UK: Mum loses custody to father: Judge attacks her 'permissive parenting' style

Submitted by Matt on Wed, 2014-02-26 06:18

Article here. The article opens in the typical nymphotropic way, but then you get into more of the nuts and bolts of the decision. It sounds like at least in view of the PAS the judge says the mom has been inflicting on her kids and her complacency around looking after them, it's certainly the right thing to do. Mom does sound depressed though, and so it's not something to be discarded from consideration; still, if indeed it's all supposed to be about the 'best interests of the child', then there has to be a line drawn someplace. However you'll see judges be a lot faster to draw that line in front of a dad than a mom. Excerpt:

'A mother said to have harmed her two sons by ‘permissive parenting’ has been stripped of the right to bring them up.

The brothers, 11 and 14, will now live with their father so they will be given ‘the guidance and boundaries appropriate for teenage boys’.

A judge made the order after hearing that the boys, who lived with their mother after their parents’ break-up, were staying up late, missing school, late for classes and neglecting their homework.

The mother spent much of the day in bed while her sons were left to play computer games, Judge Laura Harris heard. She said the mother was ‘complacent about the educational issues and minimised concerns about lateness, homework and general progress’.
...
She was awarded custody in 2002, and in 2004 a court ruled that the children should live with their mother while having weekend contact with their father.

In 2012, the father asked a court for custody after repeatedly complaining that he had been denied contact with them. Judge Harris said the father ‘has, in my view, demonstrated far better insight into the needs of his boys’.

‘He is much more in favour of structure, boundaries and discipline, and I can understand why the boys might baulk at that.’

Judge Harris said the mother had manipulated the boys into hostility towards their 43-year-old father and that her hatred of him was ‘almost pathological’.

‘So preoccupied is she with her own sense of grievance that she completely overlooks the effect of her behaviour on her children. In my judgment, she has prioritised her own needs and feelings at the expense of the needs of her children.’'

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Comments

It's good to see this father getting custody. I wish them all well, but I have great concerns about how these boys will infiltrate and be treated by the school system. I fear they will fail since they likely have social and discipline issues and I imagine behind in academic skill. Teachers have little patients fro these issues and kids like this get labeled, suspended, pushed aside, develop low self confidence, bullied or become bullies, become more socially isolated, etc It can be a big downwards spiral. I don't know how popular homeschooling is in the UK, but these boys could likely use a dose of it along with some professional family counseling. Social skills, healthy behaviors and confidence boosting are far more important then academic skills (In my opinion, schools may think differently). I would get the kids caught up in those areas before I set them off into public school.

We already know public schools fail average boys, imagine boys with issues.

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Submitted by Kris on Wed, 2014-02-26 07:13