It can be a real wrench to hand your precious child over to someone else to take care of them. Even though you've done your research and chosen the best childcare solution for you both, you may still wonder if you've done the right thing.
Thankfully, the vast majority of childcare workers are highly professional individuals who treat their charges with loving care and attention. But once in a while, a case emerges which will chill all parents who use childcare to the bone.
One such case is currently underway in the US, where a woman running a daycare centre in her home has admitted that for many years she has pinned children to mattresses to control them.
Seventy-year-old Arvilla Marie Lilly Meinhardt from Minnesota has admitted to authorities that for around eight years she has used safety pins to discipline 2- and 3-year-olds in her care by pinning them down to mattresses at nap time.
It's reported that Meinhardt told authorities that she would take the children's arms out of their pyjama sleeves, pull the sleeves behind their backs and fasten them together with a safety pin - effectively creating a straitjacket for them to sleep in. She said she also pinned pyjama legs together to restrict movement and pinned pyjama zippers shut so the children couldn't get out.
The Minneapolis Star Tribune also reports that Meinhardt has now been charged with "gross misdemeanor malicious punishment of a child and false imprisonment."
According to published reports, local police were called to the house to investigate claims by a girl who's now seven, and was cared for by Meinhardt from 2003 to 2006.
Meinhardt's lawyer John Leunig defended his client, saying she "has a clean criminal record with not so much as a traffic ticket." Parents who were present at Meinhardt's court hearing, and had not been told about her methods previously, "declined to comment."
Well, what could they really say? What would you say? Leave a comment below
Source [ParentDish US]