A very difficult situation-what to do?

Just caught up with this thread, and wanted to add my support to KateK. Of course you did the right thing and I hope I would have done the same - I know I would have worried about it if I hadn't.

Perhaps jingl has some problem which we could help her with?

Agreed Katek and good on you for caring.

I could have taken umbrage at several of JBF's posts but at the end of the day I am more saddened and disappointed. Saddened that anyone should think I'm such a base and shallow person that my judgement can be swayed by the attractiveness quotient of a small child. Good god-what kind of a person do you think I am? Disappointed that this analysis of my motivations has been made when you don't even know me from Adam JBF. I had thought better of you.

That was way beyond the bounds, Jingl. Def not acceptable.

Interesting then that most people would report to the SW rather than offer help to the woman and perhaps an indication that we depend more on authorities than we once did. Also perhaps that we are more nervous about the reaction we might encounter if we offer help.

Better, I now believe, to overreact than to regret lack of action. Tell the school about the mother who crosses the road with her 3 year old trailing behind, tell the pharmacist about the worrying conversation you overheard outside, an addict boasting that he doesn't take his methadone but sells it.
Chat to your local community police, to any police, about the queue of teenagers entering a local house then leaving with with little plastic packets. Ask the sad faced child whether they're all right, the lone toddler whether they can see their mother. Embarrass yourself maybe but don't end up regretting not having spoken out. Don't walk past on the other side.
KateK - I firmly believe that you did the right thing, as do most of us.

I was rereading this and suddenly wondered why the OP hadn't asked the woman if she needed help. The symptoms described are very similar to those a diabetic might exhibit. There was little evidence of neglect apart from a child skipping ahead of her mother and the fact that she seemed to be heading for the methadone queue. (Incidentally I don't know where or even if my local chemist dispenses methadone). Could this be a case of too much experience rather than too little? Just asking (expect someone will think I'm being difficult)

Wooden spoon will do (although I think she already has one). I'll have the Magimix.

I think we should all club together and buy Jings a big wooden spoon or perhaps a Magimix 4200XL .

Thank goodness for people like KateK . I hope if ever Jings Dgc are in a potentially dangerous situation someone cares enough to try to help.

We all have bad days and it's easy to kick the keyboard and not care who we attack Tegan. I have tried throughout this thread to put down an experience I had with DGS3 . And I simply cannot as it was and still so painful to me. I'm not on drugs ,don't need methadone and have I hope all my wits about me and yet I lost that child . In seconds and it ended up with out tragedy but the world stopped still when it happened and I didn't think my daughter would ever forgive me but she brushed it away. I am not ,believe me dramatising. If only everyone was as conscientious as the OP. we were lucky

I am not in a truculent mood. Is everyone who disagrees with anyone else "truculent"?

Have to leave the thread now as DD just arrived. Sorry, couldn't read all of your post Elegran

You are in a truculent mood, jings Stop ridiculing people who worry about other people's children. You are very fiery about your own grandchildren.

If you cast your mind back, you could probably remember occasions when your heart was in your mouth about a child who was someone else's reponsibility. Or had you completely forgotten how quickly a child can be under the wheels of a car or into some other danger?

Being conderned about the children does not mean that GNers are not also concerned about the mother. She needs support too and no-one has said that she doesn't.

Vague happening in my dim and distant past? That scene is etched on my memory.

Oh, I haven't answered you yet my internet played up. It was - Hello Tegan.

Won't bother to reply to your daft question.

Bit rude that jingle. Time to back off methinks .

And whatever has some vague happening in your dim and distant past got to do with anything Elegran?

So a child careering on ahead of it's parent on a scooter [where the parent can't even see it sometimes] isn't potentially dangerous?

Know

I didn't being blonde haired was a "race".

thrillednanny I just wondered if there would have been as much concern for a rough tough looking mousey haired boy.

Just surprised people can trot that awful thing out quite so glibly.

What this little girl did is no more than many children do these days. Especially on their scooters.

GillT57 - agree with everything you say.

Can't you, jings? A small child out of sight of mother is vulnerable to all kinds of dangers - abduction by twisted murderers is the worst one, but it is only one example. There are others, though, which could be disastrous - running into a busy road is one.

For a short time I used to take a 4 year-old neighbour's child to nursery along with my own. I had a toddler in a pushchair, my own nursery age child and a child of my own just started at school. My two always walked beside the pushchair, or one would hold my hand. The other child wouldn't hold my hand or walk beside us. One day she decided to teeter along the edge of the kerb, and when I asked her to come away from the road edge, she refused. When I put out my hand to take hers - she flounced off into the road! where I had to follow, grab her hand forcibly and grip it all the way to nursery. That could have been a tragedy in one act.

Go katek! And just for the record, why was the question even raised about why a child's hair colour was mentioned? I saw the original post as just a description of the child. The query looked to me like trying to provoke a racist issue that was simply not there.

Can't believe people are bringing up the case of little Jamie Bulger. (which was completely different)

Oh yes I can. #Gransnet

Absolutely the right thing to do KateK, as I said before, it was people not wishing to interfere that led to Jamie Bulger's killers being able to drag him along several streets after abducting him. Many witnesses at the trial acknowledged having seen him and bitterly regretting not stopping them and asking what was going on. A few people on here have been a bit narky and sarcastic in their posting, and I wonder how they would feel if their grandchild skipped along and into the path of a lorry, and nobody 'interfered'. This poor woman obviously needs support and help, and so do her children and alerting SS was the right thing to do in my mind and I would have done the same, not through any official or professional experience, but because I am a human being.

Having worked with vulnerable people for years ('till 3 years ago), I still sometimes call in worrying situations to Social Care. I know it's the right thing to do, but sadly, also know they almost certainly won't do anything but log it. This is because, as others have said, social workers are just massively overworked.

That said, if enough worrying incidents are logged, eventually, a picture builds up which is hard to ignore. Certainly, if the family is already known to them, your report will add to their understanding of the potential risks.

I think it was the right thing to do.