General Chat

I am really getting mad as four times I have tried to write this and every time it has disappeared...

So the short version is...Nice neighbors next door, moved in two years ago , woman pregnant with a two year old...When baby born on two different occasions two year old tried to throttle baby with her hands...sorry but because of typing disappearing cannot be more subtle..

All has been well until this afternoon, .both families making BBQ..
and as usual we chatted over the fence.

For some reason or the other both parents went indoors...to make salads or whatever..

The daughter nearly four year old put a string around nearly two year old sister's neck and pulled it...This happened in an instant and parents did not see....but I did. ( Our house is higher up, so look into neighbors yard )

When I saw what was happening I over reacted and screamed blue murder....both parents were inside, doing whatever and my 61 year old man jumped the fence...he has pulled muscles in both legs. I never thought that he could do something like that...but God helps those that help others....

The parents believe us but don't want to talk about it...

My head is going around and around and I really don't know what to do...

Well I am off to bed now and hopefully in the morning things will appear as a dream...

Lindy

oh Lindy, how awful for you and how awful for the baby and what's going on - let's hope they sit up and take more notice from now on, the eldest is probably very jealous the baby - does happen of course

OMG Lindy - that is awful!!! thank god you and hubby were there!!

They should be able to see the string mark - don't blame them for not wanting to talk about it though - they could have years of problems ahead.
To get the string (rather than try with bare hands) smacks of premeditation too!!

Well done you and hubby.

Ann,

From past experience the eldest one is very jealous but even worse is not a people person...nor am I for that matter...but at that age... I think the the little one has problems.

Lindy xx

Maggie and Clare,

I really have a problem here as my OH wants me lodge a complain to Social Security...no idea what you call it over there...

I do not agree with him as this is not a welfare situation and over here they are so quick to remove the children from the parents...

I think that my young neighbours needs to talk to a professional ...but their attitude was one of ."It's my problem so back off "

They respect our age so would never say anything...
This is the Portuguese way..

Lindy xx

Clare,

Thank you for your imput...my two boys also have two years difference in there age, actually two years and four days and they are born in the same month but as different as day and night but not agressive...

I am very fond of my neighbours girls and the eldest gave me a kiss on Christmas day...does not even kiss the parents. Will only talk to you when she feels like it..

I really think that this little one has a problem...but is it my place to get involved...??

Lindy...

Off to bed now ...not that I will be able to sleep..

nite ...nite...

There's two and a half years between my girls, and there was a certain amount of jealousy, but the eldest would never have done anything like this!!
She tried to exclude her from her 'mates' when they came around (this was when she was 4/5), but was never violent towards her.
What do they do when the children go to bed?
The eldest could get up and do anything, as she seems that way inclined.
Are your neighbours Portuguese?
Do you ever see the grandparents?
Perhaps a word to them is needed.
I understand your wish not to get 'authority' involved.

Rocky Mountain Shy,

Thank you for your input..I really don't know what to say as I do not want to be the person to report this child to social services..

It is not me!!! ...These are wonderful parents and so is the little girl when she is in the mood....

My youngest son's girlfriend is a child therapist..so will ask her to consult with the family...

If I am wrong, God help me!

Am really going to bed now and taking a pill so I don't have to think...

Lindy xx

Maggie,

I need to sleep so will chat in the morning...My neighbours are Portuguese and they have a lot of family to support them

Believe me that if I tried to talk to the Grandparents
it would be a mission impossible...

I do know that the girls have their own rooms..

nite nite

Lindy xx

LIndy, you have to ask yourself how you would feel if you let this go and then the younger child were badly injured or worse. Even if she wasn't killed by the older child, she could be left brain damaged or such if she does the string round the neck thing again or something else. How on earth does a child of four think of using a noose like that? What has she seen on tv or heard about?
I hope your son's girlfriend can help this family to help the older girl so she doesn't do her sister damage and also become even more disturbed. As an ex childminder for many years, I would be very concerned for the older child and even more so for her young sister.
Good luck, Lindy, it is a hard choice to make but you cannot just leave this to the parents if they are going to hush it up and not deal with the problem.
Lizx

I'm with Shy.

You don't make a "complaint", you make a report. The report is of A CHILD AT RISK. That baby is at risk.

