Child abuse

Okay, I know I am probably the WORST blog keeper in the history of Bloggers! I always say I'm gonna do better, and don't. So, no more saying I'll do better, then maybe I will (reverse psychology...sorta) :)

Now, onto my subject. There are a million things wrong with child abuse! For starters, I don't think it should EVER happen. I don't see how ANYONE could harm a child the Lord has trusted them to teach and raise. But when your back door neighbor, one who seems so amazing, and sweet to all her children. One who has given birth to several children, been a foster parent to numerous children, and adopted 4 of those foster children, is arrested for aggravated child abuse, it seems to throw everyone through a loop. If you watch the news, I am sure you saw the lady on the news.

When something like that happens, rather it's your back door neighor (like it was for us) or anyone in your neighborhood, people start acting a little strange. Everyone seems to be on edge. Everyone is watching people very closely in my ward. Watching for ANY possible signs of abuse to report. They spent all Sunday talking about child abuse, and making sure everyone knew signs, and what to look for.

What's worse, is when two of the children taken from the home, and put in state custody are in your primary class. And when one of those children is one they say had signs of abuse, it makes it hard. Is it bad that I had no clue? Granted, he never came to primary, and the girl only came for 2 weeks in January, until her mom was released as a primary teacher. All of the children had a hard time in class yesterday. They all wanted to talk about what happened. We didn't have a lot of info, and did not want to say anything that was false. This made it really hard to address the children's concerns. I felt like I was just blowing them off, and probably seemed to be ignoring them. We pretty much just went along with the lesson, and had to say we don't know a lot, so can't really discuss it. However, they are more than welcome to discuss their concerns with their families.

I am sure things will calm down with time, and most likely before we go to church again after Easter. In the mean time, we just have to get used to being watched like hawks by all the neighbors. Now, don't get me wrong, we have WONDERFUL neighbors. I love our neighborhood. Everyone is so nice, and will bend over backwards to help out anyone in the neighborhood. They are just reacting to an incident that threw them off, and are on high alert.