"Who would leave children that young alone?"

[BritsKate]

I have never heard of a parent who uses a listening service in a hotel having their child removed from them. Not once. If it was illegal the hotels would be in trouble for providing the service. It is irresponsibe, but the fact is that thousands of people use them, and it is perfectly legal. leaving a toddler and not checking on them at all is illegal, but being fifty metres away and checing on them every half an hour is perfectly legal.

My point was simple...no such listening device was utilised so the McCann's willingly and intentionally left their babies alone, unsupervised, for an extended period of time. With a 3 small children 30 minutes is more than enough time for a tragedy to occur. As witnessed with this case alone.

An action. might I add, that often results in children being removed from their parent(s) care.

And was it 50 metres or 120 as I've read? Regardless this wasn't a child snatched from a trolley while Mum's head was turned, was it? This is a child who may well not be missing if Mum & Dad had been responsible enough to not leave three small children alone in an unlocked hotel room a football field away. (That's an American football field. )

 

[brit1981]

My point was simple...no such listening device was utilised so the McCann's willingly and intentionally left their babies alone, unsupervised, for an extended period of time. With a 3 small children 30 minutes is more than enough time for a tragedy to occur. As witnessed with this case alone.

An action. might I add, that often results in children being removed from their parent(s) care.

And was it 50 metres or 120 as I've read? Regardless this wasn't a child snatched from a trolley while Mum's head was turned, was it? This is a child who may well not be missing if Mum & Dad had been responsible enough to not leave three small children alone in an unlocked hotel room a football field away. (That's an American football field. )

The listening services are not devices. A normal listening service is where the children are left in the room, and every half an hour a nanny stops outside and listens. Thats it, not even a visual check or a continually listening check. Its exactly the same as the way the Mccanns and their friends were checing on the children, in fact they did more visual checks. Mark Warner stopped the service after Madeleine disappeared, but if you google it you will still see lots of resorts and hotels offering it. before madeleine disappeared there was an incident at a mar warner resort in Egypt where a child had got out of the room, but because the listening service did not involve visual checks, no-one realised for quite a while. It is legal. And the flat was about fifty-one metres directly, and about seventy-six to walk (look at google earth). I have never heard of a parents having their child taken away for using a hotel listening service. Even leaving a child alone and checking on them every half an hour is not legally considered neglect, at least not in the UK. Etan Patz's parents let him walk alone in New Yor and no-one ever suggested prosecuting them, Sophie Hook's parents let her sleep in a tent int he garden with friends and after she was abducted and murdered no-one suggested prosecuting them, a little boy was murdered after walking to day camp in New York on his own, and I do not believe his parents were prosecuted.

 

[brit1981]

Did you know that that morning, Madeline had said to her mother "why didn't you come when I cried last night?".

This clearly shows that M was distressed at being alone, and KM knew it.

So WHY did KM decide to swing off YET AGAIN for Tapas? It was the final night of her holiday, it wouldn't have killed her to stay in for once, but no.....

IMO she doubled the sleeping draught and accidentally killed her....she is a failed anesthetist, after all.

She is not a failed anesthisist, and there has never been any evidence that the Mccanns used a sleeping draught for the children.

The ocean club did not offer the service in this resort as it was spread out across the village so it was not possible to do a full circuit in half an hour. At no point have the Mark Warner company ever said they decided not to offer the service in PDl as they felt this place was too dangerous. They had the service in nearly all resorts so if they said for some reason PDL was specifically not safe yet the other places were, it would have raised eyebrows about the general safety in PDL and no-one would ahve gone there.

And an amber alert system woudl have helped, as it would have got an alert out and to the borders very quickly. Thats the idea of an amber alert system.

 

[Donjeta]

No it should not be legal, but the fact is it is. Until a friend who was a nanny told me about the service I had never heard of it, but a few google searches show it is really, really common so the McCanns behaved no differently from tens of thousands of holiday makers all over Europe. I think for a lot of people they hear about others using these listening service and it lulls them into a false sense of security. I always feel less safe in a place I do not now, but I think for a lot of people it is the opposite and they feel safer and more relaxed on holiday.

I don't think it's because they're feeling safer in a resort filled with drunken strangers, IMO it's just that they don't like the idea of their kids interrupting the holiday fun they feel they're entitled to.

 

[brit1981]

I don't think it's because they're feeling safer in a resort filled with drunken strangers, IMO it's just that they don't like the idea of their kids interrupting the holiday fun they feel they're entitled to.

