children being charged with sex crimes

[dreamer]

this seems to be a hot topic lately.....

I am sorry but, my webtv will not access the website I know has this article for Fridays edition....so I cannot go to the website and get an url for you---(I saw the article in a paper edition, not online) but I know at www.northwestherald.com
there is an article titled Young Children Get Adult Labels Zero-tolerance spikes elementary sexual-harassment cases

Personally I find the trend disturbing. I know when easy child was 3 and was in homebound Head Start here, one day her female teacher was sitting beside easy child in our kitchen restaurant booth working, and teachers attention wandered and teacher was daydreaming, looking in my backyard......so little 3 yr old easy child placed her tiny toddler hand on teachers knee, gave her hand on teachers nylon cladknee a little shake, in an effort to draw teachers attention back to task at hand. (I was sitting right there) Later that day, a CPS worker showed up at our door to investigate a "inappropraite sex act" my easy child "displayed" to her Headstart teacher! My jaw dropped open. what in the world? Turns out her teacher felt as if this was a sex act, and quite inappropriate? I told CPS worker flat out I thought something MUST be wrong with the teacher if she mistook THAT for a sex act. Thank goodness CPS agreed with ME< but, Headstart dropped easy child AND difficult child from Headstart program over it. :-(
Seriously, if a small childs touch to an adults knee to draw attention back to task at hand is a sex act, well, then I do think that adult has a serious sex problem. And truly, I did also decide at that time, if that is how HeadStart viewed it, then they had too much sex on the brain for MY comfort and I was just as happy to not have them involved with MY kids.
More recently- a couple years ago----I personally know of 2 11 yr old boys and a 12 yr old girl. The girl said "lets play truth or dare" the boys shrugged in consent. Turns out THAT is considered a sex offense on boys part by local police. The BOYS were arrested and booked for a sex crime with an added "obstruction of justice" charge becuz the girl LOL and the boys told her to shush and stop LOL or they would get caught. When I heard of this story, I flat out told police I thought they had taken this too far and I questioned THEIR wisdom in the handling of the matter. Yes, it may be a parental discipline issue, but, I certainly thought the police themself were makeing it more into a sex crime than what it was, and I asked the police if they got their jollies chargeing children with sex offenses? (Of course I should have used more restraint and better judgement for me saying that got ME investigated- police also told ME I was not taking a crime against females seriously enough and since I myself am female, they found it to be a problem)
BUT, I DO have to wonder why adults are finding sex under every stone? The very same 3 children had played together since toddlerhood and the police told me it is one thing for 3 yr olds to climb around together at age 3 but by age 8 or so, any physical contact between them is "sexual" and while preschoolers might tell each other to "be quiet" at age 9 or 10, it is criminal. ?????? I told police that maybe then people better STOP permitting toddlers to touch each other or talking to each other becuz if the kids behave that way together as young children and it is OK, what is the BEST way to tell them whoa, now you must stop, becuz now it is sex? And I also asked what specifically IS the magical age where it is no longer simply JUST "play" and now a "crime"

Yes, I DO understand there ARE some young kids who DO have this type of problem.......but.......I think authorities are carrying it a bit too far. ANd I am concerned if they see sex under every stone it may not be the children wit the problem, but maybe rather it is the authorities?

Well, in any event, I know we are each entitled to our own opinion.......and no- my point is not to argue that out.....but- the article WAS interesting, anyway, no matter what your opinions are on the topic. And I think originally the article might have come from The Washington Post and was done by Brigid Schulte.

 

[mom23gsfg]

a few years ago a 1st grader got into trouble for kissing a lil girl on the cheek,http://www.time.com/time/international/1996/961007/education.html
i think it is just plain wrong....kirsten went to school with a lil boy and almost every day he would give her a lil peck on her cheek(personally i thought it was cute) i guess if it had been another parent "with issues " he wouldve got punished.
there is a difference between childhood experimenting and assualt....i just wonder if "we" as adults havent seen and heard too much of things that can happen to our children that we see bad even in the young....
however there is children that have been abused that turn around and hurt others because they dont know any better, it is just what they learned...if this d*** country we live in would punish for good the real preditors instead of just a few measly years then maybe we could keep our children safe....last year a teacher (a lady)where i live at only got 1 1/2 yrs for having raping ,sodmizing(how i dont even want to know) and orally and ect. 3 boys in her class...she had even been giving a lil girl "love"notes ...when it came out more boys from her old school came forward she was a 7th grade teacher for many years ...
so much for our justice system.
and personally id like to know why its just the boys that seem to get into trouble for this?what i mean is how in the world can a girls parents go and get a boy for sexual assualt when the girl was consenting and going along with it and in alot of cases was the instigator???i dont understand this at all.
i think the authorities need to look at the real preditors ....the ones that give these poor kids their problems (if they do have one)...i have looked on the net just to look at the teachers and caregivers we are sending our children to learn from and im afraid to send mine to school!http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=53859 and these are just the women!...whats even more scary is the fact these adults get less time than a child would for "just something like a kiss on the cheek".

