Tossing and turning…unsuspected child maltreatment?

Try to be absolutely honest

In your thinking for one minute.

Judson Smith

to Marcia Brown in Lotus Seeds

Can't help wondering...
what you're wondering about?

I'm wondering about honesty within ourselves... that unknown to others honesty we sometimes call personal integrity...that honest that burdens us for many years, for lack of telling to a trusted friend.

After tossing and turning for too many sleepless hours I decided I might as well just get up and write this down. Yesterday a friend shared a deep dark secret that went off in my head like a roadside bomb, with a blinding light that cast shadows of naked truth every where behind my suddenly closed eyes.

From out of nowhere she blurted, "I hope its okay but I have to tell you something I never told anyone. I hope you won't hate me for it." Open eyes, open heart, I think, but still I am not prepared to hear something so simple that it makes clear something so obvious I wonder how it has never crossed my mind.
"I was only eleven," she said. "Old enough to know better, I guess, but I didn't think I was doing anything wrong." I'd watched Dad do it, and even though Mom always said, "don't do that, you might hurt her," he only laughed and threw my baby sister higher. "Don't be silly, she's liking it," he'd say, and wink at me like he always did when he wanted me to agree Mom was just being a spoil sport.

So when we were alone I decided to throw the baby up and catch her. I thought it would be fun to throw her high. I must have thrown her crooked or something because she didn't come straight down. Before I could catch her she hit the edge of the sofa. As she slid toward the floor I caught her. The baby was screaming and I was scared to death. I bounced her around and laughed like we were playing until she stopped crying." My friend looked at me, eyes wide and sad. "I guess it didn't hurt her?"

I smiled. "Well we sure can hope not, can't we?" She smiled back, do doubt as relieved as she looked. But inside my head memories where flashing like emergency lights. My young brother throwing a kitten high up to see if it would land on all fours, and crying about nine lives as Dad smashed its head to put it out of its pain. Me giving a baby left-over sour milk and being screamed at for "trying to kill him," and ten or twelve years of hell, believing somehow I must have been responsible when he died several months later. A toddler once throwing a can of tuna in a bassinet on an infant's head…his favorite food, maybe the crying baby might like it, too? Who knows what goes on in the minds of kids?

Recently a neighbors' children put a puppy on the trampoline and then all jumped as hard as they could so the poor puppy would bounce higher and higher. Then a few days later, an infant got the same "fun" until I screamed out the window for them to stop. Other people shared similar stories over the years, many of them. Children don't know as much as they often think they do. And ten to twelve year olds with more strength than safety demands for brains not yet developed, and minds that think they know everything, do a lot of things that somehow go wrong.

As my mind was putting two and two together, the answer wasn't one I wanted to see at all. How many adults swearing they don't know how an infants' bones were broken might be telling the truth? Maybe they didn't when so often the newspaper accounts explain that CPS placed the other children in foster homes? How many unexplained SIDs? How many shaken babies? Dropped babies? Suffocated babies? Babies wacked on heads with any number of lethal objects? Heaven only knows what happens to babies when children aren't supervised adequately… and that is a thought that now will never leave me.

A Child is Waiting,
Take care...be aware,
Nancy Lee

No Dreams, No Civil Rights: Not for Abused and Neglected Children

Before such things can come,

You idiotic child,

You must alter Human Nature!

And they all sat back and smiled.

Charlotte Prekins Stetson Gilman

from: Similar Cases

Can't help wondering... what you're wondering about?



Today the emphasis of many is on forty years ago.

We celebrate Martin Luther King for what he did for the civil rights of all. Well, almost all... children then had no civil rights. Not much has changed for them since then.

Although the UN initiated the Convention for Children's Rights in 1989, the United States remains the only country that hasn't ratified it.

Corporal punishment remains legal in all states for parents and legal in many schools. You can't hit an adult with the intention of inflicting pain, but it's still legal to hit a child with the intention of inflicting pain. Some things are very slow to change.

Forty years ago, as now, abused and neglected children dared not dream of a brighter day, a better world, a change that would someday set them free. The most they dared hope for was survival, escape, and a future not so altered by their experiences that life remained livable. Abused and neglected children lived in a world of the unseen, and the unacknowledged. Child abuse wasn't even considered a problem until after Dr. C. Henry Kempe and his colleagues published the work, "The Battered Child Syndrome," in 1962.

Even today, the majority of people still admit behind their own closed doors, they prefer those children remain that way. Hidden away and easy to ignore... not heard, and not seen either. Oh, they feel sorry for them... only children after all. Not their faults for having parents that don't teach them right from wrong. Those people are more than willing to attend balls, rally's ball games, walk-a-thons, donate money, do anything as long as they aren't expected to actually go anywhere near the children themselves.

Honest people admit abused and neglected children aren't always the easiest children to care about, let alone be around. Once out of the shadows, sometime after they become ambulatory, too many abused and neglected children are seen as dirty, smelly, and ragged. They lack vocabulary, manners and other socially admired characteristics. Instead, out of the mouths of these babes, filth and violence spew along with spittle directed at the least suspecting. Their escalating levels of rage and increasingly uncontrolled behaviors give fair warning... don't mess with me.

Abused and neglected children may lie, steal, cheat, bully and cause unimaginable trouble for friend and foe alike. Do something nice to one such child and he will take that as a sign of weakness asking to be taken advantage of. Reach out with love to another such child and she will accuse you of evil intentions, or worse. Why not? For many of these children everyone represents a threat, the new is always dangerous, the unknown something to be avoided at all costs.

While children died in the name of the civil rights movement so that others would be free, few remembered the children screaming and dying behind closed doors. Forty years later people exclaim about the numbers of people in prison... more in the US than any other country. How many people know that 100% of the most violent of prisoners have records as abused and neglected children? How many know that California looks at the failing 4th graders to estimate the number of new prison cells that will be needed in twenty years?

How many are willing to look at the connection between the abused and neglected children of 40 years ago, who became the parents, increasingly unmarried, of the young unmarried adults twenty years ago, now giving birth at higher rates than ever to more children being abused and neglected? How many think nineteen year olds with three illegitimate children, with different fathers are likely to break the cycle from which they come. How many think the missing fathers will? So who will help the children?

Some people step up, eager to be the ones to make the changes. When others say it can't be done, the children once innocent are lost and gone, still others can be heard to say...not true! Our children are worth whatever it takes...

Said I, in scorn all burning hot,

In rage and anger high,

"You ignominious idiot!

Those wings are made to fly!"

Charlotte Perkins Stetson-Gilman

From: A Conservative

While, in the back ground a chorus of voices rise, from those lost children who do not understand, those for whom hope and dreams are long since gone...those who have never known anything but abuse and neglect:

"I do not want to be a fly!