I do not think they were drunk, the police never said they appeared drunk when they arrived. They just had wine with dinner. But i do think for some people they relax and get a false sense of security on holiday. God knows why, but a lot of people behave differently on holiday. I can imagine that with their friends telling them about the listening service they used at the MK resort in Greece, how it would be easy to think that it was fine, that was just what people did. Again I would not have done it, and if I had been a guest at the resort I would have been ticked off at them hogging the tapas bar for the entire week because they did not want to eat with their children. But the thing is they behaved like thousands who use the nanny listening services do, there was (perhaps sadly) nothing unusual about the way they were checking on their children.
Look at people who hire nannies and aupairs off the internet. I used to work as a nanny, and I actually found a job like this. It was in another EU country, but I arranged my own flights, and the people who hired me although they gave me references and I checked them out, they did not do the same for me. So the day after they arrived, with only my word for who I was they went out for the entire day leaving their toddler with me. If I had been some sort of criminal I would have been able to cross two borders before anyone had even noticed she was gone, and they would not have been able to tell the police anything about me. It is mad to me, but you know what, a large amount of people hire aupairs and nannies like this - look at gumtree, and aupair sites.

 

[Donjeta]

Read again, I didn't say anything about the McCanns being drunk. It doesn't matter if they were or weren't because they weren't there. I said I don't believe that the reason that people on holidays leave their kids alone is that they feel that their kids are safer when they're left alone in a holiday resort abroad that is populated with inebriated strangers. IMO the reason is simply that they don't care, they wanna have fun because they're on holiday, the kids are in the way so screw them.

Even if a million flies do this it's not OK and every parent should know this.

 

[brit1981]

yes, but sadly they do not, and thousands do. The fact is that there have been no moves to ban the listening services offered by resorts.

 

[BritsKate]

The listening services are not devices. A normal listening service is where the children are left in the room, and every half an hour a nanny stops outside and listens. Thats it, not even a visual check or a continually listening check. Its exactly the same as the way the Mccanns and their friends were checing on the children, in fact they did more visual checks. Mark Warner stopped the service after Madeleine disappeared, but if you google it you will still see lots of resorts and hotels offering it. before madeleine disappeared there was an incident at a mar warner resort in Egypt where a child had got out of the room, but because the listening service did not involve visual checks, no-one realised for quite a while. It is legal. And the flat was about fifty-one metres directly, and about seventy-six to walk (look at google earth). I have never heard of a parents having their child taken away for using a hotel listening service. Even leaving a child alone and checking on them every half an hour is not legally considered neglect, at least not in the UK. Etan Patz's parents let him walk alone in New Yor and no-one ever suggested prosecuting them, Sophie Hook's parents let her sleep in a tent int he garden with friends and after she was abducted and murdered no-one suggested prosecuting them, a little boy was murdered after walking to day camp in New York on his own, and I do not believe his parents were prosecuted.

I'm not arguing legalities for a start. What I am arguing is that parents who leave their toddler children unattended have most assuredly had their children removed. Even in the UK. This is a study assessing the risk injury to children dependent on level of supervision. To quote:

Results revealed comparably high rates of injuries for boys and girls when mothers left children unsupervised or used the strategy of intermittently listening in on the child. Similarly, there were comparably low rates of injuries to boys and girls when mothers provided constant and direct supervision, such as by consistently listening in or watching the child.

http://jpepsy.oxfordjournals.org/content/29/6/433.full

Please note the 5 minute time frame this study utilised. 'Unsupervised' is considered not checking on the toddler in more than 5 minutes.

Whether others use listening services, devices, or robotic nannies are rather moot points. Whether other parents carry around baby monitors is moot. What travesties have befallen other (by your example, older) children are also moot. The fact is the McCann's chose not to ensure their toddler child's safety.

I don't believe in castigating parents for making honest mistakes - for every harm that occurs to their children. There are thousands of child homicides and abductions that could never have been prevented. The McCann case is not one of them in my opinion.

I would feel the same if a toddler was left in a car for 30 minutes, or left unattended in the garden 30 minutes, or left in the tub for 30 minutes, or left unsupervised on a playground for 30 minutes.

 

[brit1981]

I have never heard of one parent who had their child removed for using a listening service not one. Why would hotels be allowed to offer a service that meant parents could have their children removed for using it?

 

[BritsKate]

I have never heard of one parent who had their child removed for using a listening service not one. Why would hotels be allowed to offer a service that meant parents could have their children removed for using it?

I didn't say parents had their children removed for using a listening service but rather for leaving their toddler or infant children unsupervised - which is exactly what the McCann's did.

 

[rpgman]

Listening service.
About the most stupid idea I've ever heard of.

 

[SapphireSteel]

Listening service or not, the fact remains that Madeline had woken and cried the previous evening and asked her mother why she didn't come.

Why, in view of this, did Kate leave them alone again?

 

[rpgman]

Listening service or not, the fact remains that Madeline had woken and cried the previous evening and asked her mother why she didn't come.