 

[Marguerite]

I'm glad it's not as insane as that here. Mind you, we do have some problem areas such as in a lot of Aboriginal settlements where sex crimes (against children as well as adults) are seemingly ignored, condoned or even encouraged. It's been rife, it's been corrupt, people have been trying to do something but higher officials have either been blind to it or have been the ones benefiting from it. Thankfully, something is finally being done. Here's hoping they finally clean it all up.

We did have a case in the news today - a bloke who was in jail for rape, served his 20 year (or thereabouts) sentence and was released (under strict supervision) has just been arrested and charged with raping an elderly mentally challenged woman who he got drunk first and then raped. I suspect a lot of people are going to be asking what sort of supervision allowed that to happen.

Marg

 

[Lothlorien]

This truly scares the bejeebers out of me, especially with a difficult child who is impulsive and acts inappropriately at times. Kissing another kid, just to annoy him, is exactly something she would do. Heck, I did it in elementary school too!

I also see some children are just affectionate and at that age, how are they supposed to control an urge to hug another classmate, appropriate or not? And if they are innappropriate, why are they labeled and treated so? For goodness sakes, we have 25 year old males in the boys prisons for killing someone, because at 17 they weren't charged as an adult!

This is such an extreme disaster in the making that it makes my blood boil!

 

[dreamer]

I remember when my kids were very little, and school told me if a child falls down (preschool and kindergatren) and skins both knees, the school personnel would not help child up (that requires touching them) nor would that child get a little hug or pat on the back, becuz that also requires touch. I remember at that time saying, well thats COLD and hard. Zoom ahead to HS and my oldest difficult child. Her anxiety makes he shrink away from touch now...and when there were lice in her HIGH SCHOOL, the teachers and school nurse and dean called school police to force her to sumbit to a physical head check. Becuz for her whole school life they had been drilling it into the kids head that touching is "bad" she really flipped out and they threatened to arrest her. I was LIVID. She kept chanting and screaming "don't touch me, please don't touch me"
We teach the kids not to talk to strangers yet we also (some of us) get a little confused and maybe embarrassed when we are out in public, say, in checkout at grocery? and the cashier is being polite and says hello to our child and our child shrinks away and tries to hide.

NO i am not meaning we should become more demonstrative exaclty- but..it is all so overboard. Well, it seems that way to me. I understand there have to be rules especially at school and that there will always be people who push rules.....

I am wondering, too...what are we gonna do when almost everyone has been labeled a sex offender? where will they work, where will they live? and labeling of some of these incidents as sex offenses is diluting the term sex offender. Seems common sense has gone out the window sometimes.
It all makes me sad.
I hope noone misunderstood me and thinks I am not aware there are people and even children who do have very real and very serious issues - pedophiles etc.I know (sadly I know first hand) I know there are problems out there. but going overboard is not going to help in a positive way.

 

[klmno]

What happenned that resulted in the so called "leaders" and authority figures in our society having no common sense what-so-ever? How can this ever be fixed?

 

[dreamer]

I was just wondering ........why do some of these people seem to want to jump to call some of these things "sex crimes" anyway? A hug in and of itself is not "sexual" It is afefction, moral support, shared happiness or joy or expression of compassion. some of the touching is not sexual but, like someone said- something to annoy another or irrittae or express displeasure. Rape IS a crime and all but it is more a violent act than a sex act, and seems to me hugs are quite different than rape, but when you label all of it "sex offense" there is a problem there.
Now I do not mean that it is ok for people to go around touching everyone etc. And no, my kids have been taught they cannot hug another person without that persons permission....but why do some people consider so much of this to be sexual anyway?
Gosh, in my humble opinion the world could use a little more love and affection going on out there. (as opposed to all the SHOOTINGS ack!)