Remember this????

Lothlorien

Active Member
It's making huge history, for the exact reasons that we were all talking about when this first started. 34 older children abandoned at local Nebraska hosptals or police stations, because of either mental illness or general behavioral issues and LACK of support for parents.

by the way, I just got an email about new laws about the Childrens Rights Act going on at the UN. USA has not accepted this, however the push is on. Some European countries have already put this into effect and recently, parents in Germany have been arrested or their children taken away because they are homeschooling, as they've apparently reinacted the 1938 law that Hitler enstated about homeschooling. It's all under the guise of children's rights, but it's Scary stuff! I have a link for a petition regarding this, but I haven't had the chance to read this through yet. I'll post it after I review it.
 

everywoman

Well-Known Member
Loth, I was just discussing this with husband earlier today when we were watching one of the news stations. I told him I don't know what I would have done had I been a single parent or trying to survive on one income.

Everything we tried to help difficult child costs us a fortune. We spent a lot of time, energy, and emotion trying to get through the teen years. I can't imagine what the working "poor" do---those caught in the middle. There was no help from anyone for difficult child. Even the pd we had to use cost us $500 to go into court for difficult child to plead guilty as a juvinille for riding in the back seat of a car with a group of older boys who were basing mailboxes. At the time husband was just getting out of rehab and we had not caught up financially from his addiction. But, I made a few hundred dollars above the maximum for a free pd.

Each hospital stay costs us another 10-12 thousand dollars out of pocket. Add to that years of pyschiatrists and medications, and well, we spent a small fortune--all of difficult child's college fund, and most of pcdaugthers trying to "save" him from himself. And nothing worked.

Had I been single, I cringe to think about what I would have done. Would I have been willing to abandon him to get him help? Yeah, I probably would have. How sad that it would take that to try and get help for a parent and child!



It seems so unfair that there are so many children who fall through the cracks because help is just not affordable or available.
 

susiestar

Roll With It
The whole tone of the legislators is infuriating to me. OF COURSE parents are rushing to drop kids off, it is the logical thing to expect when the system is so broken that there simply are NO RESOURCES for our kids.

In the fox article the head of Alegent Healthcare said that parents just don't know what resources are out there.

In a Pig's EYE!! Parents know there AREN'T resources out there!! There just are NOT. We have a family friend who moved from Nebraska a few years back. Her stepson (who the court gave custody of to her - AGAINST her wishes, and she NEVER adopted him and is NOT his mother, married his dad when he was 7 or 8!) had to stipulate that the boy MUST be kept in a lock down facility which costs MAJOR $$$ because there are no resources and the boy is just scary dangerous. He almost killed her husband when he (the boy) was 10! And came close to killing her and hte rest of the family within the next year at different times. They looked for a hospital for him IN nebraska where they lived and they were always sent away with him. Cops wouldn't help, school couldn't control him and expelled him because he tried to kill a teacher, and now?

My friend is the terrified guardian of this boy. The boy will be 18 and legally out of placement within 2 years and she is planning to move and CHANGE HER NAME because he WILL come after her. There is little doubt. Right now the child is in Utah, but it costs so dang much to keep him there. And even the state legislators just turn away from the issues.

Arggghhh! I know I am preaching Occupational Therapist (OT) the choir here. With what so many of us have or are going through, the attitude that parents just don't know what is available is BS. In MY state you can only get into most placements through the court system and inn MY county the judges REFUSE to take kids who are violent with parents. In the court appearances I made the judge REFUSED to let me press charges for domestic violence and assault. Maybe, given my parents' eventual decision to take Wiz in, it was best in the long run. But what if my parents were not able to do that? Or were unwilling? What would I have done? I really do NOT want to think about it.

I know so many are on that brink, and looking into the vast abyss that is created by the lack of understanding of social services adn the justice system and mental healthcare.

Sigh. I wish it were not so. maybe, just maybe the Nebraksa fiasco will open someone's eyes to the real NEED that exists. I think they are pretty lucky the number isn't double or triple what it is. Probably low because so few people can afford the gas to drive to Nebraska these days.

I am not worried about laws making homeschooling illegal. Not in the near future. There are some pretty powerful groups of homeschooling people, and they are pretty vocal. Esp the more fundamental religious groups.
 

Lothlorien

Active Member
It's not just the homeschooling that's at stake here. The more these so-called Children's rights laws are preventing us from being involved in our children's healthcare, education (including in the schools) and who knows what else is on the horizon with it. The scary thing is the healthcare. It is all tied together, as far as I'm concerned....taking away the rights of the parents to Parent our children the way we see fit. I don't need government telling me that if my child refused to take her medication at 12 years old I have no right to make her, all the while making me responsible for that child's actions when she/he doesn't go to school or even when that child vandalizes property because she/he's manic and then I get sued. It's in complete opposition to each other. On one hand, she doesn't have to be compliant in the home, but on the other, I get sued for thousands because she vandalizes property while refusing her medications. How do parents cope with this?

I keep going back to the case in NJ, not far from here. The parents of a mentally ill child could not force compliance and went to family court and literally begged the judge to commit the child. Judge denies it. Mentally ill child kills a 9 year old boy and stuffs him in a suitcase two days later. Mentally ill child is in jail. Parents are in mental hell and anguish and a boy is dead. The system stinks.
 

susiestar

Roll With It
I missed that part of the Children's rights thing, I guess I only picked up on the homeschool thing.

Yeah, tell my kid he didn't have to take his medications. Sure. Go right ahead.


and in private I will ASSURE him he will take them or I will hold the pill in the pliers and shove it down his throat like I pill the cat.

