In recent years, parents found themselves in legal trouble for parenting practices once considered normal. Could your parenting practices put you in prison? The following list is of reasons parents have been arrested or contacted by police
1) Letting children go out by themselves
If you grew up any time prior to the 2000s, you probably remember walking to school, or asking your parents for permission to go to the park, or to walk to the store by yourself. But if you tried that now, you might be in for a rude awakening. In many places, letting your child walk to the park, to school, to the store, or anywhere else by themselves is considered so dangerous that you could be arrested for it. Last year, a Maryland couple was accused of neglect for
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There’s no way you could be arrested for that is there?
In September of 2012, Tammy Cooper spent a night in jail after for letting her two children - ages 6 and 9 - play in their own front yard. A neighbor called the cops and claimed the children were unattended, despite the fact that Cooper was observing the children from a deck chair. Cooper was arrested and charged with child endangerment.
3) Leaving a child in a car while you run errands.
Obviously, a child should not be left alone in a vehicle for a long period of time, or on a warm day. But most of us probably think that its legal to leave your child in a car for 10 minutes while you do something.
We’d be wrong.
In 2009, a mother from New Jersey left her 1-and-a-half year old child sleeping in a locked vehicle when she ran into a store to buy some party supplies. When she returned to her car, she was arrested by police and charged with neglect. It was not a hot day, and the child was only in the vehicle for 10 minutes.
And arresting parents who leave their child in a vehicle to run a quick errand is increasingly common. A woman who was filmed by an onlooker leaving her four year in the car as she ran into a store to buy a single item was arrested and charged with “"contributing to the delinquency of a