I want to be a worm!"

Charlotte Perkins Stetson-Gilman

From: A Conservative

Change will be slow, with so many who do not yet know which way to go. All the more reason to begin with even just a small step today. Got your Blue Ribbon, yet?

Some Information:

The Kempe Center for the Prevention and Treatment of Child Abuse and Neglect

Get Your Blue On for Kempe Kids

Kempe Center: History of the Child Abuse Blue Ribbon Campaign
Kempe Center: Education and Awareness Help Us All

A Child is Waiting,
Take care...be aware,
Nancy Lee

Scribbling Siblings? Well...

Did you know that

Sibling abuse is

One of the most common forms

Of family violence?

Sibling Conflicts: Roughhousing vs. Abuse

Can't help wondering... what you're wondering about?
I wonder if the net isn't providing a great way for some to talk about abuse and gain some healing in the process.

As with so many other things related to child abuse, the veil of secrecy enshrouds that of sibling abuse. It simply isn't a subject that comes up easily, even or especially within families.

My children were all grown before they began to tell me horrible stories of their experiences with each other when young. They told finally with the sense of safety that comes with time and distance… and the support of one another… and with a deliberate use of humor to lessen re-experiencing the degree of pain and actual cruelty of the experiences.

Had my mother lived past 42, would my brothers and I have eventually regaled her with similarly humorous stories about the ways we abused one another as children? We certainly never brought the subject up with Dad who lived ten years longr than Mom… but then it seems with Dad we never acknowledged the elephant of violence and abuse in any of its many guises.

From discussions with others my guess is that even as adults the subject of sibling abuse may not surface in many families…ever. I suspect the openness that developed in our family came as a result of me owning my part in it all with them, keeping the subject of abuse open, and subsequent discussions both personal and abstract as I strived to learn and share more about child abuse in general.

Not surprisingly, given that she received the most of the worst from me, the oldest was more often named as offender for perpetrating violence against her brother and sister during their childhoods. After listening to how she deliberately slammed doors on hands, held knives to their throats, and other clearly abusive actions, I asked, "But where was I?"

As a stay at home mom, aware that she was acting out her own pain and anger, and openly mean to her sibs in so many ways, I thought I did everything possible to protect them from her angry outbursts. "Oh, you were always there, Mom, but we didn't dare make a sound or tell. We knew she would make us very sorry if we did."

Sibling abuse is not often recognized as resulting in serious trauma yet. Too many well-educated people, immersed in the field of child maltreatment in one discipline or another, persist in minimizing the degree of frequency and further minimize any as "just kids stuff"… nothing more than sibling rivalry.


Recently, there is more interest in sibling abuse as a valid subject for solid research. But for now, those who endured it need to speak out in order to heal themselves…and to open the conversation so others may feel safe in doing so, too. There are places on line where people are sharing their stories on this abuse as they share about other abuses. Comments on a recent post on "Well," a health-related blog, show the depth of pain about sibling abuse and how some are dealing with it.

In it's simplest terms sibling abuse includes all the types of abuse...physical, emotional, sexual, and neglect. And it traumatizes children deeply in ways similar to that of other domestic violences. Trust is destroyed both by the perpetrator and by those who fail to protect the children…and this may be worse in many ways… by those who deny the sibling abuse when told of it.

I also think that eventually research will determine that sibling abuse has two victims…the obvious child-victim of the abuse, and the child abusing his or her siblings who is sustaining developmental damage that changes him or her, too. Abused children need our protection and help. Abusive children also need help and protection, not condemnation, and extra effort to stop them...for the sake of all.

Looking for more information:

Siblings Behaving Badly

Brothers and Sisters of Abuse Victims Often Help Cover Up or Even Commit Abuse
Beyond rivalry, a Hidden World of Sibling Violence

Sibling Abuse

Sibling Conflicts: Roughhousing vs. Abuse

Sibling Rivalry? Think Again...

What makes kids care? Teaching gentleness in a violent world

Selected Resources on Sibling Abuse: An Annotated Bibliography for Researchers, Educators and Consumers

Sibling Abuse Forums

http://www.child-abuse-effects.com/pandoras-box.html

A Child is Waiting,
Take care...be aware,
Nancy Lee

Pre-emptive Strike Against Our Children

The American people live in a country

Where they can have

Almost anything they want.

And my regret is that it seems that

They don’t want much of anything at all.

Eugene Debs according to Ralph Nadar

Can't help wondering... what you're wondering about?

I'm wondering just what do Americans want?

Apparently Walmart knows better than anyone else exactly what Americans want...

Americans it seems want junk they can buy in place of wanting those things in life that truly have meaning and lasting value. Instead of parenting with love

Supreme Court, inc.

Supreme Court of the United States (Official Page)

U. S. Supreme Court Information: Basic Facts and History

Supreme Court Decisions Relating to Children

The Broken Branch: How Congress is America and How to Get it Back on Track (The Book)

The Broken Branch: How Congress is Failing America and How to Get it Back on Track (Article)

Is the Broken Branch on the Mend? An Early Report on the 110th Congress

Radio Interview: Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein: "The Broken Branch" (Oxford)

A Child is Waiting,
Take care...be aware,
Nancy Lee

Filling Squares, Training [NOT] and Child Abuse

You can swim all day

In the Sea of Knowledge

And still come out completely dry.

Most people do.

Norman Juster

Can't help wondering... what you're wondering about?

I wonder what happends to the ones supposed to benefit, when people drinking from the Sea of Knowledge, seeming afraid to even wet their lips, take no more than a quick sip, then claim that as the source for anything they spout forever afterwards.

That leads me to discuss an issue of great importance to me in any discussion of child abuse. Today I'm wondering about, education at all levels, in all fields, among all people…in relation to child abuse, of course.

I come here to post after first responding to a comment left by Geoff Brown http://www.geoffbrown.com/home.htm on Scare Crow Child, "Child Abuse and Neglect: A Weak Spot in Teacher Ed..." about a "new online role-playing course titled, "How [Not] to Talk To a Possible Child Abuse Victim," that lets teachers rehearse an interactive conversation with a possible child abuse victim, getting feedback after each choice...if request is clicked on...and, for a price, recieve certification for the training.

I believe when Bryan Short said "Evil is the incapacity that is forced on one by his lack of training," that he was speaking a truth with a capital T. No doubt others may have said as much, or even used the same words, but I heard them from him in a lecture/class at NAU in 1997. I was so struck by the words, and the discussion that followed, that I kept them as something of a basic philosophy.

