Would you call DFS on this woman?

By the way, her husband was screaming at her that it was her fault and she was obviously bawling. She is a good person and has been a good neighbor as well.

IF you do call Child Protective, they will investigate. If you don’t call and something happens to him, will you feel guilty? She might be a good person and good neighbor, and she may be a good mom but something is missing.

@jca I think she lets them run and hopes for the best, but obviously that’s not good parenting. I’m not a parent, so it’s one of those times that I’d be happy if another neighbor called rather than me, she comes to us for rides, or when her husband is screaming at her, you know, we’re kind of her friends.

I’d feel bad if something happened to Ethan, of course, but we take extra care not to drive fast or pull into our place too fast, in case he’s running loose. People down the street sometimes go pretty fast (we have a quiet suburban street) though, which scares me.

If she is a good person and a good neighbor I would sit down and have a chat with her to express your concerns.if that does not work a call to child protective services would be the right thing to do.

@1TubeGuru In all my life here, I’ve called DFS once. Messing with people’s lives and children is something I do not do. I’ll think about talking to her though.

@KNOWITALL I would be reluctant to call DFS too but I think I would talk to her about your veery real concerns.

So the police said they would take action if it happened again and it happened again? I would call them the next time the kiddo was missing, which will happen again.

She needs far more than an alarm on the door (and a screaming, blaming husband).

DFS is aptly named (Division of Family Services) If your family isn’t divided, they’ll be happy to do it for you!

There is no guarantee the kid would be better off with DFS because they have a rather horrible record in that department. I wonder if the parents aren’t exactly all there if they think it’s OK to let the older boy watch his brother. I’m glad you’re going to try to talk to the parents, and I hope they are willing to listen to you, and consider alternatives to his care.

I think “alternatives to his care” are a bit drastic. They might evaluate her and the father, and maybe give them some parenting classes. Foster Care is a last resort and not something that is usually a goal for Child Protective, unless it’s a drastic case.

Never call child services. The child is almost always better off with their own family.

@snowberry @flip86 I feel exactly the same. Missouri is not known for having the best family services either.

How old is the older sibling? Has he been evaluated for delays? Is he in school?

@jca you didn’t read my comment very well, did ya? Never mind. It’s all good…

@snowberry: I did read your comment in full. I read every word of it. I got the joke.

As a former CPS worker (10 years experience) I can assure you, removing the child was the last thing we wanted to do. People think we take joy in removing children, honestly, it usually is way more work to remove a child, but of course, there are times it’s necessary. We would want the mother to show she is capable of providing supervision, and sometimes that might involve the child staying with a family member. Staying with a family member or friend was usually a better choice than a foster family.

I left the house at age 4 while my mother was showering before work and nursery school ( my father traveled a lot and my mom and I were often alone ) and got on the school bus with the neighbor kids and went into the first grade classroom where it took the teacher about 20 minutes to even notice there was a strange child in her classroom. lol
Unless the situation is extremely grave I would not meddle in these peoples problems with their child.
Jeez…door alarms etc. It seems as if she is trying and a precocious child, as I was as well, is hard to contain.
I also wandered off into the mountains alone around the same age. This was in some very rugged country in Santa Fe N.M.

My mother called out a search party and I remember sitting in a remote canyon by a huge boulder listening to the Bobcats scream at dusk. haha

I would have hated that the neighbors would have further traumatized my poor mother by calling CPS.

what is dfs?

Division of Family Services, sometimes known as CPS – Child Protective Services.

If I had grown up in this age, I very likely would have been removed by social services because of the situation at home. The thing is, it would in no way have improved my situation.

I had a similar problem when my kids were tiny. I had 3 babies in diapers at once. The twins were very tall for their age, and could reach the deadbolt on all the doors. Their idea of fun was to stroll around the neighborhood- naked at 18 months old. Drove me nuts. And I had 2 older kids who were supposed to come in and out of the house by themselves. Summer time was insane. I’m soooo glad the police weren’t called.

@Coloma I ran away to the park at age 3 and it was only 50 yards from our apartment, but it scared the crap out of her.

One of the reasons I posted this is because we truly have been in fear for this kids life a few times now. We live in rural Missouri, it’s not like all parents here have their thumbs on their kids at all times but this little guy is too young to be left to wander on his own.

Did I mention we live by a park and there are several pedophiles that live in our town?

@Cupcake The older boy is about 9, really big kid, and we think he’s slow, but we never mentioned it and the parents never brought it up, so I’m not sure about testing, but he does go to school with the other kids.

@jca Thank you.

. I think you should call them. Don’t make her sound bad, just voice your concerns. If something happens and you knew you could have done something to help, well, the guilt wouldn’t be worth it.

@Headhurts Yeah, but wouldn’t twice in two weeks teach you a lesson? I’m leaning towards waiting for one more incident.
It may sound chickensh*t to you guys, but we really do not like to get involved in other people’s business here (especially family business) unless it’s absolutely necessary.

