When you become a parent, staying alert to a child’s well-being can feel like second nature.
So when this Redditor saw how his roommate’s guest was treating her own toddler during a visit, he was stunned. As a dad himself, he couldn’t ignore the signs: the child was left crying for hours while the mother partied, eventually ending up curled on the floor in nothing but a diaper.
At one point, he stepped in to comfort the boy—but now he’s left wondering: does what he witnessed justify a call to CPS?
The man was disturbed by how his roommate’s guest treated her toddler
Image credits: Helena Lopes / unsplash (not the actual photo)
Now, he’s wondering if he should report her to CPS
Image credits: Panagiotis Falcos / unsplash (not the actual photo)
Image credits: Callum Hill / unsplash (not the actual photo)
Image credits: Getty Images / unsplash (not the actual photo)
Image credits: anonymous
The harmful consequences of ignoring children
Image credits: Toa Heftiba / unsplash (not the actual photo)
Raising children is deeply rewarding, but it’s also incredibly demanding. It can take a serious toll on your physical and mental energy, sometimes to the point where you just want a moment to disappear. It’s a lot, and that’s completely valid.
But part of being a parent is showing up for your child, even when it’s hard. Caring for them, even when they’re upset, acting out, or having a tantrum, is not optional, it’s essential. As seen in the story above, choosing to ignore a distressed child can have serious consequences on their emotional and cognitive development.
Sometimes, parents fall back on advice they were given growing up: that kids are just being manipulative or “acting out” for attention, and the best response is to ignore the behavior until it stops.
But, as Sarah R. Moore, founder of Dandelion Seeds Positive Parenting and author of Peaceful Discipline, explains in an article for Motherly, that approach often backfires. Here’s why:
1. It sends the message that love is conditional
Just as it’s confusing and painful for an adult to receive the silent treatment from a partner, it’s even more disorienting for a child to be ignored by their parent.
What they learn is what they observe: “My trusted adult isn’t seeing me. I’ve disappeared from their world.” That perception can lead to deep feelings of isolation.
While ignoring a child might seem to “work” temporarily (the behavior may stop), it can come at a significant cost to the child’s sense of self-worth.
What to do instead: connect before you correct.
“A child often isn’t mentally capable of hearing instruction or correction when they’re acting out. The part of the brain that handles those types of conversations is essentially in the ‘off’ position until they can return to a calmer state,” says Moore.
That means the best thing you can do is stay present—emotionally and physically—until they’re ready. Once they’ve calmed down, you can gently talk about what happened, why it wasn’t okay, and then reconnect through a moment of play or shared activity.
2. It hinders brain development
Children aren’t born knowing how to explain what they’re feeling. Their brains are still developing, especially the prefrontal cortex, which handles rational thinking and emotional regulation.
As adults, when we’re overwhelmed or upset, we can usually communicate what we need. But kids don’t have that ability yet. So, when a child is struggling and we ignore them, they aren’t learning how to work through that moment. Instead, the distress builds. and studies show that ignoring negative behavior can actually make it worse, not better.
What to do instead: model emotional regulation.
Rather than meeting a child’s upset with our own, or leaving them to handle it alone, we can show them it’s okay to feel big emotions, and that there are safe ways to express them.
3. It overlooks the real need behind the behavior
Most experts agree: all behavior is communication. Even when a child expresses something in a way we don’t like, the underlying need doesn’t go away just because we ignore it.
Maybe they’re tired, hungry, overstimulated, or just feeling disconnected from us. Maybe we’ve been on our phones too much, or they need a quiet moment and don’t know how to ask for it. Sometimes, even they don’t know why they’re upset, but they still look to us to help them sort it out.
What to do instead: look for the need, not just the behavior.
Take a moment to run through a quick checklist:
- Is my child hungry, tired, or sick?
- Too hot or too cold?
- Overstimulated, or needing downtime?
- Wanting physical closeness or emotional connection?
Understanding the why behind the behavior can lead to calmer, more compassionate parenting, and fewer meltdowns in the long run.
“We know our kids best. With that knowledge (and our love), we can reframe attention-seeking behavior from having a negative connotation to a developmental expectation that we have of our children,” says Moore. “Of course they need our attention. They’re children. What they want more than anything is to rely on our acceptance, our unconditional love and our consistent emotional presence.”
Many readers urged him to make the call, saying it was the right thing to do
Others, however, argued against it, claiming CPS wouldn’t actually help
Ultimately, the man decided to make the report
Image credits: Getty Images / unsplash (not the actual photo)