Those words clarify for me much that seems senseless on the surface. Most of us agree, (even if we disagree about whom to attribute the words in a quote) that there is a truth in saying those who do nothing in the presence of evil, are in themselves contributing to evil. And yet, while claiming something must be done, too often we do nothing. Then like the early Christian, Paul, while we berate ourselves for failing to do what we would, or not do what we would not, we seek an excuse for our behavior.

The Devil, Twinkies, Mom, Dad, Child Abuse, (or you fill in the blank)… made me do it, defense continues to thrive.
So one might expect me to think education about child abuse provided anywhere, in any way, for any reason must be a good thing. Not so. Avoiding any discussion of pros and cons on online education, I have trouble recommending this, or any other course like it, based on the following three reasons.

First, I agree with Plato via Socrates on writing and believe it is as true for on-line courses:

"this will provide forgetfulness in the souls of those who have learned it ... . You have found a drug not for memory but for reminding. You are supplying the opinion of wisdom to students, not truth. For you'll see that, having become hearers of much without teaching, they will seem to be sensible judges in much, while being for the most part senseless, and hard to be with, since they've become wise in their own opinions instead of wise" http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue5_7/klass/index.html
Plato as Distance Educator Pioneer

Second, again per Plato:

"For writing certainly has this terrible power, Phaedrus, as if truly like the painting of living animals. For the offspring of that stand forth like living animals, but if someone were to question them, they maintain a solemn silence.
(Plato, 275d) Plato. Phaedrus.

And third, in my experience, almost all forms of "training" taken to fill a square, to satisfy some requirement to indicate training happened, rather than with the intended purpose of learning, accomplish nothing positive. Examples include:

1. Real Estate Ethics Training I attended in CA where instructor arrived one hour late, asked if we wanted to get out early, quickly went over answers to test, then left us alone in room to pracitce our own ethics...or get back to making money in a hurry.

2. Military on-line training where cheat sheets circulate for those who don't know how to take the test without actually doing the "training."

3. On C-SPAN Congressional Hearing last week, an owner of meat packing plant waved signed sheets as "proof" that employees had received training, so employees who said otherwise must be lying...

4. Beginning employment at a Day Care Center, I was pointed towards three manuals on child safety, welfare, etc. that had to be read...asked to sign a paper that I had done so and rushed into work.

5. Going to the drugstore for meds now, asked to sign a statement that declares I have been counseled by the druggist...

You get the picture from just a few pieces? And I have no doubt that you can add more of your own! Anectdotal "evidence" doesn't count? Depends on the circumstances, doesn't it?

However, as you know, "Child Person From the South" is filled with links, quotes, stuff involving the written word on-line and off, so am I saying don't use any of them? No. Not at all! In fact I hope you use any sources of information on child abuse that you find here or elsewhere, that seem so "good" to you that you will put forth the effort to learn, process, make the knowledge behind them yours, and use the wisdom gained in some attempt to protect a child from abuse.

Should the day arrive when there are Answers with a capital A, as in Truth with a Capital T, that is the day when I will erase all other attempts at finding answers and provide that Answer to you. Until then, I continue to provide a variety of sources such that you may find something that you may find useful in your search for Wisdom. But while you do, please remember as Heather L. Reid says:

"It is the admission of ignorance in ourselves, and the recognition of ignorance in others that gives us the courage, freedom, and duty to inquire after truth."

And, I hope, in doing so bring us closer to that day when Bryan Short's words, "Evil is the incapacity that is forced on one by his lack of training," become a Truth that means Evil no longer finds an opening through the abuse of children.

So, in the meantime, a few more links for you:

How [Not] To Talk To A Possible Child Abuse Victim (On-line Course)

Unto the Third Generation: A Call to End Child Abuse in the United States within 120 Years (More in depth perspective and reasons for real training)

Interviewing Child Witnesses: Questioning Techniques and the Role of Training

ICAN Child Abuse and Neglect Protocol (Includes Video)

Inter -agency Council on Child Abuse and Neglect (ICAN) Mandatory Reporting of Child Abuse and Neglect

Putting Kid First: Court Approved Online Parenting Course ($60)

Family Matters: Court Approved Online Parenting Classes (Various Fees)

Free Online Parenting Class ($20 Optional Certification)

The Educational Value of Plato's Early Socratic Dialogues

Teaching and Learning: Making the Written Word "Speak": Reflections on the Teaching of Correspondence Courses

Links to Plato's Works on the Web

Plato and His Dialogues

Plato as Distance Educator Pioneer


Rom. 7:15-16: "...for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do I...." Rom. 7:19-20, "For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do. Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me."

A Child is Waiting,
Take care...be aware,
Nancy Lee

Constitutional Rights: Home Schooling? Abuse? Neglect? None of the Above?

..."allowing every person to make his own

standards on matters of conduct

in which society as a whole

has important interests”

is precluded by

“the very concept of ordered liberty ...

Croskey Court Opinion

Can't help wondering...

what you're wondering about today?

I'm wondering about parents, children and constitutional rights a lot lately... usually with an emphasis on child abuse of course. But today the news from California focuses on another aspect of that concept... home schooling.

So...so will I.
So...do parents have a constitutional right to homeschool their children?

So...did they ever?

Nowhere in the Croskey Court document is the proposition presented as anything new, let alone supported by cherry-picked words quoted by this blogger called KipEsquire, that "California courts have held that ... parents do not have a constitutional right to homeschool their children,"...

But by cleverly taking a few words out of context, KipEsquire, and others doing the same thing today, create a firestorm that sucks even the CA Governor into the smoky maelstrom. The choice of words easily leads the careless reader to believe this ruling drastically changes something…forcibly rips away someone's inalienable and constitutional rights...deprives parents of some previously assumed authority over their children's education. No doubt it threw welcome fuel on the fire that smolders among the more radical home schoolers.

KipEsquire is clever. He throws out the lit match with this:

"California courts have held that ... parents do not have a constitutional right to homeschool their children," Justice H. Walter Croskey said in the 3-0 ruling issued on Feb. 28.

No doubt knowing full well the sparks will fly on that one, KipEsquire then fans the flames with this:

"Parents have a legal duty to see to their children's schooling under the provisions of these laws."

And knowing, no doubt, that with eyes burning no one will notice, KipEsquire splashes more fuel on their blazing emotions with this:

"Parents can be criminally prosecuted for failing to comply, Croskey said."

Sound like if you home school, you have no right to do so and face prosecution if you do?

However, that isn't what The Croskey Court finds at all. Here are the words KipEsquire chooses to use placed back in their original context:

The trial court’s reason for declining to order public or private schooling for the children was its belief that parents have a constitutional right to school their children in their own home. However, California courts have held that under provisions in the Education Code, parents do not have a constitutional right to home school their children.

