What to do when you suspect a foster child is being mistreated?

I have a friend who has two children of her own. Recently an in law of her’s son, who is 2, was removed from his mother and fathers care and placed with my friend. I have been noticing that she is not very nice to the boy. She yells and screams at him, will carry him around by his arms, smack him in the mouth when he crys and so on. She has never raised a hand to her children and I feel that shes taking it out on the boy for the mistakes his parents have made. I have seriously thought about calling children services but I know that she lies and says the boy is a nightmare and is mean and misbehaves even though I have never seen him ever act up. Im worried that if I call cs that she may lose her children and I dont want that but I also cant stand to watch one more second of what shes doing to the boy. What should I do? And if anyones been in a similar situation I would appreciate the advice

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Answer #1

You should call Child Services. If the boy really is being mistreated, he should be taken from her. Because it will only get worse if he isn’t taken.

Answer #2

Report her. Right away. Anonymously. I understand you’d feel bad if she had her kids taken away, but wouldn’t you feel much worse if she seriously injured one of them and you knew about it and did nothing? Plus, Social Services or Child Welfare would probably just send someone out to check up on her and the foster child to ‘sniff out’ any signs of abuse. If it wasn’t what you thought, no one would be the wiser that you were the one that reported her and the kids would remain with their mother.

Answer #3

Think of the child and put yourself in his shoes… when I do it makes me want to cry…this tells me it is definately something you should report to the athorities…you are obligated to this little boy to do what is right becaseu obviously the person who is supposed to be caring for this kid isnt… its hard and you may feel like you are betraying your friend but if you dont you are betraying and innocent little boy…

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What to do when you suspect a foster child is being mistreated?

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