Teachers Share The Worst Case Of Child Neglect They’ve Ever Seen

These teachers share the heartbreaking cases of child abuse and neglect they have ever witnessed.

She Doesn’t Know What Happened To Him

“I had a student who was a foster kid. He had severe emotional disabilities. I started noticing how he would go around to all of the other students at lunch, and beg them for their food they didn’t eat. He would also flip out when you told him you were calling his foster mom. And by ‘flip out,’ I mean throw desks and whatever else he could get his hands on. I mentioned all of this to the guidance counselor.

Come to find out, when the kid got in trouble at school, which was every day, the foster mom wouldn’t feed him that night. CPS came in and took all of the woman’s kids (all 10 of them). She flipped out about not receiving a check for the kids anymore. Never heard anything else about it since then. No idea where the kid ended up.”

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He Was Beaten To “Man Up” At Three Years Old

“A kid I taught, at three years old, already showed signs of emotional and physical abuse. For example, he would have a panic attack when we gave him a red chair because, to him, it looked pink, and he was a boy and not allowed to have anything pink. One day, we saw a massive red and purple welt on his buttocks when we took him to the bathroom. We asked him about it, and he said ‘daddy did it,’ then got this look like he realized he’d messed up.

Throughout the day, he found excuses to explain to every adult he saw that he had fallen over, every time looking anxious. The injury was bad, but worse was watching him try to mitigate the damage he had done by accidentally telling the truth.

When his dad came to pick him up from daycare, he would cry hysterically and refuse to go to his dad until someone took his hand and led him. It broke my heart one day when his name was called. He looked happy as a calm and walked to the classroom door, then as soon as he saw his dad he stopped, his face fell, he started whimpering and his bottom lip went. He backed away from the door trying as hard as possible not to cry so his dad didn’t beat him for being ‘soft.'”

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This Poor Kid Was So Neglected

“I was a preschool teacher at a daycare and worked in the toddler room just about every afternoon. There was this little boy who’d get dropped off as soon as we opened (6:15 a.m.), and often picked up an hour or two after we closed.

We used to write the initials of the kids on their diapers to keep track of them. It was not uncommon for this little boy to get picked up late on a Friday night and get dropped off first thing Monday morning in the same diaper we put on him (we knew because of the initials). It was not uncommon for me to wash this kid in the sink just to get the caked-on poop off of him. He constantly had open sores from sitting in filth for so long. We would constantly give him ‘extra’ food when he was at school because we didn’t know if she fed him.

We had CPS at the center at least five times for him. It was heartbreaking every single time. I got a job with a school district and stopped working at the center. I still think of that boy from time to time; it’s been years since I last saw him. I hope he’s not with his mother, and if he is, I hope she is treating him better.”

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“I Pray Every Day For That Little Girl”

“I had a little girl who was displaying signs of abuse and neglect. She was already removed from care from her parents, and she lived with her grandmother and step-grandfather. We called CPS on them, and weeks later we got a very angry call from the grandmother.

The CPS worker came to her house and told them my name and pretty much word for word what I reported. The grandmother was demanding to fire me. The principal set up a meeting with the grandparents, the board social worker, the school therapists, our classroom team, and the CPS worker.

About 99 percent of the time, I am on board with CPS and have a lot of respect for what they do, but this worker was a moron. We worked things out with the grandparents and thankfully my principal stood by me. The grandparents left, and the CPS worker said she didn’t see anything that was worth investigating. All the people from the board were like, ‘what is wrong with you? Do you not see all the red flags? This little girl needs help!’ The CPS worker said she would keep the case open but insisted that her report would say it was resolved at the school level.

A few weeks later, the step-grandfather suddenly died, and the little girl was struggling. She came to school with no food, was dirty, reeked of pee, and was constantly playing with her private parts. We called CPS again, and they said they closed their file and were done with the family.

We had an emergency meeting again, and we started to put a bunch of things in place to support her at school. Giving her meals, clothes, washing her face and hair, and giving her a lot of love. The social worker for the board went to CPS and fought to get the case open again.

As soon as it was opened again, grandma moved six hours away with the little girl to move in with her new boyfriend. This was less than two months after the death of her husband.