Putting the older child in charge, to me, says she is overburdened with everything that she has to do in the home. Chances are the father was mad because he had to put down his beer, get out of his Barcalounger and put on a shirt to go look for his child.

I think I would try, as others have suggested, to talk with her privately, find out what is going on, and make a decision once I have more information to go on.

@KNOWITALL It’s not chicken shit at all. Is she a young mother? Single parent? Does she seem to genuinely love them, or do you feel they are in her way?

She seems to have had a really rough life, probably a meth addict not using (judging by her speech and pockmarks), no family here and married to an emotionally abusive man (and physical at times according to her.)

She said the only reason she married him was because she got pregnant by him, she says she hates him and he’s thrown hot coffee on her during a fight, too. I hear them fighting a lot since they live right next door. He controls the finances and she works at local restaurant. I heard him say that all she does is take pills and she had to get a job (this was a year ago) so she works now. She also took her older daughter to college and got a suspended license this last month. Just what most people would call a ‘mess up’ kind of person. It’s sad because she’s very nice, but I don’t know her well.

Damn. Messed up.

Maybe she really needs counseling?

@janbb Her husband wouldn’t give her the money, the rides or anything, I’m sure. He’s kind of a little George Constanza type jerk. I like almost everybody but he creeps me out.

@KNOWITALL Ok. Explains a lot. I would have a word with her first now. Tell her you’re worried about her as well as her children. Ask if you can help. Maybe she just doesn’t realise what is happening or even knows its wrong, possibly?

Actually, if she got the chance to talk to DFS perhaps they could help get her out of this situation as well as her children.
Would still talk with her though and try to get her on the same page. If she is too frightened to make the hard choices then I would do what was necessary to help the children. Be prepared to have hubby all up in your grill however.

@rojo Hubs is so laid back, he’d tell me not to do it and then be amazed at my daring when I did it..lol He can’t believe half of what I say and do, I’m kind of a ba// buster. :)

No, sorry, I meant hers, not yours.

@rojo He wouldn’t stand a chance, no worries. :)

DFS/CPS can help her access counseling and medical care, if she does not have it already. Sometimes, DFS/CPS being called is something the mother will be grateful for, since she may want the help and intervention but be too scared to call or access it herself. DFS/CPS can also help with things like day care, after school care, camp, stuff like that.

Why would you assume DFS would do a better job for that kid than the obviously very caring parents? I wouldn’t trust them so quickly. They sound like fucking idiots already.

If anything the mother needs help dealing with her child, not having him taken away.

I mean.. is she a bad parent or not? What would you do to keep such a child in line? What advice does she need to hear?

@ninjacolin: How does DFS sound like idiots in this situation? I don’t see them involved yet at all. Also, I said the goal of DFS is not to remove children. I worked in the field for ten years so I know from first-hand experience.

i assumed the cops involved were related to DFS. I could be wrong about that.

@ninjacolin Most of us here have seen too much done in the name of DFS to ever call them without thinking it through.

Heard of Dominic James by chance, it was a big deal and par for the course in Mo.

@ninjacolin: According to the OP, the cops said next time they will call. If they did call, there’d be an investigation going on now.

Related story from the 70’s
My little brother was about 12–15 months old. I was about 7 years old and my older sister who was about 12 was supposed to be watching us but she was distracted and had a friend over.
We looked out the front window and noticed that my brother was butt naked and walking up to the house with a plastic bucket in one hand and a little old black woman (unusual in our neighborhood in the 70’s) following him.
She followed him to the door and my sister was so embarrassed she made her friend answer it.
The woman started talking in that southern accent.
“Is dis yo li’l boy? Well he was all the way at my house on Jefferson street (a very busy street.) Dis boy pooped on my yard and he pooped on my porch and he pooped in dis her bucket!”
Just thought y’all would appreciate a laugh about a wandering child.
As my brother grew older he had a built in GPS. He rarely got lost.

I would talk to her, and if you’re willing, offer some help. You are probably not the only neighbour wrestling with this question, and she should be made aware of that. She needs to focus on caring for these kids, or she will lose them one way or another.

@glacial I think she needs more help than I can give her, but I will offer again. Although not to babysit the little monster, he’s so screamy I can’t take it, and he hits dogs. ha!

@KNOWITALL Yikes!

@glacial I know, right?! I call him Damien under my breath sometimes…lol

Contrary to what most people think, MOST parents involved with social services “really care a lot” for their children. They are “good people”. It’s a MYTH that most of the parents in social services are malicious child abusers who hate their kids.

Her intentions may be good, but leaving a developmentally disabled boy in charge of a three year old shows poor judgement. I think they at least need an informal correction or some parenting classes. I doubt the kids will get taken away right away.

