Would You Send An Anonymous Note To A Neighbor?

Aneeda72 said:
So you want an older person to talk to someone’s else’s kid, and ask the kid personal questions. Hmm, I would not do that, ever.
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Wait a minute! I can't believe that some of you people don't speak with the kids in your neighborhood. Really? I often speak to the kids around me. Sometimes, I will even get into a basketball game with them, or sometimes, we just talk about school or girlfriends or whatever is on their mind. Most of the time, they approach me. And, I'm not alone. I see other older people speaking to the kids too. We all get along really good.
Aneeda72 said:
If the parent is abusive to their own child, what do you think they will do to a disapproving senior? Really, really, bad ideal. As to speaking to your neighborhood kids, that’s different than questioning a child you don’t already have a relationship with.
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A relationship? Oh, OK. I'm done here.
 

Let's see. The girl is riding her bike for an hour, and her mom was encouraging her to do 25 more 8s. You don't know why the girl is riding her bike like that. You don't have any idea what her goals are. You don't even know if this is something the girl desperately wants to do. You don't know why the mom is encouraging her to ride more. You don't know if the girl has some medical condition, which requires exercise. You haven't talked to either of them. You don't know what's going on. So, you just assume that the girl is being abused. And the only proof is that she's riding a bike. You just want to butt in with "anonymous" notes What law is being violated? . And what you are going to put in those notes? "Your daughter is riding her bike much more than I think is appropriate".
 
Being the wonderful person you are, you want to help. In my opinion, haveing a LIGHT,CASUAL, CHEERFUL conversation with the child to assertain more facts before making a decision is an intelligent thing to do.
If you want to confront the Mother, Have the gumption to do it. I would not send a note. It might make her furious!
 

Lee said:
Want to send a note telling mom to get a bike and they both go for a real ride, there are country roads around here.
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Lee, I know you feel bad for the girl and your intentions are good and come from the heart, but a note like that would not be very well received. Since the mother is also overweight, she may take personal offense at your suggestion that she ride a bike too.

Also, unless it's someone who is used to riding on country roads, it's not reasonable to think every woman is willing or able to do that. If they are both out of shape, they probably wouldn't even make it back home, you have to work up to something like that, make sure you ride well enough to be safe around cars, etc. And you may have to be wary of your safety if the road leads to a remote area.

If the mother is too quarrelsome to speak to anyway, then you'd just be poking at a bee hive.

There were some suggestions to speak to the girl too, I don't advise that either. Unless you were already friendly with the girl and had short chats about other things in the past. The girl would be uncomfortable answering questions, and afraid of making her mom mad. The mother would probably notice that through the window, and give the kid the 3rd degree about what she said to you and what you asked her.

Sometimes we see something that bothers us, then dwell on it and let our imaginations make it into something bigger than it really is. That could be happening too, I'd just ignore the girl for awhile, if that's the only exercise she gets all day, it's okay if she's a little bit tired, IMO.


win231 said:
I would contact Child Protective Services. That is child abuse.
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I am complete against involving Child Protective Service for a mother making her overweight child ride a bike. Those agencies have serious abuse cases to investigate and deal with.

Not fair to the mother to put her on an abuse list for just assumptions that the bike riding is just part of real abuse behind the scenes. Neighbors who have falsely reported parents, regardless of their reasons for doing so, often bring unwarranted grief to the innocent parents.

I think it's invasive, and would never report anyone for something as terrible as abusing their child, unless they were beating, starving or chaining the kid to the bed post and not allowing them to see the light of day outside. Bike riding outdoors is far from abusive.
 
SeaBreeze said:
Lee, I know you feel bad for the girl and your intentions are good and come from the heart, but a note like that would not be very well received. Since the mother is also overweight, she may take personal offense at your suggestion that she ride a bike too.

Also, unless it's someone who is used to riding on country roads, it's not reasonable to think every woman is willing or able to do that. If they are both out of shape, they probably wouldn't even make it back home, you have to work up to something like that, make sure you ride well enough to be safe around cars, etc. And you may have to be wary of your safety if the road leads to a remote area.

If the mother is too quarrelsome to speak to anyway, then you'd just be poking at a bee hive.

There were some suggestions to speak to the girl too, I don't advise that either. Unless you were already friendly with the girl and had short chats about other things in the past. The girl would be uncomfortable answering questions, and afraid of making her mom mad. The mother would probably notice that through the window, and give the kid the 3rd degree about what she said to you and what you asked her.

Sometimes we see something that bothers us, then dwell on it and let our imaginations make it into something bigger than it really is. That could be happening too, I'd just ignore the girl for awhile, if that's the only exercise she gets all day, it's okay if she's a little bit tired, IMO.