We sent all the info to the new school board and called CPS in that area, but because we were out of bounds, they wouldn’t tell us anything. I pray every day for that little girl.”

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The Case That Keeps Her Up At Night

“This keeps me up at night. We have a family at my school that we have called CPS on numerous times. Kids are still with parents, but we keep calling. The kids have told us, ‘we’re not allowed to talk about home to you’ when we ask about things. If that’s not sketchy, I don’t know what is.

The kids all look malnourished. Pasty white skin, dark circles under their eyes, just hollow looking. I don’t know how else to describe it. One of them never stops talking, and we know it’s because no one will listen to them at home. They all have behavior issues or anger problems, and we know it’s because of the examples they see at home. The parents won’t sign consent forms to talk to our school therapist because he’s a ‘mandatory reporter.’

At summer school last year, one of them asked me if they could go get a drink of water. It was the end of the day, and I said, ‘no’ because parents could be there any minute and drinking fountains weren’t close by. I told her she could get a drink when she got home. (They’d also just finished lunch, with juice/milk, etc.) She looked at me and said, ‘they won’t let me get a drink when I get home.’ I knew she wasn’t lying, so I sent her.

None of them are allowed to read books at home because a year or two ago one of them colored in a book and none of the kids would admit to it. So, no reading for them. This has been confirmed by parents, even. The kids are DYING to read, so we ‘assign’ them reading for homework so they can. One of them asked my colleague if she would ‘up their reading minutes’ so they could read more at home. She obviously obliged.

We’ve heard their parents pick them up by their heads and scream and swear in their faces. As soon as they get home from school, they all get locked in their rooms. On the weekends, they’re locked in their rooms the majority of the time. Because they ‘usually’ get fed something, nothing has been done about that by CPS. They’re not allowed to use the furniture in their living room. They have to sit on the floor. Last year, we fed them all before we sent them home for the day because we were never sure if they’d get dinner. And it wasn’t because the food wasn’t available.

It’s heartbreaking. And it’s sad to know we’ve done as much as we can, but our hands are tied. So, to try and make things better for the kids, we offer them every single after school activity and program we can. We try to give them as much of a break from home as we possibly can. I still worry it’s not enough.”

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She Had All The Resources In The World, But Was Still Neglected

“I worked in an English course school for wealthy kids. There was this tiny girl who was enrolled in our 3-year-old group. She was tiny even for a three-year-old. The wealthy mom was always late to bring her; the girl always looked sleepy and was always wearing weird clothes, like party dresses (as if the mom would just grab the first thing out of the girl’s closet and make her wear it); and her hair was always a mess. Her mom wouldn’t pack her any snacks for break time, except for a tube of Mentos. So, that’s what the girl would eat.

The following year, we found out that the girl was not really three, but five years old. She was so small she could pass as a 3-year-old and then some. Thin limbs, poor balance. The mom had deliberately lied about girl’s age for God knows what reason (we suspect it was to hide the fact that the girl wasn’t developing/growing properly, probably because the mom was too busy to feed her real food).

We had a positive reinforcement system for homework: every time a student brought back homework that was done properly, they’d get a golden sticker. Once they got 10 of those, they could get a small toy. Kids were always psyched about getting their prizes. Homework for kids that age was simple: usually just a sheet of paper with a picture to color, or a connect-the-dots thing, a color-by-number.

The little girl would never bring her homework. We called her mom, she said it was ‘too much homework’ and she didn’t have time to help girl do it. We tried calling CPS but, much to my shock and dismay, they said they could only do something about it if the girl had bruises or marks of physical abuse. I’m not kidding.

Then I stopped working there. I really wish I knew what happened to her and how she is now.”

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She Still Thinks About This Child

“I was a foreign English teacher working in South Korea. I taught a little girl from the time she was in third grade to sixth grade. From the beginning, it was obvious that she was malnourished and unloved at home. She was half the size of the other kids, always dirty, starving, and absolutely desperate for love. The Korean teachers all brushed it off that her dad was out of the picture, her mom was poor and battling cancer.

But to me what made it obvious was that her two older sisters were well cared for and happy. But they wouldn’t so much as look at their younger sister. They were brainwashed against her.