Sorry to be so blunt, but she needs help. She’s not doing things right. Just like nice people can be lousy drivers and need to go to defensive driving classes to keep their licenses, there are very nice parents who make really bad mistakes and need to get help before something seriously bad happens.

Almost every parent has a story about their toddler escaping. My daughter ran down the road about a month ago. ONCE. ONCE. Then I figured out what I was doing wrong and fixed it so it didn’t happen again. This is happening all the time, according to your story.Are you waiting for the three year old to get hit by a car before you call?

Let me repeat. People don’t have to be mean to need intervention on their parenting skills. Everyone feels really bad for the poor mommy because she loves her baby so much. But that won’t make the kid any less dead when he wanders off once again and gets hit by a car. CALL. Seriously. Do it.

^ GA and all that but.. realistically… He might die in their care too.
The incompetence thing is important but wow can institution “help” really not be helpful sometimes.

@ninjacolin: An intervention does not necessarily equate to institutionalization (i.e. removal).

The child protective services system is inherently flawed. From false allegations of child abuse to losing kids or allowing them to experience worse abuse in the hands of their “protectors”, we have good reason to hesitate in calling in the authorities. Just my opinion, I know. But I’ve been there, done that.

This situation would most likely not lead to a removal—this is more “informal correction” material. Meaning the social worker would say “These changes need to take place soon. I’ll come and check on them. If they don’t change, we’ll figure out why you can’t do it and try to help you do it.”

PLEASE people stop assuming that when someone says “call social services” it means “put in foster care”. It’s getting a bit tedious to read people posting over and over again about institutionalized care when several people have mentioned over again that its most likely not going to happen in this case.

This person is:

a. showing poor judgement—letting a delayed child take care of a toddler is very poor judgement.

b. making the same mistake repeatedly. She may be trying new things, but the old things keep happening over and over.

c. this repeaded mistake is potentially lethal. YES @ninjacolin I know a child can die in the home. I just posted about that happening recently to a very good couple friend of mine who lost their daughter because she way playing and got trapped in an airtight toybox in the middle of the night. In light of this, I found your post VERY condescending. You can’t bubble wrap your kids. Please don’t assume that just because I say that letting your kid REPEATEDLY go outside unattended is potentially lethal that I am some sort of helicopter parent who thinks you can protect them from anything.

I mean, kids can fall down and skin their knees and get them bloody no matter how careful you are. That doesn’t mean that you might as well leave razor blades all over the floor because they’re just going to get hurt anyway.

If you are making a mistake a LARGE number of times that is potentially lethal, you have a higher risk than the average parent. I’m not exaggerating about it being lethal. I live in a neighborhood with a ton of kids under 5 who play in the cul-de-sacs. I’ve driven around these kids. They are VERY hard to see over the car’s dashboard because they are too short. They also dart quickly. I’ve seen kids “vanish” in my line of sight. I knew they were right in front of me, but I couldn’t see them at all. If I were talking on my phone, driving a little too fast or just not paying attention, I could have hit them.

At least when there is a parent about, they almost always call out to the kids “There’s a car coming!” and the kids will freeze, and look around for the car. It’s better if they just freeze than if they try to move. Seriously, they can be hard to see if they are short enough. The less they move the better. But I have also noticed that if a parent doesn’t call out, the kids mostly ignore the cars if they are really young. They just don’t know the danger.

An unsupervised child under 5 years old is short, darts doesn’t have anyone helping them look for cars. This is very dangerous. I don’t think that even the most free-range of parents would ever approve of a 3 year old strolling through the neighborhoods unattended.

This is really serious stuff. And honestly, I think it’s a shame you are slamming on the husband like that. If I were her husband I’d be mad as hell if that kept happening on her watch. I’d probably come off as an overbearing jackass too and wouldn’t trust her with driving or anything else.

I don’t care how nice she seems. She’s making stupid mistakes that could kill her child. No kidding around about that.

Sorry to double post, but it just nags at me that people keep saying “The social services system is flawed, so don’t call.”

I mean—I think the police system is VERY flawed. But if I saw some guy breaking into a neighbor’s house or driving like a maniac through the neighborhood, I’d call. I wouldn’t say “Aww screw it. The police are corrupt and I don’t like the way the do racial profiling. So I’m just going to watch this guy break into the house.”

Seriously. The social service sector is not perfect by a long shot, but why not use them in cases where they are supposed be contacted?

le sigh… If she really will get some hardcore counselling out of the deal rather than an abducted child then I wouldn’t feel uncomfortable giving them a try.

There needs to be a “Rate your local family services” website where people can see a full track record and make more informed decisions about the effectiveness of calling them in a given situation/area.