Yes, I DID tell Wiz that at one point. He was joking about refusing medications - and was already refusing a LOT of other stuff. I told him if he called CPS that he better pack while they are driving over. Cause he was NOt being abused. And that medications are not an option.

I always gave him input on hte medications as far as listening to him on side effects and how they made him feel. But it was MY and husband's decision on medications, with the docs.

I have an aunt who actually spent 2 HOURS begging her 3yo to take a dose of tylenol for a 103 degree fever. He kept refusing. (My aunt's son is 6 months older than Wiz, so we had the kids together a lot.). I walked over and said "Open up." He said NO very loudly. As he was saying it I popped the squirty thing in his mouth. Yeah, some came out, and he was upset. But he felt better in just a few minutes. I looked at him and said to HER that medications are the ADULT decision, and letting him say NO to them is not helpful. She was upset, but later apologized. I refused to apologize - we were going to have to take the kid to the hospital if the fever didn't go down.

I HATE people who say that kids have the right to refuse medical care. School can't give kids a BAND-AID with-o calling home but kids can refuse medical treatment at a hospital?

I LOVE life in OK. Kids are kids until age 18. If a kid wants to fight medical treatment there is a HUGE court thing the kid has to initiate. ANd as a general rule kids do not win. They can't block us out of IEP's, medical records, anything. Heck, Jess couldn't even SEE her medical records at one doctor office until I approved it.

I am very sorry other states make it so hard to parent your children, but still make you responsible for the consequences of their actions.

That is just pitiful and stupid. (Not you, the system that makes that happen.)

And the 9yo boy who refused healthcare adn them killed another child. My G*D, I don't think I could live through that. I really HOPE that JUDGE ends up paying in karma for that.
 
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flutterbee

Guest
The UN is dealing with countries that traffic children, have child soldiers, child labor, extreme poverty, etc. What Germany is done is Germany and not part of the UN Children's Rights.

I don't know where you're getting your info, but it sounds really inflammatory. Here's info dated August, 2008. If you click on either HTML or PDF after each country, you'll see the report on that country.

http://www.loc.gov/law/help/child-rights/index.html
 
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flutterbee

Guest
I'm back to feeling out of my head, so I'll see if I can type this and still make sense. :tongue:

Comparing Germany to what could happen in the US is comparing apples to oranges. If I felt better, I would quote paragraphs from the link I posted, but if you go and read about Germany it basically said that Germany is in the habit of signing these things and then writing in exclusions (for lack of a better word). The homeschooling issue is in Germany's constitution and has nothing to do with the UN Act.

As far as a Constitutional Amendment to ensure parental rights, well that seems really extreme to me. The way our government is set up, we have ways of addressing these issues - court system, contacting your reps, etc. The only thing I could really see coming from the proposed Constitutional Amendment is that it would make it harder to remove children from abusive environments. It's a slippery slope. In any case, Constitutional Amendments are difficult to pass and I don't forsee it happening in any case.
 
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flutterbee

Guest
FWIW, I don't think the US needs to sign the Act simply because we have the laws in place to provide for children's rights and we don't need oversight from the UN.
 

witzend

Well-Known Member
As far as Fox saying that we parents just aren't aware of the help, I dare one of them to try sitting on the phone for a week talking to someone who will eventually stop returning your calls, or refer you to someone else who will refer you back to where you started only to tell you that their grant funding has run out. As my hero Bugs Bunny would say, "What a bunch of maroons!"
 

Lothlorien

Active Member
Witz, I've seen many reports about the Nebraska thing on Fox. Most of the reporters appear sympathetic to the parents who are doing this for Mental Health reasons, but this one woman today was just going on about how there is help...yada yada yada....She doesn't have a clue what parents, like us, are dealing with. She told the anchorman that parents can go to court, call social services....on and on and basically ridiculing parents for going that route. I wish I had her ear for about an hour. She would have cried "mercy!"

Anyway, I see what you are saying Wintersgrace, but whoever, in their right minds would have thought HIPPA would have ended up taking away parents rights of our children's healthcare and the nightmare that's ensued with that? I just see some of these issues creeping in slowly, under the guise of 'Children's rights' and one thing might seem insignificant, but when they are all added as a whole, it's a whole ball of wax and it's ugly.
 
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flutterbee

Guest
HIPAA wasn't intended to be a Children's Rights type of act, as far as I'm aware. It was intended to ensure patient confidentiality. The problem is that it overreached in a way I think wasn't intended and it needs to be revisited and corrected.

So far, I have never encountered any problems with my children's health care because of HIPAA. The only thing I've encountered is that Tony (Wynter's dad) had to submit a letter to the insurance he carries on Wynter saying that the insurance company can talk to me. Of course that is stupid. Wynter is a minor and I have custody. But, it was easily rectified - although it shouldn't have had to happen to begin with.

These are cases where we need to make our voices heard. Contact your state and federal reps. Write letters. Take action. That's how we create change and fix problems. We have to use our voices and make sure we are heard.
 

Lothlorien

Active Member
After Missy was born, I got a bill from the hospital. Even though I was the mother, the billing office wouldn't even discuss the bill with me, because the ins. was in my husband's name. It happened again when Mighty was born and then again, when Missy ended up in the hospital, there. They will not speak to me, though I'm the mother. Annoying.
 
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flutterbee

Guest
I agree, it's very annoying and it needs to be fixed. In the interim, have your husband send a letter to the insurance company (he can probably get help from his company's benefits administrator) allowing you to talk to them about your children. That's what my ex had to do.
 
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