Letting 15 year old Son travel to Europe by rail

That neighbour must have extraordinary hearing!

Perhaps there are not enough real problems happening in Kensington and Chelsea to keep the social workers busy?

I don’t suppose that we will ever know who the malicious busybody was.

Perhaps there are too many busybodies in Kensington &Chelsea?
Marina Fogle has revealed that she and her husband Ben were wrongly reported to social services over claims they had shouted at their children.
The couple returned from a holiday in August 2013 to learn that a neighbour had phoned their local council claiming they had unleashed “sustained verbal abuse” on their two young children, Ludo and Iona.
Mrs Fogle said that two social workers visited her home on Aug 19 2013 about the alleged incident, which she was told had taken place four days before.
She told the social workers that she had been on holiday at the time, however, and produced her boarding passes to prove it
She said her children then showed off Lego and other toys to the social workers, after which the social workers agreed it had been a false alarm
Or a malicious busybody?

Rosie51

^Involving social services was crazy and social services should have known better. It beggars believe really. I’m not a bit surprised that KA is outraged.^

Does that apply to all referrals to social services or just those involving high profile parents? If social services get a phone call about Mrs X at number 40 allowing her child to do something potentially dangerous should they just ignore it or do some sort of base line check? Whoever sparked the check, and whatever their motives, social services can't arbitrarily decide that famous people don't come under their radar. The children of the famous deserve as much protection as the children of the poor and unknown.

No it does not apply to all referrals to social services and yes the children of famous people deserve as much protection as the children of the poor and unknown.

I will not repeat on here what my social worker cousin said to me about Kensington and Chelsea Council but I’m certain that most people would say much the same thing.

Blinko

Which celeb was it who flew first class and popped their kids in economy? Just asking the question...

Paul McCartney.

He thought they should learn the value of money, I think.

KA

Blinko

Which celeb was it who flew first class and popped their kids in economy? Just asking the question...

The Mom and Dad in Home Alone?

Surely there's a difference between something being reported by a neighbour and someone responding to a tweet? If a neighbour saw AK's son repeatedly being beaten in the garden with a copy of Country Life or locked naked in the orangery on a winter's night as punishment for eating all the fois gras in the fridge I would say that was probably justified. However reporting a family for sending their child to boarding school as an 7 year old and reacting to a tweet about him doing OK and settling in well, is perhaps another matter? tbh I think sending a child away at that age unless there are very good mitigating circumstances is cruel but plenty of people don't. Clearly some (and I am among them) don't think allowing a nearly 16 year old to go on holiday with a friend is parenting which requires intervention by social services (fwiw my 17 old GS is inter railing as I write, he'd have been sensible enough to do it when nearly 16 but he hadn't saved enough money) whilst others seem to think it is only neglectful parents who would condone such a thing. I think a sense of proportion is required which has nothing to do with class or money or whether someone likes or dislikes someone. I think hard pressed social workers should be spending their time with more important matters.

Involving social services was crazy and social services should have known better. It beggars believe really. I’m not a bit surprised that KA is outraged.

Does that apply to all referrals to social services or just those involving high profile parents? If social services get a phone call about Mrs X at number 40 allowing her child to do something potentially dangerous should they just ignore it or do some sort of base line check? Whoever sparked the check, and whatever their motives, social services can't arbitrarily decide that famous people don't come under their radar. The children of the famous deserve as much protection as the children of the poor and unknown.

involving social services was crazy and social services should have known better…….i’m not surprised KA is outraged

Somebody decided to stir things up for KA. It could have been a malicious individual, a news paper, who knows. The department took the minimum response level. They phoned KA, informed her of the referral and presumably confirmed the trip had been enjoyable and uneventful. Keeping a record of this is what would and should happen.
I can only imagine the faux outrage if the sw team had binned the referral, or recorded NFA without any action
And we wonder why it’s hard to recruit and retain sw

How could social services know anything, without checking?
That is all they've done, which is their job.

nightowl

Who decides who are the sensible parents and who are the not so sensible or downright stupid parents? And how is that decided other than by having a conversation with parents and the child in question, which appears to be exactly what happened in this case. I think that a group of grans deciding on the basis that someone is from a posh background and appears on a tv programme about buying and selling property is rather dangerous and likely to be wildly subjective and inaccurate.

It’s absolutely ridiculous isn’t it.

We let our just 16 year old son fly to Greece on his own. At Athens airport he had to find the coach that took him to a large town an hour and a half’s drive away. He’d been invited to spend a few weeks with his friend and family and nothing was going to stop him. We clearly thought he was mature enough to travel on his own whereas we would not have let his younger brother do the same when he was 16. We all know our children best. That was 38 years ago.

Involving social services was crazy and social services should have known better. It beggars believe really. I’m not a bit surprised that KA is outraged.

