Original Story HerePart-time parents dump kids
Elissa Lawrence
December 24, 2006 12:00am
Article from: The Sunday Mail (Qld)
CHILDREN are being left at public swimming pools, internet gaming parlours and shopping centres as cheap babysitting venues while parents work, play the pokies, shop or go to the pub.
Child safety workers say the Christmas holiday is one of the worst times for parents abandoning children or leaving other children, sometimes only 10, in charge.
In one of the worst cases seen by Department of Child Safety officers, siblings aged 9 and 10 were left at home north of Brisbane unsupervised for a week while their mother went on holiday.
The woman intended leaving them for two weeks but child safety officers temporarily took the two into care.
Government figures show there were more than 4000 confirmed cases of neglect last financial year.
The early-childhood research director at the Australian Council for Educational Research, Alison Elliott, said pre-schoolers were left unsupervised for hours in public areas, exposing them to sexual predators.
"There is the potential for all sorts of deviants to prey on children. It's absolutely not safe and it's of real concern," she said.
"There are the dangers of possible sexual predators and other deviants and also access to inappropriate material in the form of video, computer games or other literature."
Royal Life Saving Society of Queensland executive director Ken Chandler and manager of The Plantation swimming complex at Gumdale in Brisbane, said children were often left unattended all day.
In one of the worst cases he had seen, a 10-year-old was left to look after siblings aged 2, 4 and 8.
"These kids were at the pool from 9am. At 5pm their father rang and asked me to organise a taxi for them to go home. He couldn't even come and get them.
"It's an issue at every public swimming pool. We see parents pull up out the front and drop kids aged 8, 9 or 10 and go to work, do their shopping and pick them up in the afternoon.
"A lot of councils have adopted a rule where children 10 years or younger must be supervised by a person 18 or older but it still happens.
"To get around staff, parents might not walk kids into the front gate.
"They just pull up, drop them off and drive away before the kids get to the gate so the operators of the pool are stuck with them.
"Or parents will arrive at the pool, pay the entry fee, go in and get the kids set up and then come out and say they have to get something out of the car but don't come back.
"Every pool operator in Queensland dreads the week before Christmas and the three or four weeks of the New Year. It's a tragedy waiting to happen."
Surf Life Saving Queensland spokeswoman Elissa Keenan said the beach was also a place parents left children.
"We do have incidents where we have kids who aren't supervised at the beach who have clearly been dropped off and left to entertain themselves for the day," she said.
"The beach and the surf is an environment you can't control."
State Child Safety Minister Desley Boyle said the Christmas holidays traditionally saw a rise in the number of calls from people reporting children on their own.
"There's nothing wrong with kids who are old enough going to the park, swimming pool or video parlour," Ms Boyle said. "But it's a different story if parents dump their kids overnight at 24-hour video parlours or if children are left all day at shopping centres, swimming pools and playgrounds as some kind of free child-minding service."
Kids Helpline spokeswoman Philippa Hawke said they received about 100 calls a year from children left home alone.
"We receive an increase in calls from scared or lonely children in school holidays," she said.
Ms Hawke said children who developed stress and anxiety around being home alone "can develop longer-term mental health issues".
I can understand parents having problems finding care during the holidays when they have to work, and sympathise for their predicament, but dumping their kids like this is darn close to child abuse/neglect. For any reason other than the parents having to work, it is child abuse/neglect.
Child care in Australia is very expensive and places hard to find, but surely these parents can find a relative or friend who would be willing to watch their children. The scariest thing is the kids being dumped at pools and the beach. It doesn't take much for a child to drown, and in a crowded area, they may go un-noticed until it is too late.
Wonder how the parents would react if something like that happened, or would they just blame the pool workers/lifeguards for not doing their unofficial babysitting duties properly.