Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Bad parenting. Not a crime. Sheesh, what is up with the neighbors? If they were so concerned, they should have knocked on her door or let the kid stay warm in their house until the mom came out. I've seen plenty of bad parenting out in public - I'm not going to call the police on the parents. Now the mom may lose her job and god knows what else - which will be great for the kids.

It was 10:30 at night and who knows how long the child was out there.... Maybe hours? Maybe the neighbors watched for hours and finally called the police. I would have to. No, I would not take the child into my house. The mom doesn't seem sane and I would hate for her to say that I took her child into my house without permission. I think she deserves every consequence she gets coming to here. Obviously the police felt enough harm for the child to file charges. Why are people not understanding that we don't know the whole story? Obviously more to it than this.... Maybe the sister and brother told the police other alarming things

But if you were so concerned, why wouldn't you go out and talk to the child yourself? Rather than watching for hours from the comfort of your own house? Especially if it's your own neighbor? This is the definition of a busybody who pretends to act out of concern for the child, but really, they are not doing the child any favors.

Of course it was wrong to lock her child out of the house. But the police didn't have to get involved. DH and his siblings regularly got locked out of their house for hours as kids. It was terrible, and very poor parenting. But a reason for the police to be called? No.

Anonymous wrote:The temperature doesn't bother me, and I think a lot of you posters are outright lying when you protest that 41 degrees is freezing. My kid's elementary school sends all the kids out for recess if it isn't raining and the temperature is above the 32degree freezing mark. What bothers me is the hour in which it was committed. However, like a PP posted up thread, what caused the mom to take this action? Was the kid disobedient and refused to abide by a curfew, and the mom said " you want to hang out, then stay out ."

Why did the neighbor not injure the kid into her house? I would have.

Bring

Maybe not a crime, but it's incredibly cruel.

I say this as a mother of an extremely difficult child with severe behavioral challenges. I understand losing one's cool and patience and feeling overwhelmed as a mother. I am not a perfect mother by any means.

But locking a child outdoors is not acceptable behavior for any parent. What is the lesson the child learns? That his parent, who should be the one to protect him from everything, has rejected him and subjected him to the cold and dark. He was crying and shivering - and 10 years old! Imagine how terrifying that must have been for him. I can imagine it because I had a parent who did some similar things when angry at us, and it terrified us all and I can still vividly remember crying about it.

Had I heard a neighbor's child outside crying like that I would have gone out to talk to him before calling police. I do hope the mother gets some help.

Anonymous wrote:The children are adopted... Not her biological children. Sad. They were taken away from their biological children due to abuse

Wait. Their bio children were taken away from them? And then they adopted more children after losing them?

That kid just learned that he can act out, push the right buttons, and get parent in a lot of legal trouble. Wonder what he'll do next.

The children are adopted... Not her biological children. Sad. They were taken away from their biological children due to abuse

Anonymous wrote:Bad parenting. Not a crime. Sheesh, what is up with the neighbors? If they were so concerned, they should have knocked on her door or let the kid stay warm in their house until the mom came out. I've seen plenty of bad parenting out in public - I'm not going to call the police on the parents. Now the mom may lose her job and god knows what else - which will be great for the kids.

It was 10:30 at night and who knows how long the child was out there.... Maybe hours? Maybe the neighbors watched for hours and finally called the police. I would have to. No, I would not take the child into my house. The mom doesn't seem sane and I would hate for her to say that I took her child into my house without permission. I think she deserves every consequence she gets coming to here. Obviously the police felt enough harm for the child to file charges. Why are people not understanding that we don't know the whole story? Obviously more to it than this.... Maybe the sister and brother told the police other alarming things

Bad parenting. Not a crime. Sheesh, what is up with the neighbors? If they were so concerned, they should have knocked on her door or let the kid stay warm in their house until the mom came out. I've seen plenty of bad parenting out in public - I'm not going to call the police on the parents. Now the mom may lose her job and god knows what else - which will be great for the kids.

Is anyone reading the "crazy shit your parents did" thread on Off-Topic? Seems like something that would have been common when we were growing up.

OP here,

This was a townhouse.... so the neighbors probably were annoyed that there was some noise keeping them from their restful sleep. All they had to do was open their window and ask the kid if he needed help. Instead, they called the police.

We don't know what the kid did before this punishment and we don't know how long he was out there. He could have been destructive -- who knows. At 10 yrs old, they are too big to pick up and put in their rooms for time out. There are circumstances where I would say this is neglectful (i.e. if he had been left out there for a long time). But, assuming he was out there a shorter amount of time, I think this was madness. And I bet he is more scarred by knowing that his tantrum caused his mother to be taken away by the police.

It's strange to me that we seem to allow parents (especially men) spank, slap and hit their kids as "corporal punishment" but here this woman simply separates the child for a period of time in a safe space and she's hauled off to jail.

I know of two situations that happened in the last year where a mom filed for a protective order b/c the dad in one case hit the kid on the head with a snow shovel and the other the dad slapped the kid hard across the face and in neither case did the judge grant the protective order. Here the kid is simply mad and the mom gets hauled off to jail and loses her job.

Not a crime! The police overreacted! The mother needs support, not punishment! What a punitive workd we live in! Shame on all of you. Some holier than thou neighbor called the police instead of knocking on the front door and asking if they needed help. That's what people did back in the day when people cared about the welfare if ither people's children. How does arresting this woman and getting her suspended from her job help her children? This whole stiry makes me sick as do many of the awful replies on this thread.

How can all of you judge when this article provides almost no details of the situation?

I think most of you haven't lived in a cold climate. 40 degrees is not that bad. And the hypothermia poster, lmao. A healthy kid won't get hypothermia from being in 40 degree weather for 20 minutes.

Crime

Anonymous wrote:The temperature doesn't bother me, and I think a lot of you posters are outright lying when you protest that 41 degrees is freezing. My kid's elementary school sends all the kids out for recess if it isn't raining and the temperature is above the 32degree freezing mark. What bothers me is the hour in which it was committed. However, like a PP posted up thread, what caused the mom to take this action? Was the kid disobedient and refused to abide by a curfew, and the mom said " you want to hang out, then stay out ."

Why did the neighbor not injure the kid into her house? I would have.

It's not freezing, but to put it in perspective, I keep my refrigerator set at 40. And there is a huge difference in being sent outside - in weather appropriate gear - to play during recess than there is in being looked out with no coat at a time when most kids should be in bed on a night that is near freezing. I don't know about your school, but mine won't send kids outside if they don't have proper warm weather gear.