As (often exhausted) parents, you probably do everything you can to make sure your children are safe, healthy, and loved. And there's no shortage of people willing to tell you the best way to go about things. So do you listen to your gut or to everyone else?
Parenting isn't easy, that's for sure.
But most parents with a good heart and good head find a way to get through it with their kids and sanity intact.There may be some ups and downs, but most parents can figure out how to raise kids well more or less on their own.
That won't stop TONS of people from chiming in with advice, however.A big part of the responsibility comes when the kids SHOULD be sleeping.
Putting a kid to bed is a real ordeal and every parent has their own way of handling it. Some of them actually just let their kids sleep with them as a way to get them to just conk out.There's hardly a consensus, though.
But the good news is that parents aren't required to do what other people tell them.Well, that's true MOST of the time.
One woman found out the hard way that the way she handled her kids' bedtime was going to result in a very grave situation. You might be "guilty" of the exact same thing, so take notes at this woman's terrible story!For one mom in Cambridgeshire, England, "continually ignoring advice" led to having her two children — both under the age of four — taken out of her custody.
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Why? Because she allowed them to sleep in bed with her, and social workers brought up concerns after seeing bruises on their skin. Judge Peter Greene said that one of the boy’s legs was bruised and even though it probably happened accidentally, it points to "excessive force" by the parents.On top of that, social workers stated that she had been “continually ignoring their advice against having him in bed with her."
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Professionals became worried about the younger son after social workers had been told to look after the family. Check-ins revealed bruises and even a broken wrist when he was just months old.Judge Greene determined that the "rough, abrupt manner" in which the children were treated, while unintentional, had been the cause of the boys' injuries.
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The strange part is that the judge also agreed that while the mother absolutely loves her children and would never do anything to intentionally hurt them, she’s still abusing them by co-sleeping with them.But he said evidence also showed the children's mother "always thinks that she knows best."
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Some people were enraged at the ruling, since even though some experts advise against co-sleeping, close to 80 percent of parents admit to doing it. Others believe the bruises to be evidence that the children being removed was a matter of their safety.Regardless of the thoughts of the general public, the judge worried for the children's safety and felt adoption to be the only reasonable course of action.
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While the case is still in the courts, it raises a lot of concern for some parents. Where do you come out on this?