to expect mums to look after their children?

My grandson had one of those. My daughter was furious when she left him with someone who took him to the shops and didn't bother with it [even though she had told him to use it]. A small child's hand can so easily slip out of yours if they want to run off. We read that a child doen't have any traffic sense whatsoever until they're @ 5; prior to that they're like loose cannons when they're near a road. I also dislike those scooters that small children use, as they career on way ahead of their parents and in no way could be stopped if they decided to ride straight across a road.

I remember an increased awareness after the dreadful James Bulger murder but I fear parents have got complacent. I like DGS to wear his "backpack" with a hande on the top (for a quick grab!) and a "lead " attached which then slips round my upper arm leaving my hand free to hold his. If I am also attempting to manoeuvre the buggy (a 2 handed affair to steer the damn thing) he has to hold on to the side as well. Call me paranoid but I don't want to leave anything to chance.

That's an interesting point.It made me wonder if, because babies/toddlers no longer wear napies that look like nappies and therefore wear almost adult clothes [jeans etc] their parents regard them more as mini adults?

My DD and SIL refused to use reins on their children. I said that the GCs were not safe walking with me as even as toddlers they could run into traffic faster than I could stop them. They said that it was treating their children like dogs.

Why do modern mums have such a strong objection to using reins or fastening toddlers into push chairs for the child's safety.?

gracemum I know exactly how you feel. I was in the supermarket car park the other day and having checked my mirrors was reversing out of the space when a lady loading her shopping into the car next to mine suddenly shouted "stop" and banged her hand on the roof of my car. I braked and got out of the car to find a small child immediately behind me (couldn't see her in my mirrors because she was so small). BOTH her parents were loading their shopping into their car - why couldn't one of them load the shopping and the other put the child in the car! The father just wandered across and took the childs hand - and still didn't put her into the car. I was very shaken and had to sit in my car for a little while before I could drive away. If it hadn't been for the lady who shouted stop I would have hit the child - still makes my blood run cold when I think about it.

There seems to be a lack of common sense or is it just plain laziness. A woman in Australia answered her mobile phone and turned away from her baby's pram while she talked. When she turned around the pram and baby had disappeared and she thought someone had taken her baby. Unfortunately she hadn't put the brake on the pram and it rolled into the nearby river and the baby drowned.

You had every right to tell the mother to hold her child's hand gracesmum and I would have also told her to show some responsility.

I was standing on a traffic island in Melbourne on a busy road and a man was waiting with his three children to cross too. He had the pram on the road and the cars were passing inches away. When I told him the pram was too near the traffic he got a bit bristly at me but at least moved the pram. I will always say something because if I didn't and a child was killed because I didn't speak up I would regret it for the rest of my life.

A nasty experience indeed. Hope you are OK*gracesmum*.
You are being very reasonable to expect children to be cared for by their parents, especially when on the pavements/ kerbs etc.

P.s. I bet you were shaken up gracesmum and hope you feel okay now.

I have noticed that there are people who the moment they recognise, along with other people, that they are in some way in the wrong – for example, the mother who wasn't looking after her child properly – feel obliged to blame someone else for their failings. In other words, of course it was your fault gracesmum that you had to stop suddenly to avoid hitting an unaccompanied small child; otherwise, mum might have to modify her behaviour. It happens with both small and large issues more and more frequently these days. We even see it on gransnet, thankfully fairly infrequently.

Oh you are sooo right *Gracemum I am a driver and I know what you mean, my pet hate is when at a half way crossing bit in the road the Mum puts her buggy not to the side of her away from danger but half way in the road!

Its a good thing you stopped in time, thats why they say speed kills and you could have been telling a very different story..

Thank goodness you could stop in time. Well done.

I really do think that some parents are totally unable to put themselves into the mind of a child. This applies not only to safety matters, but also to the child's general ability to understand and to control their own behaviour. So many of the parents I saw when I worked in child guidance would expect their offspring to behave like mini-adults, and would become angry with them and call them naughty inappropriately.

I saw someone a while back going down an escalator with a child in a pushchair and realised, when she got to the bottom that the child wasn't strapped in [she was behind the pushchair not in front of it]. I couldn't believe it. A young friend of mine used to let her child play in the front garden [no fence] and when a lady got out of a car that was driving past to say she had seen the child make a move towards the road and had slammed her brakes on, she replied that how was her child to learn anything if it wasn't given freedom [was @ 2 at the time]. I always took my children to school and playgroup even when other parents offered to take them because they used to let the children run on ahead [the road through our village at the time was like an extension of the M1 [to which it led]]. Not sure if it's just me but in situations like this having the mother attached to a mobile phone just makes me even more cross [like; can't you bother to have a conversation with your child when you take it out ]. Sympathies gracesmum.

gracesmum, what a horrid experience for you. Difficult to know what to do, and at such times we just go with instincts, so please do not fault yourself, you did nothing wrong.
Lets just hope the Mum has learned a bit of a lesson.

Gracesmum how awful for you and I dread to think what kind of enviroment this child is growing up in,if I was in your position (but having to bear in mind you could not stop with traffic etc.) I would have got out and given her a piece of my mind you would be surprised how quickly these mouthy people back down when confronted. I'm wondering if she was in a hurry to get back home and watch Jeremy Kyle on TV a thing we find at my DDs school playground every am.