An Italian mother has appeared in court accused of being so over-protective towards her 12-year-old son that she has impeded his development in what experts say amounts to child abuse. Italian mothers are often accused of indulging and mollycoddling their children, particularly boys. There is even a word for the phenomenon - "mammone", or mummy's boy.
But the behaviour of the mother in this case, in the north-eastern town of Ferrara, appears to go far beyond normal bounds. Social services have accused her of insulating the child, named only as Luca, from normal life and refusing to let him play with other children.
The mother split from the child's father, an accountant, a few months after he was born and has since brought him up with the help of her parents. Social service workers were alerted to the odd way in which he was being raised by his father, who is estranged from the boy's mother and claims not to have seen him for years.
"They built a wall around this little boy," said Andrea Marzola, a lawyer representing the child. "He couldn't play with friends. He didn't play sport. He went to school, but only for the minimum period of time and he wasn't allowed to take part in any after-school activities like gymnastics. He was totally isolated."
Teachers at his school said that he was so unused to physical exercise that he found it hard to climb the stairs or run around the playground.
"He had the motor skills of a three-year-old," said Mr Marzola. "Another odd thing that struck the teachers was that the boy arrived at school with his snacks already cut into tiny pieces." The boy's mother and grandparents have been charged with "aggravated ill-treatment".
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