I would say it was apparent things were out of control when the little girl’s hair started falling out in clumps, and the hair that didn’t fall out turned white at the roots. This is a 10-year-old I’m talking about.

I did eventually go against my school’s explicit instruction and report it, but Korea has a terrible system for child abuse, and she’s still living in that home. I think about her every day.”

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“They’ll Take Me Away Again”

“I had a kid who told me ‘I’m not allowed to tell you. They’ll take me away again,’ when I asked him about the marks on his body. It turns out that this wasn’t the first time his family had been involved in abuse allegations. He had been taken away from his parents and put into foster care the year before until his foster parent said they didn’t want him anymore. So, he ended up back in his original home, due to lack of foster homes.

After this incident, I reported it, as it’s the law and I heard that one of his parents admitted in a meeting with CPS that the marks were smoke burns. He still stayed in his abusive home after that. There was a ton of emotional abuse, too, but this situation really made me realize how many kids are in awful situations and don’t get out of them because of the lack of resources.”

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He Couldn’t Believe What This Kid Was Going Through

“In high school, I would work in the elementary school to help kids with homework and other stuff. After the first couple months, I started working with a couple of special needs kids. It was more difficult, but it felt good to help them out.

Until one day this boy, we’ll call him Frank, came in holding his arm. Now, Frank wasn’t the smartest, but he was super nice and just wanted a friend. As we were starting our reading that day, I noticed Frank not being his normal self and started asking him if everything was alright. He told me his arm hurt, that he had hurt it at home last night.

I looked at it and realized, this kid has a broken arm. All day long he had been walking around in agonizing pain, and when I asked him why he didn’t say anything, he told me it was because his parents didn’t want him too. Luckily, the nurse made his parents take him to the hospital, and the next day he was back with a cast. It made me feel bad for him, and I was furious at his teacher who had him all day and never even bothered to pay attention to him.”

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He Was Shocked When He Found Out The Truth

“Before starting my studies to become a teacher, I worked in a kindergarten. Among the kids were a girl and her younger brother, aged five and four, respectively. They were both sweet kids, though we had some minor behavioral issues with the brother, who was paralyzed from his waist down and was in a wheelchair.

Anyways, one day I’m eating with the kids and talking about legos and Star Wars when the brother refuses to eat his lunch. After some failed attempts at convincing him to eat, I ask him: ‘But what would your dad say when you won’t eat your food?’

The little guy just shrugs and, as casual as I’ve ever seen, says: ‘Nothing, he just beats me.’

I was shocked, and wrote down our interaction and took it to my boss, who informed me they had already opened an investigation with CPS about the abuse the two kids were experiencing at home. She then told me further details about what had been uncovered.

The kids lived alone with their father, a nice and respectful man who I liked and had had many nice talks with. Apparently, however, that didn’t stop him from beating his kids with a cane, locking them in closets, and burning them with lighters and irons. The monster was torturing his own children in an attempt to ‘discipline’ them.

For some reason, the case was taking a while, as CPS was trying to educate the father and make their family work, and at the end of that day, I had to hand them over to him when he came to pick them up. I wanted to kill him, and I felt like trash for knowingly letting them return to that environment.

Both kids were eventually taken away from their dad and put into an excellent foster home on a farm, where they’ve progressed wonderfully from what I’ve heard. Also, I got to testify against the father during his child abuse trial.

It still bothers me how nice the dad was. He seemed loving with his kids, and not in a deliberate way, and treated everyone with respect. I met him several times outside of work, and never got any bad vibes from him. Apparently, ‘old habits’ carried over. I’ve been more alert to this stuff since then.”

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“I Think About Them Constantly”

“When I taught English at Japanese schools, there were these two siblings who were neglected and abused pretty badly.

The oldest girl would come in with her hair matted and tangled, would complain of headaches and dizziness because she hadn’t eaten anything since lunch the day before, her white uniform shirt was black with dirt, teeth rotting and falling out. The school tried reaching out to her mom (single mom, worked nights at a ‘cabaret’ and left her kids alone to feed and bathe themselves), but it just got worse.

CPS isn’t really a thing there (and when kids get taken away, they always just get thrown into horrible group homes with rampant physical abuse), so the school started taking care of her — washing her uniform when she was in gym clothes, saving lunch to give her breakfast, combing her hair, washing her up in the nurse’s office.