You make it plain when you report that you are not concerned about the parents harming the child and you are not reporting any parental misconduct. You are concerned about the welfare of both children because of the behaviour of the older child you have observed.

There could be a parenting problem, but that's not for you to figure out. You are just concerned about the welfare of both children. As any decent person would be.

When you do it, your neighbours might not appreciate it. You may not have friends for neighbours anymore. This would be unpleasant.

How unpleasant would it be if you saw an ambulance pull up to your house and take away a dead baby?

It's one of those times when it isn't about you. It isn't about your feelings or your concerns about your relations with your neighbours. It's about the life and health of those two little girls.

There's a report here

http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/people/highlights/001109_child.shtml

of two kindergarten children in Norway killing another child (assaulting her and leaving her where she froze to death). It does happen.

The four-yr-old is far from old enough to know the consequences of what she is doing. The fact that she doesn't know what killing is, and is not specifically intending to kill her sister, could make it all the more possible she would end up doing it.

Kathryn, that was an interesting article and what a difference in the way of dealing with the children involved. I do feel tho that it might have been of more interest in the further treatment of the perpetrators had they been closer in age, the two lads in Norway were still young when they attacked the little friend, whereas the two boys in England were older so knew what they were doing, and purposely took James Bulger. The other episode was different in that the children knew one another and were originally playing together.
Dreadful to know of any children hurt or killed.
Liz

I know - that's just the best thing I could find on a quick google. Was just looking for some evidence that worrying about a pre-schooler killing or seriously harming a toddler isn't unwarranted fretting!

The incident with the youngest kids I think does show how kids that young just don't know what they're doing, in the sense of harmful consequences. Still at the age where "no" is pretty much "because I said so", not "because if you do that your sister won't be able to breathe and then she'll be dead". "Dead" doesn't mean much to a 4-yr-old.

And it's obviously a behaviour that started way before she had any clue what consequences are. Strange instinct though, eh? strangling a baby.

Actually i must say I completely disagree.
This is a behavioural problem but not an unheard of one,in fact if you watch the likes of programmes like super nanny you will see its pretty common in todays too busy babysit the kids with tv and shove them off elsewhere world
Kathryn is quite right a 4 yr old wouldnt have a clue about the consequences of putting string around a little childs neck.
yes it may well have intended to hurt its sibling(some children are jealous) but would have no idea about death.
I personally think that contacting social services would be completely over the top and will result in all sorts of difficulties for this family.
I would offer them as much support in the way of a listening ear as I can.
let things settle down today then invite her for a drink,explain how worried you were and ask if you can help.
My suggestions to resolve the problem to the parent would be one on one time each day with this child doing anything at all(perhaps you can help mind the 2 yr old) with consistant positive reinforcement and praising of good behaviour,particularly for doing something kind.
This is generally always a form of attention seeking because of a lack of positive attention.
These kids get so caught up in seeking attention that they get on a roundabout of bad behaviour to get it
The 2 yr old is the focus because the older child sees its sibling as the cause of all its problems.
regards Tania

OMG Lindy what a difficult situation for you.

I've searched my soul to try and work out what I'd do in your position and although my instinct would be to seek outside help, you say there is a chance the authorities would take the children away rather than work through the problem........that's a hell of a thing to have hanging over your head. so I think that's a last resort.

Such a shame they want to brush it under the carpet........makes it so difficult to help but even though I'm sure the eldest isn't trying to deliberately kill her sister ....her behaviour is soo dangerous because if she keeps doing that she will. Poor baby.

I can only think that I'd take the compromise route and knock on the door and put my cards on the table about how I felt about what I saw and ask them bluntly if they intend to do anything about it.

If they are hostile or refuse to talk.......then I'm afraid I'd consider calling in outside help and I'd tell them that I would be doing so too.

I don't think this is the kind of situation that can be ignored, personally. The consequences of that are too awful to imagine .

Good luck with whatever you decide to do. My heart goes out to you and your OH
xx

Well Tania -- the 4-yr-old may not be intending to cause death ... but that in no way means that she might not in fact cause the death of the 2-yr-old. Or, as was mentioned here, a serious injury.

Or even just some serious developmental / emotional problems. An abused child is an abused child, regardless of who is doing the abusing, and if this continues, the younger child is quite likely to have some serious problems of that kind. Remember, the neighbours are quite possibly seeing only the tip of the iceberg.