Young people often rise to the occasion when given some responsibility

Some 15yr olds have more sense than some adults and I am sure Kirstie had made all relegate checks, she is a mother and would not let her son travel if she thought he couldn’t cope, some troublemaker obviously reported what was happenings

My main concern would be would they know what to do if the unexpected happened - something they had not planned for in advance. Though I guess phones help with that a bit. Also there was just two of them. What if they fell out after an argument and went separate ways? If the only reason Kirstie was happy was that they were together and had planned it all, then that could all change in a moment. Ideally she'd have made sure she would have been happy with the idea of her son travelling alone and without a plan before letting him go with a friend and a plan

foxie48

I don't think KA's decision to let her son go inter railing makes her a good parent, neither does it make her a bad parent nor for that matter would I judge her on where she thinks a washing machine should be kept. If only parenting was that simple!

Indeed. Don’t we aspire to be “good enough” parents, not perfect.
Easy to be judgmental.

At 15 my Bestie and I (both 15) travelled all the way from Essex to Wales and spent a week staying in a caravan on a farm (known to her parents) and spent the week pony trekking and drinking cider. Then got the train back home, still alive. No mobile phones etc.

gentleshores

I think it's caused a storm because he was under 16 and not accompanied by an adult. The law has changed about marriage now and they can't get married at 16 any more - even with parental consent. They have to be 18.

I think most kids after GCSE's would love to go on holiday with friends, but the only place they can do that in the Uk is at a youth hostel. Under 18 year olds need an adult with them in hotels and B&B's etc. Most parents don't let 16 year olds go abroad on their own. Most accommodation expects them to be accompanied by an 18 year old and I'm surprised she got travel insurance.

It's one thing to go abroad at 16 accompanied or chaperoned, but another to have them go alone.

The generally accepted view is they need to be 18 to travel abroad without an adult. She is lucky nothing happened to him. Suppose he had had a few drinks and fallen off a balcony and died! She would have been in really serious trouble.

He could get off his head drunk in his home town and get run over/fall off a wall/fall into a river and drown!

Oh, now let me think...
Who could it possibly have been... 🤔

Which celeb was it who flew first class and popped their kids in economy? Just asking the question...

Nothing wrong with that at all.
It sounds marvellous!

My grandson is 17 and has always had a passionate interest in animals. He is studying to be a zoologist. He has just come back from Africa where he spent two weeks with a very well organised operation that provide holidays for young people and they spend a part of it teaching younger children about environmental projects. They are helped to be independent and different members of the group cook dinner every night. They got to see all of the big animals but didn't see a rhino apart from one that had been killed by poachers to take the tusk. The big thing was that he had to negotiate several flights until they all met up for the final short one to get them to their base camp. There was no alcohol or drugs allowed and they were told they would be put on a plane home if they broke this rule. No-one broke the rule. He has returned with an easy and open manner, he had an amazing time, his confidence has really grown. He has cooked dinner for the family(chilli con carne and spaghetti bolognese). He flew on the Friday about a month ago when all the communications had gone dark at the airports and all flights were delayed for several hours. He coped really well. His mother aged 10 years in one day. His twin sister was in tears and his father had all on to keep his wife and daughter calm when they finally left my grandson to get his flight at Heathrow. My grandson met other young people from all over the world in his group ,

I don't think KA's decision to let her son go inter railing makes her a good parent, neither does it make her a bad parent nor for that matter would I judge her on where she thinks a washing machine should be kept. If only parenting was that simple!

OldFrill

nightowl

Who decides who are the sensible parents and who are the not so sensible or downright stupid parents? And how is that decided other than by having a conversation with parents and the child in question, which appears to be exactly what happened in this case. I think that a group of grans deciding on the basis that someone is from a posh background and appears on a tv programme about buying and selling property is rather dangerous and likely to be wildly subjective and inaccurate.

If l was judging her I'd compare her actions to my own, having raised two sons. Not on her Honourable status or TV career.
I imagine many others are using the same bench mark.

I expect you’re right OldFrill, most people will use their experience as the bench mark.
Fortunately, children’s services are guided by The Children Act, with the welfare of the child at its centre. Referrals are considered impartially

Mamma66

My now sister-in-law and I traveled from Nottinghamshire by train, to London, stayed overnight in London, across London to the coast and then across the channel onto Belgium. and first to Bruxelles and on to Namur. We were both 15 and it was long before mobile phones. We were both considered sensible girls and to be honest I felt it was a really good experience for us. I do wonder if we wrap children and young people up too much in cotton wool these days.

I made similar journeys - and this was all before mobile phones, email, credit cards and all the other wonders of modern technology.

Of course, it depends on the child and to what extent they have been used to making their own way round in this country and also assumes they have been abroad in Europe on family holidays so that they have some familiarity with other countries and communicating with people who either do not speak English or do not speak it very well.

If the boy in question had never been outside the garden gate except to get into a car and be conveyed by a parent and brought back, yes, it would be very foolish to say 'Here is an Interrail ticket off you go.'

DGS, 14, and already 6 foot tall, and still growing has been going out on his own since he was 9. First walking to friends in the next road, at 11, walking 1.5 miles to and from school on busy roads and now free to travel round the city he lives in with friends and alone. He has visited France, where we had a holiday home until this year, regularly. I am sure by the time he reaches 16, he would be capable of Interrailing with a friend.