I am complete against involving Child Protective Service for a mother making her overweight child ride a bike. Those agencies have serious abuse cases to investigate and deal with.

Not fair to the mother to put her on an abuse list for just assumptions that the bike riding is just part of real abuse behind the scenes. Neighbors who have falsely reported parents, regardless of their reasons for doing so, often bring unwarranted grief to the innocent parents.

I think it's invasive, and would never report anyone for something as terrible as abusing their child, unless they were beating, starving or chaining the kid to the bed post and not allowing them to see the light of day outside. Bike riding outdoors is far from abusive.
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No, there is nothing wrong with bike riding or any form of exercise. But forcing excessive exercise on a child is abuse. Parents have caused their child's death this way. And, (as I said previously), the abuse you see is frequently only part of it. There is much-worse abuse going on that you can't see.
When I reported one of the parents to CPS, I voiced concerns about being "invasive" & "causing grief to the parent." The CPS worker asked me how I would feel if the child ended up dead. I didn't have to think it over any longer.
 
C'est Moi said:
Yeah, add to the overburdened CPS caseload with "she makes her ride a bike." :rolleyes:
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The part you may witness may not be the whole situation. It usually isn't in most cases. Abusive parents usually save their severe abuse for the privacy of their house where it won't be witnessed; much like cockroaches run & hide when you turn the light on.
That was the case with the 2 parents I reported. All I witnessed was verbal abuse. Investigators found much-more serious abuse & took the child away from his parents permanently. And, if no serious abuse is found, no harm done.
 
win231 said:
Anywhere the child is moved to would be better than living with an abuser.
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I worked in foster care & adoption. One night, an abused family of five young children came in on an emergency basis. The baby wound up scalded to death that very night from the foster mother. Yes, of course that's unusual and most foster parents are good people. But, hey, you never know and you're jaded because you feel you were abused as a child and I wouldn't argue you weren't.
 
oldman said:
Wait a minute! I can't believe that some of you people don't speak with the kids in your neighborhood. Really? I often speak to the kids around me. Sometimes, I will even get into a basketball game with them, or sometimes, we just talk about school or girlfriends or whatever is on their mind. Most of the time, they approach me. And, I'm not alone. I see other older people speaking to the kids too. We all get along really good.
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I can understand what you're saying here. Back when I was a kid, there were a lot of kids playing outdoors in my neighborhood, and a neighbor who was friendly with our parents, or the parents of other kids would often talk to us and maybe play a little ball with us. But, that is not the same in every neighborhood.

If some neighbor came over to me who didn't know our family and never talked to us in the past, I would not speak to them and avoid them. My mother was very strict in telling us not to speak to strangers, and not to go near any strangers car if they started talking to us.

If Lee was not friendly with the mother, and didn't speak to the girl at all before this, the it would not be wise to approach the girl asking questions, IMO.
 
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win231 said:
No, there is nothing wrong with bike riding or any form of exercise. But forcing excessive exercise on a child is abuse. Parents have caused their child's death this way. And, (as I said previously), the abuse you see is frequently only part of it. There is much-worse abuse going on that you can't see.
When I reported one of the parents to CPS, I voiced concerns about being "invasive" & "causing grief to the parent." The CPS worker asked me how I would feel if the child ended up dead. I didn't have to think it over any longer.
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This is hardly considered excessive exercise, and we can just agree to disagree on calling this abuse or calling CPS on this mother.
 
Gaer said:
Being the wonderful person you are, you want to help. In my opinion, haveing a LIGHT,CASUAL, CHEERFUL conversation with the child to assertain more facts before making a decision is an intelligent thing to do.
If you want to confront the Mother, Have the gumption to do it. I would not send a note. It might make her furious!
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Exactly, like, wow, you are really good at riding that bike. Or, in my case, could you ride your bike someone other than on my flowers, 😂. NOT why is your mom forcing you to ride your bike?
 
win231 said:
Anywhere the child is moved to would be better than living with an abuser.
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You are so wrong! Depends on the abuse, the degree of the abuse, and the bond between the parent and the child. It is an extremely complicated situation. When I reported my neighbor I was required to do so by law since I was a part of the system as a foster parent, otherwise I’d let it go.
 
I've been reading post from people, who are calling Child Abuse hot lines, sending notes, etc. The girl is riding her bike. She stays in view of her mother, at all time. The mother encourages her daughter to keep riding. The girl rides her bike for about an hour. That is ALL you know. The rest is all assumptions. What is so terribly wrong with a mother watching her child ride a bike for one hour?
 
fuzzybuddy said:
I've been reading post from people, who are calling Child Abuse hot lines, sending notes, etc. The girl is riding her bike. She stays in view of her mother, at all time. The mother encourages her daughter to keep riding. The girl rides her bike for about an hour. That is ALL you know. The rest is all assumptions. What is so terribly wrong with a mother watching her child ride a bike for one hour?
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The question was is the mother making her ride her bike or is she watching her ride her bike. There is a difference between the two.
 