Even if there were a way to view and make more informed decisions about calling them or not, how do you determine, and therefore gamble, with a kid’s life? Kid ends up dead from being hit by a car, or kidnapped because mommy wasn’t watching him and he ran out for the umpteenth time, based on a guess that the CPS in the area might otherwise be overzealous? Even if you could see a full track record and see that some bad decisions were made, decisions fluctuate by caseworker and supervisor, and ultimately, sometimes by a Judge, so it’s hard to say “they tend to be one way” when it’s all up in the air.

@keobooks I’m thinking about how to proceed. I think talking to her personally as a friend will be my first attempt.

When he has been ‘loose’ several times, it’s big brother watching him and he literally takes off at a sprint towards whatever his object is and he is fast.

She is my neighbor and creating bad juju between us isn’t my first choice either.

Where do you people live? And are these stories—do you have actual factual proof of them happening or are the “I heard from a friend that some guy got his kids taken away.”

Also, if you know someone whose kids were taken away, you may have heard “My kids were taken away and ALL we did was blink the wrong way.” but you don’t know the whole real story. My husband used to work for social services advocating for the parents rights. Every client he had—no matter how screwed up the situation was, always said “All we were doing was talking loudly.. or whatever,” My husband used to believe them until he’d talk to the social worker in charge of the entire case. The parents would fail to mention the convicted child molester boyfriend who moved in or the cocaine on the table or the fact that there was a baby laying in a pile of shit and vomit on the floor.

Sometimes you could make a minor call and they go check it out and find out a bunch of OTHER stuff. Like the house is filthy and theres no running water because it was shut off. Or they look in the fridge and there is no food inside but tons of booze. Or there are drugs in the house. (Usually it’s drugs.) So you called and said “I hear screaming next door and I worry about the kids.” and you see them carted away. What you didn’t see was the meth lab or you didn’t see that the stove didn’t work and the kids had nothing to eat and the kitchen was too filthy to safely eat in it anyway.

As I stated, I worked in the field for 10+ years and I can assure you that what @keobooks said is correct. They’re all full of stories about how terrible DSS is, but they only know (or tell) half the story. They also know to call DSS when it’s vacation time (for free camp) or Christmas for free presents.

I’ve been in her house several times, and there’s nothing going on in plain sight, they both work and are productive citizens, the kids are always clean and well-fed.

Our DFS is notoriously bad and there have been major cases they’ve messed up that were our local paper. Here’s one:
http://www.news-leader.com/article/20120319/NEWS01/303190025/every-child-foster-home-sidney-james-dominic?nclick_check=1

If you have been in their house, and saw nothing amiss, it’s not likely that the kids would get taken away. I stand by it. I almost can promise it.

There are two things happening in your story. A criminally negligent foster parent who killed his ward is unforgivable. BUT EXTREMELY RARE.

The thing that I was talking about was that the story only took the dad’s word and didn’t get any official report. “There was no abuse or neglect. It was only a domestic dispute” That can be really anything—from yelling at each other to the fact that they were beating each other (not the kids) or waving guns around. And if there is severe violence between the couple—and not the kid—the kid will be taken away because it’s a dangerous environment to be in.

We don’t know. And sorry, but EVERY SINGLE PARENT my husband worked with would say something very similar that this guy did. He didn’t work with a single person caught physically abusing their kids in a deliberate manner. They were all neglect cases and MANY of them were domestic dispute cases that were complicated by other factors that the parents were too wrapped up in their own thing to notice.

I’m sorry that the little boy had to die. Nobody deserves that to happen. It was sad. But I still highly doubt the kid was taken away for no reason at all. And it’s not really related to the initial case.

Out of all the cases I’ve ever read about or heard about, there is only ONE case I can recall that was likely to be extremely over-reactive and vindictive. The parent was blind. And I do think many people see the disabled as being inherently incompetent parents. And I think the social worker just couldn’t imagine a blind woman being able to take care of a baby on her own (husband was blind too, but DFS was called because the woman accidentally almost smothered her newborn baby while breastfeeding) There was no intervention—like having the family get some help and visits from the social worker to make sure they could do it. Nobody even suggested that she bottle feed instead of breast feed for saftey’s sake.

Maybe it’s because I’m biased, but I really think that case was mishandled because the parents were disabled. But I still trust the system for the most part.

@KNOWITALL: First of all the articles states “This summer will mark the 10 year anniversary of Dominic’s death.” That means it happened ten years ago. I’m sure sweeping changes have taken place since then. Second of all, probably 99% of kids that DFS/CPS deals with are not removed from their homes. Apples and oranges.

Like I said, I’ll talk to her first, but thanks for your opinions.

@KNOWITALL: Please post an update, if you wish, and let us know how things go.

jca
The Update Lady

@jca I’ll PM you, darlin.

Can you PM me too? Pretty interested in the story

Why not post it? If you wanted to keep it private, why not PM jca and say you were going to PM her. It’s not nice to announce to the whole forum that only one or two people are going to get any more updates about this.