That doesn't say you can't home school your children, or are in danger of prosecution if you do. The Croskey Court opinion does say the trial court declined "to order public or private schooling" because of a belief the parents have a constitutional right to home school their children.

However, the issue of a parent's constitutional right to home school was settled prior to this case in the California Courts:

Thus, while the petition for extraordinary writ asserts that the trial court’s refusal to order attendance in a public or private school was an abuse of discretion, we find the refusal was actually an error of law.

Abuse of discretion or error of law? The Croskey Court confirms that parents do have a right to home school in CA, when they do so in accordance with existing law:

It is clear to us that enrollment and attendance in a public full-time day school is required by California law for minor children unless (1) the child is enrolled in a private full-time day school and actually attends that private school, (2) the child is tutored by a person holding a valid state teaching credential for the grade being taught, or (3) one of the other few statutory exemptions to compulsory public school attendance (Ed. Code, § 48220 et seq.) applies to the child.

Finally, the Croskey Court notes:

Because the parents in this case have not demonstrated that any of these exemptions apply to their children, we will grant the petition for extraordinary writ.

Amazing to me that KipEsquire, who claims to be a lawyer, albeit a NY not CA lawyer, also says:

"…It is a fine line (or a massive chasm, depending on your point of view) between insisting, as I do, that there is no right to badly homeschool your child and this court's ruling that there is no right to homeschool whatsoever…" (KipEsquire's emphasis; my hi-lite).

And, KipEsquire continues:

"…To adopt a bright-line rule that any homeschooling is "bad" homeschooling is arbitrary, irrational -- and likely an unconstitutional violation of due process. Even in the knowledge that some homeschooling will be bad homeschooling, the state should be required to demonstrate that a particular parent is failing to properly homeschool a particular child, just as it should be required to demonstrate that a particular parent is neglecting or abusing a particular child." (KipEsquire's emphases; my hi-lite)

KipEsquire's rant becomes of particular interest to me with those last words! But this post is so long that I will continue my thoughts next time….so long, so long!

For you:
http://kipesquire.powerblogs.com/posts/1204928335.shtml
California Court: No Right to Homeschool

http://www.courtinfo.ca.gov/opinions/documents/B192878.PDF In re RACHEL L. et al., Persons Coming

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1720697,00.html?imw=YCriminalizing Home Schoolers

http://renaissanceguy.wordpress.com/2008/03/07/statist-style-schooling/Statist-Style Schooling

A Child is Waiting,
Take care...be aware,
Nancy Lee

Ripping the Nest Apart for Abused Children

Children and their parents

are nested in a broader family group:

those people to whom they are connected

through kinship and other relationships
American Humane: FGDM

Can't help wondering...
what you're wondering about today?

I'm thinking about families, remembering aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, siblings. Most are gone now, but the sense of belonging, of being a part of something remains as comforting as ever.

Imagine ripping these children from their great-grandmother in order to protect them from an abusive or neglectful parent. Her loss would be devestating. Their loss incalculable. With her would go extended family members, family history, culture, mentors of skills and talents, safe harbors for all kinds of life storms.

I wonder what I would be without the grandmother who adored me and made no secret of it, the extended family members who gave me the joys and experiences of books and learning, scouting, who introduced me to the comfort of religion, the pride in "our" pew in the church, taught me of the local landmarks that created connections of my family to place through generations that came before me, gave me a sense of a history that included me and would pass on through me to next generations.

What of those who taught me manners not learned at home, values and pride in craftsmanship, who provided regular escapes from a horrific home life? What if my brothers, my reasons for hanging on were ripped from my life? What of the pets, friends, neighborhood places, schools and teachers that served as lifelines during rough times? Sure, I might have suffered less neglect and abuse by being removed from my mom and dad...maybe...but there is no doubt that I would have suffered greatly from the loss of all the other positives that come from having a connection to time and place and people.

For some reason when good people set out to do good things and don't consider all the consequences that may occur as a result of their decisions, they can cause more damage than had they done nothing. The road to hell... and we all know the rest of that! The decision to hasten the time from removing children from their homes until parental rights are terminated in order to stop the horrors of children lost in systems and place the children in permanent situations sooner sounds like one of those good intentions!

My grandson was "lucky" when the state took him from my daughter, for she was a Heroin addict, with all that includes for a young female, and his life was in jeopardy. But was he so lucky when the foster parents, eager to adopt him, and case-worker believing it best, pushed hard for that closure as soon as they could legally do so? I have no answer of course. Once the adoption took place, my daughter wasn't the only one locked out of his life when the records were "closed."

So when as a CASA (Court Appointed Special Advocate for Abused and Neglected Children) I participated in a Family Group Decision Making program I was thrilled to see the children included, along with extended family members and even close friends, in an attempt to create the best possible solutions for the children and their single Mom. How different from other meetings of professionals making decisions based on their biases, values, mood of the moment, mixed with incomplete information about the people whose lives they would change forever! The stake holders at Family Group Decision Making meetings have a lot more at stake, to say the least.

If you are interested in knowing more here is a bit....

Family Group Decision Making in Child Welfare: Purpose, Values and Processes
The values associated with FGDM include:
• Children have a right to maintain their kinship and cultural connections throughout their lives;
• Children and their parents belong to a wider family system that both nurtures them and is responsible for them;
• The family group, rather than the agency, is the context for child welfare and child protection resolutions;
• All families are entitled to the respect of the state, and the state needs to make an extra effort to convey respect
to those who are poor, socially excluded, marginalized, or lacking power or access to resources and services;
• The state has a responsibility to recognize, support and build the family group’s capacity to protect and care for
their young relatives;
• Family groups know their own histories, and they use that information to construct thorough plans;
• Active family group participation and leadership is essential for good outcomes for children, but power
imbalances between family groups and child protection agency personnel must first be addressed; and
• The state has a responsibility to defend family groups from unnecessary intrusion and to promote their growth
and strength.

And here are some related links:

How To Solve A Family Problem the Democratic Way

Family Group Decision Making

Families Gaining Their Seat at the Table

Engaging Families in Child Welfare Practice

Family Group Decision Making in Child Welfare Purpose, Values and Processes

Seen but Not Heard? Children and Young People’s Participation
in Family Group Decision Making:Concepts and Practice Issues
http://www.americanhumane.org/site/DocServer/PCNixonarticle.pdf?docID=5721

Tools for Permanency: Tool #2: Family Group Decision Making
http://www.hunter.cuny.edu/socwork/nrcfcpp/downloads/tools/fgdm-tool.pdf

A Child is Waiting,
Take care...be aware,
Nancy Lee

What's wrong with this picture? One child abandoned? Or two?

