The little boy who lives next door continues to cry at all hours of day and night. He was crying at about 1am on Saturday morning. For about an hour. As we can hear him very clearly sobbing, it is hard to believe that his mum cannot hear this. So either she is not there or she just cannot be bothered to deal with him. It is really irritating being woken up by him, but if he is being neglected in some way then that is far worse, so I guess we’ll just have to see if we decided we need to take some action at some point…
Here are some things on the BBC website that I am currently listening to:
Five Minutes With, which is interviews with famous people that last five minutes (perhaps unsurprisingly).
Interviews from the BBC archives with various authors, including John Wyndham, Virginia Woolf and Aldous Huxley (The interview with Aldous Huxley includes him discussing that he thought the future of books might be for them to be listened to on gramophone records.)
5 comments:
I find crying children hard to deal with for the same reason. I hate the noise and just think: "Oh God, someone shut it up."
But then I find myself wondering why it's crying and torture myself with the idea that it's being abused or neglected.
I suppose the real difficulty is that a lot of parenting books/sites advocate leaving a crying child to cry because otherwise they learn that it's a way to just get attention from its parents: the crying is not warranted, they're just doing it because they know it makes Mummy stop and come over.
So, yes, it is tricky.
I suppose that when it's a one-off or maybe once every few weeks, you just put it down to it being a kid. Kids cry.
But I think if it's every day, I'd call social services. I know that there's a lot to be said for minding your own business and that every year families are investigated and there's nothing untoward going on, but I wouldn't want it on my conscience if something happened to a child because I wavered over whether to report that there's an infant crying a lot, which may suggest something untoward.
I so agree with the previous message. If nothing is wrong all will be well, but if the worst is happening then you will be glad you spoke out...The same thing happened to me with a neighbour some years ago and it turned out the mother was mentally ill and couldn't cope with her baby. Good luck! x
soupy - thanks for your comment. I think the problem as well though is that we don't really get on with this neighbour and I am concerned that she will think that it is malicious. I also think that she will know that it is us who reported her, so I imagine that it would sour things all the more.
I find her an odd woman because she never refers to her child by his name, she only ever refers to him as "my little boy" and has never told us his name. I think that is very strange to have never told us what his name is, it seems so impersonal.
He isn't there the whole time because he seems to live half the week with his dad. But when he is there, we regularly here him crying. We don't hear the "normal" things she might say because they would be at a quieter volume but we do sometimes hear her shouting at him telling him to shut up. Is that a sign of something bad in the way she deals with him or is she just worn out from him crying in the night??
I think I would go to social services if I felt I had something concrete, but at the moment I am not sure. I am wondering about speaking to the NSPCC though as they provide advice on such things.
Chris B - thanks for your comment. It's good to know that I wouldn't be the first person to do this. I would feel terrible to have been in a position to help the boy (if he does need help) and to have done nothing.
Seek advice from the NSPCC.
A chid a week dies from abuse in the uk. Better to be wrong and your neighbour hate you even more.
I know you are a sensible person, so if you are concerned it is with good reason.
Kahless - thanks. I am still keeping an eye on things, but will decide soon.
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