Why, in view of this, did Kate leave them alone again?

Exactly

Sent from my VM670 using Tapatalk 2

 

[Donjeta]

The idea of a listening service is nonsensical imo because some of the things that I would fear the most, such as very sick children, very dead children, children that have gone missing or children that are up to no good but know that they are being listened to make very little noise and would fail to alert anybody.

Again, this should be something that every parent knows imo.

 

[brit1981]

I didn't say parents had their children removed for using a listening service but rather for leaving their toddler or infant children unsupervised - which is exactly what the McCann's did.

The listening service provide less supervision than the McCanns were giving their children. It is just a nanny listening outside ever half an hour, the McCanns did the same, but also made visual checks. How is having a nanny listening outside the door better than the parent listening outside the door.

And yes I agree the listening services are a very stupid idea. Anything could happen in half an hour, and just because there is no noise does not mean everything was OK - as in the case in Egypt. I did wonder if something similar had happene din this case i.e madeleine woke up and just wandered off, but apparently the door and two gates were fully closed so it is unlikely a four year old would have closed them.

I am not argueing that they behaved sensibly, or that listening services are good. I am just pointing out that they behaved like thousands of people did, and going by the number of resorts still offering the service still do. their behaviour by doing these half hour checks was not in the least unique.

 

[Donjeta]

All it shows is that there are a lot of parents who don't give a carp about their kids.

 

[brit1981]

All it shows is that there are a lot of parents who don't give a carp about their kids.

But did you not say your children walked home alone. Unless we are talking about a strapping teenager, are they likely to be able to defend themselves against an abduction? Holly Wells and jessia chapman were ten and were both murdered together, natasha (cannot rember surname) was ten and abducted as she walked to school with a friend, Jaycee dugard was eleven and abducted in full sight of her step-father etc And in this sort of abduction it will normally be at least an hour before the police are out and physically looking (unless there is a direct witness). It is unlikely to happen, but it is all down to each individuel opinion. Lots of people would think a sleeping toddler is not going to come to harm if their parents are just fifty metres away, but would not let their ten year olds walk to school. It is just down to a judgement call.

 

[Donjeta]

It is always down to an opinion, of course. My opinion happens to be that it is in no way a normal thing for caring, responsible, sensitive parents to leave two and three year olds alone at night in a strange environment. Half an hour is a long time for a toddler to cry panicked and alone, and fifty meters may be a long way if you don't even see the door. Certainly too long to stop the child from falling into the pool.

School aged children are somewhat different imo in that at some point they need to be given a longer leash because they need to start to gradually learn more independence and you can't treat them like toddlers forever. It's a trade-off between maximum security and maximum learning opportunities. FWIW I think my kids are still a bit too young to take advantage of the maximum learning opportunities and I would have wanted them in the after school daycare program for longer but they only take the youngest kids and I couldn't afford any private arrangements.

It's not a question of not being able to afford a babysitter if the only thing it takes is for one adult from the group to agree to stay back and watch the kids.

I am sure none of my children are able to defend themselves against abduction if a determined perp comes along. I probably wouldn't be either.

 

[brit1981]

I agree with you, toddlers should not be left alone. But it appears that it is not a universal opinion. I think the thing in the McCann case is thta the fact they left the children in this way has been used to imply their guilt in the disappearence. One person (I think Pat brown, but could be thinking of someone else so do nto quote me) said that she may have died accidently, but they all covered it up because they did not want to face charges of neglect for leaving the children. This ignores the points that a) they admitted it straight away and did not try to hide it and b) what they did was not illegal and is done by tens of thousands each year. We may not agree with it, but obviously these resorts provide the service for a reason. It seems odd to me that even after madeleine disappeared people still use them, but I remember hearing that after JonBenet ramsey was murdered the number of children being entered in beauty pagents tripled! Again we might all disagree with putting toddlers in these pagents, but lots of people watch the reality programmes about them. My opinion is that they should be banned.

 

[Donjeta]

If they're not guilty they might as well be. Sorry.

Abandoning toddlers should be a prosecutable offense, and that goes for all the people who did it and had their toddlers survive.

If there is a reason these resorts offer this "service" I suppose it's because they think otherwise the parents would leave their kids all alone anyway and don't want the negative publicity that would follow if and when some of the kids end up dead or injured.

Regarding point a), if they were covering up for something, the abduction was their alibi, so of course they would have to have admitted leaving the children alone. It wouldn't have gone down half as well to say that we were here watching our kids and oops, one of them is gone. Maybe the unlocked door was an alibi too, to explain how the perp got in.

Regarding point b), thousands of people do bad things to their children every year and not all of them are illegal.

Agree that toddler beauty pageants are disgusting.