There is no agony

like bearing an untold story inside you.

Zora Neale Hurston

Can't help wondering... what you're wondering about? I'm wondering about pictures that don't tell the whole story. Pictures with missing pieces. Pictures that create more confusion than clarity. Pictures that seem really out of focus. Pictures that need far more than a thousand words to make any sense of them.

SO WHAT'S WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE?
The Picture as known at this time: 44 year old man turns 6 month old baby girl over to firehouse; claims baby abandoned in his cab by unknown man. Man and his 21 year-old girlfriend, who is actually the baby's aunt, are charged with criminal falsification; each can face year in jail. Man who "abandoned" baby in cab is allegedly the baby's 27 year old father. Baby girl, now called Baby Lourdes was placed in foster home. A 23 year old bail bondsman, another friend of the family, brought the 14 year old mother to the police because she was "depressed, scared, crying…loved her daughter…wanted to be with her."

WHAT'S WRONG WITH THAT PICTURE?
WHAT ISN'T?
The mother is a child herself, probably pregnant at 13 by a 26-year-old man. Statutory rape, at least, isn't it? What's wrong with that picture? Child Abuse and neglect by how many? Will any of them be charged?

The Baby-mommy gave birth to Baby Lourdes. She didn't have an abortion. She didn't let the Baby Lourdes drown in a toilette somewhere. She didn't smother Baby Lourdes and hide the evidence. Who knew of the pregnancy and birth? Parents? Doctor? Nurse? Hospital? Or did she have it home, alone? Who knew of Baby Lourdes existence the last six months and did nothing? Where was the help for that child and her child? What's wrong with that picture? Child abuse and neglect by how many? Will any of them be charged?

A concerned society offers a "Safe Haven" in this state for parents who can't care for a child to leave the child at specified places "without risk of prosecution," but only until the baby is 5 days old. Police haven't decided yet whether to charge this Baby-mommy… with what? Did that same concerned society fund effective life-education in schools, before puberty, including information about birth control, Safe Haven laws, other options for unintended mental and physical consequences of unprotected sex for children, services available for Baby-mommy and Baby Lourdes? How much public education like readily obvious and available ads, brochures, workshops, etc. exist, and not just as a good idea for some organization that lacks funds to pay for or workers to distribute stacks of materials gathering dust on back room shelves. What's wrong with that picture? Child abuse and neglect by how many? Will any of them be charged?

Whatever your feelings about all the aspects of this story, known and yet to be known, whether or not you agree with the plan and actions these people came up with, no matter your beliefs that most of them were old enough to know better, regardless of your beliefs about how things should have been/could have been/would have been if you were involved, what alternatives would you prefer these people with all their human limitations had chosen in this moment of time for Baby Lourdes? Abandon the baby, dead or alive, wrapped in plastic and stuffed somewhere? Far too often that is the option chosen by desperate people. Obviously those involved were not willing to see that as a solution to what they apparently perceived as a problem they had to solve. For whatever reasons, they chose to give Baby Lourdes a chance at life, apparently the best chance they could imagine for her. What's wrong with that picture? Child abuse and neglect by how many? Will any of them be charged?

Where is the sense in charging those who gave Baby Lourdes that chance? Why send them to jail? So others won't do what these people did? And then what? Desperate people make desperate choices…and none of those choices bode well for any babies and children involved. Why not assign a period of public service working in place like Ronald McDonald's house as a volunteer, rocking dying babies in local hospitals, doing anything that makes life better for the millions of children suffering today. What's wrong with that picture? Child abuse and neglect by how many? Will any of them be charged? Child abuse and neglect by how many? Will any of them be charged?

Judgment is so easy folks, and so useless. Don't kid yourself that however you see this picture, you aren't missing something still seriously wrong with it. The same might be true of many child abuse/neglect stories...

A Child is Waiting,
Take care...be aware,
Nancy Lee

Spanking: Necessary Correction or Child Abuse?

This is why I always recommend

Creative, swift and terrible action

So that children

Take their parents seriously

And learn "the lesson" permanently.

Dr. Laura Schlessinger

Can't help wondering... what you're wondering about?



If this little one suddenly pulls away and runs off in this dangerous location, should he spank her, hit her in such a "swift and terrible" way that she takes him seriously, and never forgets?

Or maybe he should catch her, take her some place private and spank her one or two times when he is calm and collected?

Or perhaps spanking isn't an answer at all?

Yesterday 84% of listeners that called in on WJAC TV's poll said they approve of spanking children. Spanking was not defined. Not the procedure, timing or purpose.

Well, I don't approve of spanking or any other form of Corporal Punishment at any time for any reason. I no longer believe in deliberately inflicting pain on those who can't fight back or do anything to protect themselves. Cowards, bullies, torturers and sadists do that. Ignorant, undereducated, untrained people do that to little children, even infants, in the name of discipline because they don't know any better, because they haven't learned any better, because they lack alternatives.

I believe there are more humane, effective and practical ways to teach, train and discipline a child. I believe those who take care of children have an obligation to learn how. Civilized adults don't hit other adults. Why should so many believe they should hit little children?

The idea that only some 16% disapprove of spanking sent me searching for whether the divide is actually so lopsided. Unfortunately, it is. One study finds that 94% of U.S. parents spank their kids by the time the youngsters are 4 years old. As I always do, I researched all sides of the issue from parenting, legal, religious, medical, physiological, psychological, scientific, philosophical and so forth. I read both sides in comments on blogs, forums, and in response to newspaper articles. I remain consciously biased in favor of no corporal punishment.

I accept that if you believe otherwise then it makes sense to you that big people hitting little people teaches them something constructive, and does no harm. Among other things you also believe that a distinction can " be made between abusive hitting and nonabusive spanking." And you further believe that spanking is a " planned action, not a reaction," that it is a "deliberate procedure," a "forewarned consequence for designated problem behaviors," is "administered in private to avoid public humiliation or embarassment," consists of only "one or two spanks administered to the buttocks," and "should leave only transient redness of the skin" and "never cause a physical injury." You further believe the spanking should be "followed by embracing the child and calmly reviewing the offense and the desired behavior in an effort to reestablish a warm relationship."

I believe you believe these or similar reasons for your stance on spanking. What I don't believe is that you believe you or those you know apply "spanking" in this calm, methodical, premeditated manner. I question the redness and the amount of pain inflicted to cause it...how hard must you hit on bare skin by your bare hand? How much harder must you hit through clothing?

Are you spanking with objects? 25% admit to using an object when disciplining children. Do you wait until you are calm, then pick up your object of choice and cold-bloodedly hit a defenseless child? Some times advice is given to make the child bring the object to you to increase the effectiveness. Do you use a hair brush? A belt? A spoon? A Switch?

