Parents dump kids over school holidays.

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Prideth
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Parents dump kids over school holidays.

Post by Prideth »

Part-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".
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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.
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Eric
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Re: Parents dump kids over school holidays.

Post by Eric »

Prideth wrote:For any reason other than the parents having to work, it is child abuse/neglect.
One could argue that this isn't an excuse either.
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Re: Parents dump kids over school holidays.

Post by spanek »

Eric wrote:
Prideth wrote:For any reason other than the parents having to work, it is child abuse/neglect.
One could argue that this isn't an excuse either.
Exactly... I know that nowadays most of the new parents work (and work a lot of hours) but this is not an excuse to leave your child unattended. :(

Isn't there anything like child care, or places that parents can leave their kids and be watched by authorized personnel? And if they are thinking about the money they are going to spend there, then sorry to be blunt but maybe they shouldn't have the child at all. :?
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Post by Prideth »

Yes, I see your point about that difference I made. I just have more sympathy for parents who have to work as opposed to those that just want to go to the pub or shopping.

There is child care here, but it is very expensive, and places in short supply, thanks to our current govt gutting child care funding in their first term. They have put some of that funding back over time since, and make a big deal of it everytime they throw parents a crumb or two, but have yet to replace what they removed, let alone add more to account for inflation ect.

Also, neighbourhood families who used to care for kids in their own homes have been regulated out of existance, at least in Brisbane. Still, there are alternatives such as parents taking holidays when the kids are off, like my mother used to long long ago, or family and friends willing to babysit.

Those parents who seem to consider their kids a burden, and want to dump them just so they are free to go play the pokies, go on holiday, visit the pub ect should have the children removed from their custody, as it is obvious they aren't providing adequate care and protection.
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Post by Chroelle »

Exactly!
AS most of you know by now I work with kids.
We have had situations where people left kids unsupervised for hours on end, because they felt bad for having to use the institution where I work for so much during a holiday.
We had a situation last year, where we asked a family if they had any means of taking a day off with their kid, since she was always there from opening time to closing time every day for the duration of the summer vacation (7 weeks) most other kids where there from 10 am to 3 pm and only for 3 weeks tops. The last four weeks were spent with parents on vacation or with grandparents and so.
This girl was 7 and her parents told us that they had taken a day off to be with her. The day after, a colleague of mine got out of the girl that her parents had left for work at 6.30 AM and returned in time for dinner. She had been home alone all that time. Again - she was 7! And this was a businessman with a departement leader as a wife, so no one saw that coming.

I worked with neclected kids once too, and we had situations like this almost once a week or more. Kids would show very visible signs of neclect all the time.
Example:
Girl arrives at school wearing:
T-shirt with holes
Short pants that she had to hold one to not for them to drop down.
sandals and no socks.
This was in November. (Which is one of the colder months in Denmark in case you have a different climate.) Normally you would wear:
T-shirt with large sweater and thick down-jacket.
A good pair of jeans or something alittle thicker. Should fit you, and not so much your older siblings!
Boots and socks.

I had my heart broken quite a few times out there, but if ever you feel like you make a difference then this place will have you feeling it 20 times a day. Every little effort is appreciated, even though they wont let you see that. You need quite a hard shell to live in that kind of neglect.
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Post by Eric »

Prideth wrote:Yes, I see your point about that difference I made. I just have more sympathy for parents who have to work as opposed to those that just want to go to the pub or shopping.
Needless to say I did understand the distinition you drew - food has to be put on the table, bills have to be paid, etc. However, these days, having children is a choice - and prior to making that decision you need to access the situation making yourself aware of the consequences that life altering choice.

The real issue is this: people have kids because they can. Unlike a pet for which you may need a license, there is no restriction on who can have kids. And the governments "plasma tv bonus" (a $3000 dollar payment for having a child) only encourages it - lets face it, if you have a kid for this 'bonus' then you ain't fit to be a parent in the first place.

My point is this: It's a social issue which runs far deeper than the cost of child care.
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Prideth
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Post by Prideth »

This isn't a new problem though. Kids have been dumped, neglected and ignored by parents long before the baby bonus, which I agree with you about by the way. It should be removed, and soon, and it's up to $4,000 now with another increase due next year.

In the 'good old days' children were removed from homes where they were abused or neglected. Now days, they aren't, and a very overstretched childrens services department have to do all they can to keep these kids in the family home, while 'working with the family'. The CSD desperatly need more staff, funding and the power to remove endangered children, and only return them when the parents are considered able to look after them properly.

The current child care crisis is a factor. I'm sure a lot of working parents would love to use it, but can't afford to pay the $60 to $120, or more, a week per child that these places charge, and that is on the offchance that they can find a centre with free places.
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