If you saw a car in a parking lot with young children left unattended would you report it or confront the owner of the car?

I guess that would depend on the urgency of the situation. If the owner was on his/her way back to the car and the children were not left alone longer than a few minutes, I would let him/her handle the situation (if I had observed the whole scenario). Yes, it is not right to leave children in the car for any amount of time, but it could be that the owner’s dash of ignorance for the day is not worth causing so much trouble over.

Once the authorities are notified, the owner would likely face severe charges of child endangerment, which would result in other agencies, such as child services to become involved and he/she could then potentially lose his/her children, his job, and other things in life. Yes, it is reckless to leave your children unattended and enclosed in a car, but if the time away was less than 5 minutes, I would let it go, but keep a close eye on the car and on the children in the meantime until the owner returned. That being said, if I did observe any sign that the children were in distress, were getting too hot or uncomfortable, were scared, or were otherwise in danger, I would not hesitate to notify the authorities and then the owner would just have to deal with it.

I guess, you could always try to alleviate such scenarios if you were able to see the owner leave the children in the car from the beginning. Then you could walk up to him and ask him if he wanted you to watch the children from the outside while he shopped real quick. If he says, yes that would be great, then feel good about yourself for you have done your good deed of the day.

If he has any sense at all though, I will feel at the very least, silly about his idea of leaving the children in the care of an absolute stranger just so he can conveniently shop and at the most, he would feel uncomfortable with the thought of a stranger looking after the children ( you never know what could happen or what type of person asks to watch the children). Hopefully he would be scared enough to take them with him after all.

I would confront the owner. Reporting the situation will get police and child services involved, which is not a good thing if a parent has a reason for leaving their kids in the car. A few days ago a frantic woman posted a question on Mahalo.

She was worried that she was going to lose custody of her children because someone had reported her for leaving her kids in the car. She said that she had run into the store to buy diapers. While it is never good to leave your kids in the car, it is not always practical to take them.

If you are a single mother with several children, going to the store can be quite an ordeal. Knowing that, and knowing the stress that situations like this place on people, and knowing that the most well-intentioned of social workers can wreak irrevocable havoc on families - I would definitely not involve authorities. I would stay by the car and wait.

If the parent came back within ten or fifteen minutes, I would confront them and if they were gone longer than that then I would report them.

It depends on the situation If it's a small town, and the car was still in sight I wouldn't do anything. If the kids were rowdy and playing behind the wheel or had the keys I would go into the store and FIND the parents. In a larger city, I would wait around until the parents showed up (I have free time often).

Same would go if it was a sleeping child. If it was really HOT outside I would walk over to the car myself, open a door and call the police ( would also save the license plate number on my phone in case someone got angry). We loose a lot of babies every summer because parents leave kids in vehicles.

Same would go if the kids were trying to start the car.

I would report it in a minute, there is absolutely no reason to leave children behind like this. With all the nuts in the World if you came back in two minutes and your children were gone what lesson would that be. The Parents excuse of just gone a minute is lazy.

Then leave the children home. These are the people who get kids pictures on milk cartons. If they are out of your sight then you are gone to long.

I believe were talking young children here.

I would report them. There is NO EXCUSE for leaving a child alone in a car! Ordeal or not!

So it would put someone through a bit of inconvenience to take THIER children, TOUGH, the safety of the child must come first! Anyone who does not, needs reporting so the relevant people can monitor them, as they obviously put other things before the safety of that child. For all you know what you see could be a common occurance, or even worse.

Confronting the parent could lead to an unpleasent situation for yourself, lets use the authorities for something usefull for a change, protecting children is one of them.

I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.