services social worker is very supportive and is the first line of defence against the fantasies of her colleagues elsewhere in the profession. In addition our experiences with the police (where neighbours have ganged up on my wife by calling the police because they do not understand her autistic condition) have been, much to our pleasant surprise, universally brilliant and supportive. Crucially they have used their common sense in assessing our circumstances and when we have spoken to them have been gobsmacked when we have told them that social services have rapidly threatened us with taking away our children. Speaking to another senior social work manager now retired she has confided in me that this application of common sense seems to have gone out of the window when it comes to child protection. It doesnt surprise me at all that those people that are abusing and neglecting their children are not being identified when they are casting their net so haphazardly.

Hello happycat and welcome to mumsnet. There seem to be a lot of men registering today just to talk about this one tv programme, in which mumsnet was not mentioned so much as once.

I have the skin of rhino so am not really bothered. The disbelief that some of these things actually do happen is rather out of kilter with reality. Guess I was lucky having four blonde, blue-eyed kids - thankfully nearly near adults!!

But mine all went to grammar schools and had a middle class background.

On the other thread you say you give help to people - can you tell us how people find you? Who refers them to you.

Just curious.