Or do you buy one of the products recommended and sold for the purpose? Carefully sized and sold for "spanking" infants, toddlers, older children. I wonder if they come with satisfaction guaranteed?

For other information: (Warning: Searching "spanking" may bring unanticipated results.)

Spare the Rod?
Spare the Rod? New Research Challenges Spanking Critics (pro spanking)
Spare the Rod
Spare the Rod and Spoil the Child Explained
Snopes: Comments on Spare the Rod
Answers: Punishment

Spanking Can Bring Problems Later

Wikipedia: Spanking

Smacking? Right or Wrong (children answers pro and con)

Children's Views

Listen Up! Children Talk: About Smacking

Spanking (Pro-spanking)

State by State Spanking Laws

A Child is Waiting,
Take care...be aware,
Nancy Lee

"Adults are what's wrong with our children" says Marian Wright Edelman

Can't help wondering...what you're wondering about?
My readers know I rarely cut and paste whole sections of anything here but prefer to link you to a variety of sources instead.

Today I'm making an exception because I believe the following words by Marian Wright Edelman in the foreward to the Children's Defense Fund: America's Cradle to Prison Pipeline - 2007 need to be read...and read...and reread...and for that reason they need to be quickly available in as many places as possible. And when you have time, I hope you will read the entire foreward and the report for both are important efforts on behalf of changing the world for children.

"I am often asked “What’s wrong with our children?” Children having children. Children killing children. Children killing others. Children killing themselves. Children roaming streets alone or in gangs all day and night. Children floating through life like driftwood on a beach. Children addicted to tobacco and alcohol and heroin and cocaine and pot, drinking and drugging themselves to death to escape reality. Children running away from home and being thrown away or abused and neglected by parents. Children being locked up in jails with adult criminal mentors or all alone. Children bubbling with rage and crushed by depression.

Well adults are what’s wrong with our children. Parents letting children raise themselves or be raised by television or the Internet. Children being shaped by peers and gangs and foul mouth rappers instead of parents, grandparents and kin. Children roaming the streets because there’s nobody at home or paying enough attention.Children going to drug houses that are always open instead of to school houses and church houses, mosques and temples that are too often closed. Children seeing adults take and sell drugs and be violent to each other and to them. Adults telling children one thing and doing another. Adults making promises we don’t keep and preaching what we don’t practice. Adults telling children to control themselves while slapping and spanking. Adults telling children to be honest while lying and cheating in our homes, offices and public life. Adults telling children not to be violent while marketing and glorifying violence and tolerating gun saturated war zones in communities all across our land. Adults telling children to be healthy while selling them junk food and addicting them to smoke and drink and careless sex."

Above passage from: Marian Wright Edelman's foreward to:
Children's Defense Fund: America's Cradle to Prison Pipeline - 2007 Report

A Child is Waiting,
Take care...be aware,
Nancy Lee

Cutting Her Out

Since the mother is the first,

the basic caretaker,

losing her -in a physical or emotional way-

starts a nightmare of deprivation

for a child.

In a way, it never ends.
Missing Mother Syndrome

Can't help wondering... what you're wondering about?

Some subjects are so broad they defy tackling in a blog post. Child Abuse is certainly on that list. So is child abandonment.

The purpose of most of my posts is simply to raise awareness, trigger interest in learning more, and provide some sources to begin a process.

Nothing more...the rest is up to you.

This is a picture of me and my Mom.

As a child in pain, I cut her out of it.

Still in pain, I taped us back together.

The story that follows was told so many times that occasionally I think I remember bits of it. Mostly I doubt that... unless perhaps on some deep level where emotions linger like silent watch dogs who never make a sound before attacking. In any case, the story goes like this.

Dad was enlisted in the Army Air Corp, stationed in Mississippi, training and waiting to go to war. His young wife, far from her home and family in New Jersey, waited with him. They lived in a rented, furnished room with bath down the hall. They survived on Corn Flakes and Beer.

I was born during that time. They brought me home to that room to spend my first few months in a dresser drawer used as a bassinet. Before I learned to walk, Mom was pregnant again. By the time I was walking, running, learning to climb, she couldn't stand the stress of waiting for Dad to be deployed, being pregnant in the heat and humidity of Mississippi, dealing with an active toddler confined in one room.

Mom wasn't willing to be separated from Dad, so for the good of all, they said, they brought me to New Jersey by train and left me there with family.

His family!

Total strangers!

Abandoned me in an unknown world!

Or so it might have felt to me. The story goes I was inconsolable. I cried so much that Dad claims the extended family felt sorry for me. He always said they did everything possible to turn me into a spoiled brat forever.

Mom and Dad returned to New Jersey a couple months later…just a few weeks before my brother was born. They moved into a room in the big house I'd learned to call home. By then I'd bonded deeply with Dad's Mom, my Grandmother, and with my Aunt and Uncle who lived there. When I wouldn't come to Mom and Dad, Mom said Dad's family had turned me against them.

I was seventeen months when my brother was born. That was the day World War II "ended." Our family war had only just begun.

Related Information:

What is Abandonment?

Specific Problems in Traumatized Children with Attachment Disorders

(at Imaginif...)

Emotional Abuse of Children: A Study of the Narratives in Protective Assessment and Intervention

What is Attachment Disorder?

Neglect in Childhood

The Anatomy of a Trauma

Isolated Pattern

A Child is Waiting,
Take care...be aware,
Nancy Lee

Payback for Child Abuse

“No one can tell what goes on

between the person you were

and the person you become.

No one charts that

blue and lonely section of hell.

There are no maps of the change.

You just come out the other side

… or you don’t.”

Stephen King, The Stand

Can't help wondering... what you're wondering about?


People said my parents really cared about kids.

Mom and Dad didn't hesitate to take in kids who needed a home for a while.

Didn't matter if they were kin or not.

And those kids were treated exactly as their own kids...not one bit of difference.

Kids remember experiences like that.

They especially remember if that treatment was different from what they were used to receiving. Makes them see everything in a different way.

So it shouldn't come as a surprise that one boy left our house determined to pay back. Just living with us for a while turned his entire life around. He never was quite the same kid again. He'd never become whatever he might have been.

In fact he told us later his only goal in life after he lived with us was to grow into the biggest strongest toughest meanest s.o.b. possible (actually he used a lot of other words, too, but you get the idea?) so he could come back and beat the hell out of Dad. He did it, too. The part about becoming the biggest strongest toughest meanest s.o.b. possible, anyway. When he came back he was a lean, mean, proud Marine. His presence filled the room, his voice boomed when he asked,

Where is he?