Her younger brother started my last few months at the school and he was just as neglected, but also physically abused by the mom’s boyfriend who thought he was useless and stupid (and this man would say so in front on teachers and the child constantly). We tried to monitor if he had any bruises or injuries, but the school was still convinced they could educate the parents on how to be better. I don’t know what happened to those kids, but I think about them constantly.”

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He Was Horrified When He Learned Her Story

“I have seen a lot of these cases, but only one still makes me well up a bit. This girl was in and out of school for a couple of years. It was early in my career; I was subbing and doing short-term replacements at the same school for that first couple of years. I didn’t teach her regularly until her third year of high school when she was in a grade 10 class.

She was angry to be there. She showed up but hated it; made allusions to the fact that she was being forced to attend. I knew that her home situation was bad. In the years before a few of us would bring in food for her. I was told that the cupboards at home were bare. She seemed uncomfortable around men, so I brought in food and had someone else give it to her during that time. When I actually had her in my class, I asked around and got the full story from a friend.

Her dad was a monster. Our guidance counselor had been in contact with Child Services over the years when the cupboards were bare. At some point, the full story came out. Her dad had been selling her body. He would sell her to his friends and may have been assaulting her himself. She eventually became pregnant. Horrified about this, and both poor and pretty uneducated about what her options were, she drank and did all manner of illegal substances while pregnant. When the baby was born, it was taken from her immediately and presumed to be severely disabled.

When she saw the baby, she fell in love with it. She was in my class as a condition of her seeing the baby — that she had to attend school. Her attendance became sporadic after the first month, and she understandably was resistant to having any sort of conversation with me beyond class work. I never saw her again after the second month, and have no idea what happened to her. I tried to look her up on Facebook a couple of times, nothing.

The colleague who told me all this looked me dead in the eyes after telling me all this and told me point blank that if her father ever came into the school, he would have to be pulled off of him.”

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“Some Kids Will Break Your Heart”

“I’m a primary school teacher, and there were too many children I taught that were abused in some way.

The ones that stick out the most include the 5-year-old girl who was so clearly being abused by her 9-year-old brother. It was awful. He was a terror at school — defiant, rude, narcissistic, and mean. She was sweet, clever, attentive, and damaged. She would frequently and regularly (up to five times a day) defecate and urinate herself and not tell anyone. I’d have to clean her up all the time. She always had spare clothes, but sometime she’d have to borrow things from Lost And Found when she ran out of clean clothes.

Her parents would scold her when they came to pick her up; asking her when she was going to grow out of that baby habit, and tell her she had caused a hassle by creating more laundry. Her brother would mock her when he thought no one was watching, and then be touchy and caring when we were. She was petrified of cameras and would not have her photos taken. Her parents just seemed at the end of their tether with the pair of them, but you had to wonder what went on at home. They moved away at the end of that school year, and I always wonder about them. There was just never enough ‘proof’ anything was happening. They were monitored and frequently reported, but nothing came of it.

Another one was the tiniest 5-year-old boy you can imagine. He weighed the same as a toddler. And a 10-year-old sister who knew way too much about preparing meals. Turns out, mom was a chronic drinker and would pass out for most of the day and the 10-year-old had to cook her, the 5-year-old and the baby meals every day. Mom had them taken off her, got sober, then got them back. A year later, the woman came into school smashed and pushed the baby buggy straight into a concrete wall. We called the police, and she hasn’t seen her kids since. They moved away and were adopted separately.

There was also the girl who, the year before she came to me, had been assaulted by her foster brother. The two of them still lived with foster mom, who also had other kids. During her time in the first two years of the school, it was monitored that she went from a normal, bubbly child to a withdrawn, upset slightly mean child who was overly physical. She would touch herself in the middle of the classroom and loudly exclaim about how much she liked it (she was four years old). The final straw was when she came in, sat down for a bit, stood up and was covered in blood. The foster brother had assaulted her that morning. It was heartbreaking. The next year when she was with me, you almost forgot that she was only five; she was so mature for her age. Which, in itself, is heartbreaking.

Some kids will always break your heart. Some parents don’t deserve to have children.”

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