It is not neighbours' job to sit unrelated parents down and have a word with them about their parenting. Maybe in a different day and a different community, that sort of thing would have helped -- and of course that sort of thing was all there was.

These people quite obviously (a) do not regard the older neighbours as authority figures or wise elders to be heeded, and (b) need professional help.

Tania's and anyone else's suggestions about what these parents should be doing may be wise and wonderful -- and I don't disagree with them necessarily, although I would be considerably more loathe to diagnose a child I have never so much as seen. This behaviour isn't quite the same as pitching a tantrum to get attention. It's a little farther out there.

But no one's suggestions are going to solve the children's problems if the parents aren't heeding the suggestions. And that's something over which a pair of concerned neighbours have no control. And in fact such suggestions could be completely inadequate for the situation; we don't know, and that's what children's services are for: to find out what the problem is, and address it.

That older child needs to be seen by a child psychologist and quickly.

If she seems unresponsive to other people then she could be a sociopath. Her younger sister is in her way and removing her would be something which wouldn't give her a second thought.

This doesn't sound to me like an older child experimenting to see what happens without being aware of the consequences. My older daughter tried feeding her little sister laburnum seeds out of curiousity once (having been repeatedly told not to eat them herself she wondered why). She was spotted immediately and no harm done.

Sibling rivalry often causes fights but this case sounds far more deliberately malicious and I fear it could get a great deal worse.

I think to take a piece of string and try to throttle the baby makes me believe the older child really did think she might remove her rival once and for all. Being so young she wouldn't be aware of how that might then affect her own life.

Sue

perhaps the parents are not brushing it under the carpet so to speak, perhaps they just don't know what to do - they may feel embarrassment over their eldest child's actions. Could well be they are working on it as we speak - they surely must be worried to - more than we think - let's hope so. It must be awful to have one of your children do something that terrible and have it witnessed by a neighbour, even though it was fortuitous that it was noticed. My sister was born when I was seven years old and it shattered my little world - things were never the same again and I really despised her - I never physically harmed her but I made her know that I didn't like her one little bit - she was a very destructive child and ruined everything I treasured - dolls, books, everything - I can understand bad feelings about a younger sibling.

Thank you Kathryn
I agree sitting your neighbours down and having a word with them about their parenting would be the sort of action someone with their feet permanently in their mouth would do,on the other hand having a cup of tea with someone your friendly with and offering the friendly ear of a fellow parent is actually quite useful.
Lindy your a mum you know how hard it can be so just be sympathetic,It may be as Anne said she is really worried but dosent know how to broach the subject,a friendly unobtrusive chat about kids in general may be just what she needs to open up.
I stand by what I said before.
I have a huge amount to do with women including their preschool children on a daily basis.
This child is not a budding sociopath or anything else that has been suggested,it is just a kid with a behavioural problem,its not unusual
When you watch a programme like supernanny,you dont see Jo frost sprinting out of the house to call social services.
its something that can be dealt with quite easily withg some simple parenting skills and I still believe you are in a good position to help her.
I am all for social services in the appropriate situation but I dont feel this is it,

So we agree to disagree, Tania, and Lindy can take the advice she chooses.

I don't watch Supernanny, which you repeatedly cite, or its ilk, and I would not cite a TV show as authority for how to deal with children who try to kill their siblings (whether they realize that is what they are doing or not).

My sister's been on the board of a non-profit / parent co-op daycare centre for years, and with two children diagnosed with Lyme disease after months of her advocating for them (and being subjected to the threat of Children's Aid involvement if she didn't stop demanding treatment for two very, very sick kids), she's rather familiar with this sort of thing. I'll ask her next time I'm talking to her. I think I know what she'll say.

Advising an unrelated third party to take on responsibility for this child's behaviour -- which is essentially what you are doing in your advice to Lindy, Tania -- is something I consider unwise.

We have no idea what skills Lindy has in that direction, or how likely the parents are to take direction from her, or how successful her or their efforts would be likely to be.

Fixing the problem is *not* Lindy's responsibility. As an adult member of society, she does have a responsibility to take action to prevent harm coming to children. But she is not personally responsible for the ongoing intervention needed to solve an obviously dangerous dysfunction within someone else's family.

I would never advise a layperson to take on that responsibility.