2C

Were there early warning signs around Elias that Connie should have picked up on?

Everyone missed the early warning signs. The school, the social system, his mother's live in boy friend... who turned out to be a pretty good guy. His mother must have been doing what the system considered an aqueduct job of taking care of him...Connie did check on him and his mother but since as most of these systems they were probably over worked and under staffed...it just wasn't enough. I wondered if the school that saw much more of him on a daily basis had taken the time to ask the social workers to check on him more often if things would have turned out differently.

I would imagine there's always a lot of would have, could have, should have when dealing with problem families. Not a job I would like to undertake.

Surprised Connie did not pick up on the fear of water, though - that spoke volumes to me; I wondered if the new boyfriend was scaring Elias with water in the bath - didn't think it might be the mother: but at least I questioned it!

A lot of early warning signs missed in my opinion. How could Connie go round and not see the child, this is a no brainer! The school thought the Social Worker was on the case, but should have still followed up everything themselves, where was their Child Protection Officer and what were they up to!

I think all parties can share the blame. Everybody thought someone else was documenting the situation. I felt like Connie accepted her role in the tragedy more than anyone else did.

Connie should have further investigated why Elias was afraid of water. She could have then possibly found out that the boyfriend was scaring him during bath time and possibly saved his life.

>6 eadieburke: The reason I never thought of water being a punishment for Elias was because my son was born terrified of water. From the time we brought him home from the hospital until he was 6 when we literally made him learn to swim because we lived in Florida and there was water, water everywhere...he was screaming, terrified of the water. Our daughter swam like a fish from the time she was a year old. Was on the swim team in high school and college.

>7 Carol420:
Difficult to diagnose if some children are born afraid of water.