In bed.

You tell him to get out here.

He's sick.

Tough. I've been waiting a long time for this day. I'm not leaving until I repay that bastard for every beating he gave me when I was too small to fight back. I couldn't even walk after the worst one. Remember? And I didn't even do anything wrong. One of you guys hid my shoes...

Dad came from his room, dressed only in the tee shirt and boxer shorts he wore when he wasn't ripping off his clothes for some bizarre reason during those final days. At those times that frail, scrawny, naked, white-haired man, who looked old but was only 57, would rage and slam walls and, there alone, taking care of him, I'd hold my breath in terror and stare at the cords on his unnaturally white feet, until he'd come to his senses and exhausted, meekly return to his bed.

I wondered how he'd be, what would happen. Weeks before he died of cancer, Dad's voice was still the strongest part of him.

You looking for me? Haven't changed much have you…always were looking for trouble, weren't you, kid? C'mon. Let's go outside and finish this once and for all.

Silence.

You bastard. You lousy bastard. I don't fight people who can't fight back.

Ever watch a Marine walk away from a fight? Hear him choke on a sob? See bitter tears of disappointment fill his eyes? Feel his pain, share his frustration, understand the depth of his loss when he realizes the one thing that gave him direction and kept him going for years will never happen?

A Child is Waiting,
Take care...be aware,
Nancy Lee

Reflections on Child Abuse, John McCain and Watermelon

Shame is the apprehension of a vision

Reflected from the surface of opinion--

The opinion of the public.

Aristophanes

The Frogs

WHAT'S THIS???

Can't help wondering...
what you're wondering about?


This morning I'm wondering about Senator John McCain and his five years as a prisoner of war.

Five years of physical, emotional, psychological, environmental deprivation, abuse and neglect… even torture... are significant experiences for any person.

Changes that result from such experiences may not be obvious to others. However, small things may be big clues to deeper gaps in what might be considered pressumed knowledge, shared perceptions, assumed connections, expected reactions, and so forth.

For example, when John McCain is caught not knowing something considered common knowledge, such as long gas lines and alternate days, he laughs. He reminds us that he was living a different reality then, as a POW, not sharing in ours in the USA. Without too much effort on our part we understand what he doesn't say. We see the bigger picture even without all the details. We accept the differences that have to be.

Abused and neglected children frequently lack common knowledge for much the same reasons. They, too, live in a different reality. They, too, lack opportunities, exposures, materials, tools and products necessary for learning about the world in which they live. Recently a few experiences raised my awareness of how extensive that lack may be. I wondered just how such missing bits of knowledge, otherwise considered "common," to the majority might skew developmental and other kinds of tests given to abused and neglected children.

Consider a watermelon, a sweet potato, and a pair of scissors. Common enough things by most standards. While discussing children's adjustment to recently moving in with her, the foster mom mentioned how amazing it had been to watch the 4 children (ages 5-10) when she brought home a watermelon.

"What's that? We never had it," they told her. She thought they were kidding.

The children's emotional responses ranged from laughing disbelief…"Are we really going to eat that?"…to faces contorted with disgust…"Yuk, that looks like blood and guts"…to determined grimaces… "No way I'm going to eat that"…to grinning amazement…"Wow, this is really good"… to finally, a bright-eyed eureka moment…"Hey! I've had this stuff! I didn't know it was watermelon!"

The foster mom, convinced it was a new experience after all, asked me how that could be.

I thought about a single Mom, with the kids in tow, walking to the store . She has no car. Public transportation isn't available. Small town grocery stores aren't likely to use space for cut up watermelon. Food stamps limit what to buy. Buying a watermelon and lugging it over a mile just wasn't a likely scenario.

Mom, peppered by too many questions as she shopped for too much with too little, ignored most of them. The home environment lacked books and magazines where children might have seen a picture. The television they watched included MTV and other age-inappropriate shows and movies that probably don't include a lot of watermelon preparation. The children didn't go to extended family gatherings where watermelon might have been served as a summer treat. Neighbors lived the same environmentally deprived lifestyle. Very possibly the children never experienced cutting up a watermelon or connected that big hard green thing to the pieces of red stuff they might have had in school.

Which brings me to the 13 year old friend who crinkled her nose at baked fresh sweet potatoes. "What's that? We don't eat them at my house!"

"You kidding? You mean that's the same stuff we get in cans from the food pantry? Doesn't look the same. We don't eat that either."

"Okay, I'll try it. But just one little bite!"

She ate the two baked sweet potatoes…

hers and mine…

then asked for more.

Three 11 year olds worked on a craft project with me. They couldn't cut with scissors any more efficiently than average five and six year olds. At first I thought they were kidding me. I watched them struggle, then quit, then begin clowning around. Once children fear ridicule, shame sets in and acting out begins. Clowning around hides a lot more than a lack of basic skills resulting from environmental deprivation. No kidding.

A Mom visits, notices the scissors on the table. She scoops them up, then snaps at me. "I don't let my kids use scissors! We don't even have them in the house."

"Why not?"

"Because the kids don't know how to use them. They might cut themselves."

"How," I ask, "will they ever learn to use them if they can't use them?"

She shrugs. "I can't cut with scissors Hasn't been a problem for me." No kidding.

People joke about kids who fail everything in school…even art!…they laugh and ask, "who could possibly fail art?" John McCain lost much during his five years of abuse and neglect. Fortunately for him, he had already learned the basics.


And this picture?

Oh, that's just a photo of sunshine on a shadowed rock wall, reflected in crystal clear water.

No kidding.

http://www.cyc-net.org/cyc-online/cycol-0402-pringle.html
Deprivation and Education
A Child is Waiting,
Take care...be aware,
Nancy Lee

Tagged! Meme About Child abuse and Neglect.

Today I got tagged by Megan Bayless at
Imaginif…Child Protection Became Serious Business

I caught a viral meme from her...Actually two...
I'll do one today, another tomorrow...

Be Ready! You could be tagged next...

Can't help wondering...
what you're wondering about? Naturally after getting tagged by Megan, I'm wondering about Meme's...sounds like Me- me, doesn't it? Only starts that way...its really more about us...

I still don't know a lot about what Meme means exactly...
but I'm learning fast... and it's fascinating! I think it's Vygotsky-like in basic premise?... something Vachss might go for? Well, here goes....


First I'm supposed to provide the following rules for this one, called
"Seven Random Things About Me":


Rules:
1. Link to the person’s blog who tagged you.
2. Post these rules on your blog.
3. List seven random and/or weird facts about yourself.
4. Tag seven random people at the end of your post and include links to their blogs.
5. Let each person know that they have been tagged by posting a comment on their blog.