Aneeda72 said:
The question was is the mother making her ride her bike or is she watching her ride her bike. There is a difference between the two.
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If the mother is making her ride the bike because her doctor warned her that the child was obese and had a threat of a serious health issue unless she lost weight and became more active, it would be fine, in my opinion. If the daughter wanted to do nothing all day but sit in front of the TV or computer, then the mother was doing the right thing for her child.
 
I think we all must be terribly bored to continue to discuss this. But here I go again. 😂. As I am bored. You cannot force a child to do anything they do not want to do, at least in my state. Children, unfortunately, have rights.

A teacher once called CPS on me because one of my foster children didn’t like the cereal I bought for breakfast. Sigh. I didn’t buy the sugary stuff, think it was corn flakes. Anyway, it was unfounded. I had the right to buy whatever cereal I wanted.

The child had a right and a choice to eat it or not. But no one had the right to tell me what to buy or what to feed the children as long as it was acceptable food. As I said, these situations get very complicated.
 
What I don't understand is how do you know if the mother making her daughter ride her bike, or watching her ride her bike. And if the mother is "making' her daughter ride her bike-why? You don't know. It might be doctor's orders. To me, there just isn't enough facts to be calling Child Services. If you're that concerned, don't leave anonymous notes-what is that going to do? Talk to the mother, and get a factual basis for further action., if necessary.
And yeah, we're bored as hell.:)
 
No. The only time I've ever "interfered" with neighbors is when a former neighbor was outside beating his wife and three year old daughter right below my bedroom window at my apartment complex. I called the police. Unless someone is physically in danger or I see some kind of abuse that the police can handle, I'm staying out of it as I do not want to make myself a target.
 
fuzzybuddy said:
What I don't understand is how do you know if the mother making her daughter ride her bike, or watching her ride her bike. And if the mother is "making' her daughter ride her bike-why? You don't know. It might be doctor's orders. To me, there just isn't enough facts to be calling Child Services. If you're that concerned, don't leave anonymous notes-what is that going to do? Talk to the mother, and get a factual basis for further action., if necessary.
And yeah, we're bored as hell.:)
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The mother might be making the daughter ride the bike because the daughter is driving her crazy and the daughter needs to be made tired or the mother, in desperation, might lock herself in the bath room, turn the shower on, and proceed to scream her lungs out. Who hasn’t done this?

Doctors, IMO, would not order a child to ride a bike to lose weight. They would tell the mother to take the child for a walk. My son J’s staff has been told to walk him for a walk everyday. But J doesn’t want to walk. The staff doesn’t want to walk. They don’t walk. 🤣

Even though the group home is next to a park, they don’t walk. The park has a library which they drive to, and J gets picture books because he can not read. It also has a public pool which they never take the boys (men) to since none of them can swim.
 
Aneeda72 said:
You are so wrong! Depends on the abuse, the degree of the abuse, and the bond between the parent and the child. It is an extremely complicated situation. When I reported my neighbor I was required to do so by law since I was a part of the system as a foster parent, otherwise I’d let it go.
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Well....OK, so you'll only do what's right when you are legally required to.....
 
win231 said:
Well....OK, so you'll only do what's right when you are legally required to.....
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It was UNFOUNDED which means CPS decided it was not abusive under the law. I knew this due to experience, but my experience didn’t matter. I was required to report, I did. As to doing the right thing, you think you know what the right thing is in such complicated situations?

You don’t. No one does. Even social workers struggle. Your comment is silly. I don’t know you, you don’t know me. But please share with me/us how many children you have saved from abusive situations. How many years you did foster care. How many children you adopted.

Or are you just self righteous?
 
Aneeda72 said:
It was UNFOUNDED which means CPS decided it was not abusive under the law. I knew this due to experience, but my experience didn’t matter. I was required to report, I did. As to doing the right thing, you think you know what the right thing is in such complicated situations?

You don’t. No one does. Even social workers struggle. Your comment is silly. I don’t know you, you don’t know me. But please share with me/us how many children you have saved from abusive situations. How many years you did foster care. How many children you adopted.

Or are you just self righteous?
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I've saved 2 children from abusive situations. Not personally, because I'm not a CPS employee. As I posted previously, I did my moral duty as a citizen & reported it; has nothing whatsoever to do with being self righteous. When I'm not qualified to do something, I contact people who are. I don't like the alternative - being apathetic & allowing something bad to continue, sometimes resulting in a child's preventable death.
 

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