[WillowTheWhisp]

I missed that in today's paper - haven't had chance to look at it yet.

First saw this story when we were away from home and I was appalled that the children could be taken from their parents without a sensible reason being given.

Like Chav said previously, IQ doesn't mean much more than the fact that you are either good at doing IQ tests or not good at doing IQ tests. Place a test before somebody who has never done anything like that before and they'll struggle. Later place a similar test in front of the same person and they'll do much better because they'll know what to expect.

The house was clean, the children clean, well fed and cared for. They love their parents and the parents love them. You can have highly intelligent parents who have very little time for their children, who do not interact with them and plonk them in front of a TV all day so they can get on with their own lives uninterrupted. You can also have highly intelligent people who beat the livings daylights out of their children for not coming up to scratch.

These children had never suffered at all. No justification was given for why they were taken away apart from the IQ of the mother. But the mother isn't unable to cope. She does everything any other mother would do. Maybe she cleans her teeth more thoroughly than some people which according to a dentist might be a good thing. The point I'm making there is that if all they could find to criticise was the length of time she took to clean her teeth then there can't have been any problems.

OK they both lost their temper with the SS. I think I'd have lost my temper too with people poking their noses into my life and crowding into my house all the time so I couldn't get a thing done. Nothing abnormal in that. When my first child was born I was inundated with well meaning "advice" from all and sundry (much of which was contradictory) and I just ended up telling them all to "depart hence" and let me get on with things MY way.

I sincerely hope that the children are returned to their parents and that it hasn't done any lasting damage to the poor souls. By all means SS can keep an eye on them if they feel the parents may need help at any time but there's a world of a difference between that and kidnapping the children. How many more cases ar thre like this which we don't even know about?

I don't know if the parents were paid anything by any newspaper which originally published the story, but good for them if they did get some money because I'm sure good lawyers aren't cheap and I wouldn't begrudge them whatever it costs to fight their case. Maybe with an MP being involved there could be many more going to court with similar cases.