And so now I'm supposed to do what the rules say to do...

but only to share what I'm comfortable with. Are they kidding me? I'm not comfortable with much of anything in this world... so here are seven random things about me that make sense to share here. I admit some might say in the end they all add up to only one…do you agree?

"Seven Random Things About Me."

1. I survived severe physical, sexual, emotional and psychological child abuse and neglect from my birth parents. The damage that resulted was extensive. At 65, after over 40 years of treatment from many great psychiatrists, psychologists, therapists, and counselors with ever changing therapeutic techniques and medications as they came on the market, I continue to deal with several mental illnesses that will never be cured. I still feel less than and no good for anything.

2. I achieved much in my lifetime academically. Although a high school dropout almost 40 years ago, after I reached a level of what is labeled "high functioning" I returned to school, picked up the pieces and earned a BFA, 2 MA's and almost a PhD during the past fifteen years. I still feel as stupid as I ever did...and believe me, that's stupid big time!

3. I failed much in my lifetime, most painfully in almost all my relationships. Two rocky marriages ended in divorce. One lasted 7 years, and the second 22 years. There will not be a third. I have a STD and will not ever take a chance of sharing that with someone I claim to love as was done to me. I avoid social and personal connections. I still fear people, even those closest to me.

4. I abused and neglected my three children. Continuing the cycle of abuse and neglect against my own children is the failure that hurts the most. I swore I'd never do what was done to me. Although I actively sought help many times I wasn't able to stop for many years. Doctors dismissed my concerns with garbage about child resilience and how, when I was better, I'd be a better parent. Child abuse and neglect were not even considered a problem until the 1970's so that was the prevailing attitude. I still feel somehow I should have been better, stronger, more able to protect my children from my harm to them.

5. I weakened some links in my personal cycle of child abuse and neglect. On the positive side, when I understood that my parenting, although ever improving as I healed, and healthier than that of my parents who had no help, was dangerous and had hurt my children terribly, I fought for help for them while they were still children. I still feel it wasn't enough. Some of my grandchildren paid the price and may still be doing so. They are adopted. I still hurt every day when I pray for and think of them.

6. I accept my responsibility for abusing my children, and I accept the rewards from fighting to end it. Nothing I do will ever make up for the harm I did to my own children, but today I find peace in seeing the wonderful mother my youngest daughter is for her children. I find joy in the relationship she and I have developed over time. I find pride in knowing my efforts and honesty with her made my healthy grandchildren possible. I still feel too ashamed of my past to fight my son-in-law for the right to be more involved with them.

7. I am addicted to learning, educating and raising awareness of others about the cost to children and society from child abuse and neglect. This is an addiction I feel no need to overcome. The prevention, treatment, and amelioration of effects resulting from child abuse are possible. Child maltreatment can be stopped. A lot of determined voices are needed to make that happen. I am every moment grateful for God's grace and wisdom, for the gift of the strength to continue the work I do on behalf of abused and neglected children. I still believe…

Here are the Seven Random Blogs I'm Tagging for "Seven Random Things About Me":

Cerebral Mum

The OTHER Mother

Reflections of a Foster Youth

Sunshine Girl on a Rainy Day – Lisa

Child Care Gone Wrong

Jumping in Puddles at Life Spacings

A Child is Waiting,
Take care...be aware,
Nancy Lee

A Village that Razes its Children?

Does anyone really believe that

"no child is left behind" in America?

Has anyone ever actually visited

that mythical "village" that is raising our children?

Andrew Vachss

Can't help wondering...what you're wondering about?

I wonder if we are fast becoming the village that razes its children. Every day children are abused and neglected by a society that fights against their best interests while piously claiming to do otherwise. Society spouts slogans like No Child Left Behind at the same time it makes choices that deprive millions of children of even the most basic educational tools such as books, environments in which learning is possible, and teachers capable of facilitating learning experiences. We have children taking computer classes in schools that have no computers. We have schools that have inadequate plumbing so children lack access to working water fountains, or functioning toilettes, where children bring blankets to school to keep warm because budget cuts force abnormally lowered classroom temperatures. We have teachers assigned to teach subjects for which they have no training, while others have such poor English skills or heavy accents that students can't understand what is said.

We know that a child without reading skills will fall behind by 4th grade with no chance to ever fully recover from the loss. And yet from age 9 on children's reading skills decline along with any interest in reading. When California actually uses 4th grade reading levels to project the need for future jail capacity, society pays the price along with the individuals it abused and neglected as children by failing to educate them.

Recent NEA research, reported in To Read or Not to Read: A National Consequence, shows that reading transforms lives regardless of their "social circumstances," increases the chances of "academic and economic success" and appears to "awaken a person's social and civic sense." According to the report, reading is essential to developing the productive, active adults and healthy communities essential to a "prosperous, free society." The end result is a nation that fails as it failed its children.

Society also abuses children by neglecting their health and safety needs. Battling against SCHIP isn't the only example. Every night, 12 million children go to bed hungry. Too often the excuse for the neglect and abuse of the nation's children is a lack of money. But one issue makes clear how hollow that claim is. Remember nine years ago when there was a lot of talk, with politicians and corporations fluffing each other's feathers, everyone congratulating themselves about the importance of protecting children from the known dangers of smoking and what they were going to do? Remember how some of the tobacco settlement money would be used to educate children? Remember all the promises?

A recent report, A Broken Promise to Our Children: The 1998 State Tobacco Settlement Nine Years Later, shows once again how willing we are to ignore child abuse and neglect at any level of society. It also proves once again that the claim of absence of money as a reason for not stopping the abuse and neglect of children is nothing more than a cheap excuse. In this case the money is there. The states won't spend it as intended…to protect children.

According to this report:
"Tobacco use is the number one cause of preventable death in the United States, claiming more lives every year – more than 400,000 – than AIDS, alcohol, car accidents, murders, suicides, illegal drugs and fires combined. Tobacco use costs the nation nearly $100 billion a year in health care bills. Every day, more than 1,000 kids become new regular smokers and another 1,200 Americans die because of tobacco use."

So in essence, every day while primary caretakers kill 4 or 5 children, society participates in the future killing of another 1000 kids. States spend only 3% (not the minimum 6.4% recommended by the CDC) of the $24.9 billion tobacco money they receive on "prevention and cessation" programs that are proven to work.

This year, as the tobacco industry spends $13.4 billion to market tobacco, the states will spend only $717.2 million of the tobacco settlement money to prevent smoking. More children will decline in reading skills, go to bed hungry, die for lack of health care. Anything wrong with that?

A Child is Waiting,
Take care...be aware,
Nancy Lee