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Originally Posted by Sliver
I can't think very many things that would make me angrier than the parents of a kid I didn't like not giving me my kid. Like, you're upset they were angry with you, but they had an insanely legitimate reason to be angry with you. And they got angrier the longer you stonewalled them? Well yeah, you continued doing the thing to them that would make literally any parent on the planet super angry.
Was there evidence of abuse or something that led you to believe it was rational of you to withhold their child? If so, you should have called the police right away. If not, how could you think it was reasonable to not give their kid back?
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Let's be clear here: I was not withholding a kid from his parents. He was in my house, and did not want to leave. This was a simple choice that I gave to a 15-year-old who is regularly at my house: Did he want to stay, or did he want to leave? He made the choice to stay. I think my handling would likely have been a little different with a younger child, but kids at that age have to be afforded the opportunity to make some of these decisions for themselves. If my kids decide to leave and go live somewhere else, at this point in their lives there is not a lot I can or should do to stop them. They stay because this is their home: it's a safe place with loving parents who treat them with dignity and respect.
As to whether or not I made the right choice by calling the police when I did, all I can say was that it was an incredibly stressful period of hours, and in the end I believe we made the right decision. I don't know these people well, and I certainly did not feel equipped to be the go-between in the moment. It seemed at the time that the police were much better equipped to mediate, and they resolved things pretty satisfactorily, I think.
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Finally, when you say the police diffused things, how did it resolve? If it resolved by them returning the kid to the parents, it was your behaviour that needed diffusing.
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NO. My son's friend was asked where he wanted to go, and he decided to spend time at his grandmother's in Surrey. A family friend of his picked him up and drove him out there.