Parents must monitor their children’s Facebook accounts to protect them from online predators, a top child protection expert has said. The deputy children’s commissioner said parents should stop children uploading pictures of themselves kissing, showing their flesh or wearing any sort of revealing outfit. Sue Berelowitz threw her weight behind calls for greater family control of online risks by saying that parents should warn their children that once a picture is online, there is a danger it will be shared with anyone from classmates to strangers.

The mother of a five-year-old Saudi girl who was tortured to death by her ‘celebrity cleric’ father, has said she wants him brought to justice. Lama al-Ghamdi died in October having suffered multiple injuries including a crushed skull, broken ribs and left arm as well as extensive bruising. It has been alleged that she had also been repeatedly raped and that the injuries she sustained from the sexual abuse had been burned.

A dollar store employee has been arrested for allegedly taking off her belt and beating a customer’s eight-year-old son after he ran around the shop and threw a cookie at her. Emilia Graciela Bell, 39, has also been fired from her clerk position at the Dollar General in Wrightsville, Georgia after bosses and police reviewed surveillance footage which caught the attack. While authorities have not yet released the video, they said it shows Bell hitting Logan Ivey as many as 26 times as he screamed and tried to squirm away. Wrightsville Police Chief Paul Sterling said Logan was running around in the store when he was confronted by Bell.

The embattled commissioner of Tennessee’s Department of Children’s Services has resigned amid an investigation into at least 151 children who died while in their care in a three and a half-year period. Gov Bill Haslam announced Kate O’Day’s resignation on Tuesday in a news release while stating no mention of the investigation nor any admitted wrongdoing. ‘She was concerned that she had become more of a focus than the children the department serves,’ Haslam said in the release. He wasn’t immediately available to comment.

When it came time for the Super Bowl, Clemmie Greenlee was expected to sleep with anywhere from 25 to 50 men a day. It’s a staggering figure, but it doesn’t shock advocates who say that the sporting event attracts more traffickers than any other in the U.S. “The Super Bowl is the greatest show on Earth, but it also has an ugly underbelly,”Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott told USA Today in 2011 when his state was gearing up to host the event. “It’s commonly known as the single largest human trafficking incident in the United States.”

A 5-year-old boy who was being held hostage in an underground bunker in Alabama for nearly a week has been released while his abductor is now dead, authorities said Monday. In a press conference Monday night, FBI Special Agent Steve Richardson told reporters the little boy had endured a lot and that he was receiving medical treatment. “The boy is laughing, joking, playing, he’s eating; he’s very brave, he’s very lucky, and the success story is that he is out safe and doing good,” he said.

Every family has strengths, but some families also have weaknesses. Research has shown that adults raised in dysfunctional families frequently report difficulties forming and maintaining intimate relationships, maintaining positive self-esteem, and trusting others; they fear a loss of control, and deny their feelings and reality. It’s true—our early influences can leave behind deep grooves—both good and bad— that we tend to carry around for the rest of our lives. Dysfunction can be a difficult cycle to break, but it is possible. In my work with families, I refer to this process as “pioneer parenting”. For all pioneers who have been the first to enter new territory, the road is often long and bumpy, but the destination points can be incredibly rewarding and the legacy is definitely priceless.

Images on a computer seized from a Bedico man allegedly show him committing the crime of aggravated rape of children, authorities said Friday. Investigators said they are trying to identify the children, but it could end up being a multistate case. Among numerous images of child pornography are two that show Robert Eugene Swan, 50, engaging in alleged felony sex acts with children who appear to be under the age of 10, Tangipahoa Parish Sheriff Daniel Edwards said. One of them could be under a year old, he said.

DAYTON, Ohio — An Ohio man pleaded guilty Friday to raping a boy at the center of sexual abuse allegations that have already landed the boy’s adoptive father and another man long prison sentences. Following his plea, the Montgomery County prosecutor’s office said Patrick Rieder was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 25 years.

KANSAS CITY, MO — A Kansas City mother is accused of breaking her baby’s legs. Police said 21-year-old Lacresha Young claimed to not know how her 1-month-old broke both his legs when he was taken to Children’s Mercy Hospital in November.

More disturbing stories of priests’ molestations of children — and questionable actions by church leaders — emerged in 12,000 pages of once-confidential personnel files. The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles posted the documents on its website Thursday night, an hour after a Los Angeles judge ended 5-1/2 years of legal wrangling over the release of the files with an order compelling the church to make the documents public within three weeks. Victims, their lawyers, reporters and other members of the public spent hours Friday poring through records that stretched back to the 1940s and provided details about the scope of abuse in church ranks never before seen.

A Washington state man is accused of punishing his 4-year-old stepdaughter by hog-tying her and shooting her with a pellet rifle more than 36 times. The severe scolding was discovered when the tot’s grandmother saw red marks “all over her body” and alerted police Jan. 13, said a court document, according to Q13 Fox News. Initially, the woman thought the welts were a sign of chicken pox. Stetson Tedder, 26, of Lynwood was arrested Thursday with bail set the following day at $25,000, the Everett Herald reported. He made bail, but couldn’t be reached for comment Sunday.

The parents of a Colorado boy are so fed up with the bullying their son endures, they’re considering suing the school district. Jeff and Theresa West feel helpless as their sixth grader son, Bailey, leaves the house every day. They say Bailey is traumatized by bullying every day Pleasant View Elementary in Golden, Colorado. And, they say, their son is desperate for a way out.

At the height of her drug addiction Danniella Westbrook would have happily given away her son. However, the former EastEnders actress was not acting selfishly and admits that she would only have handed her little boy over to social services for his benefit. The 39-year-old former heroin addict has been clean for the last 12 years and believes that helping vulnerable children is her true calling in life.