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Created4
07-05-2017, 01:47 PM
Should All Homeschooled Children be Required to Report to “Child Protection Services” to Check for Abuse? (http://medicalkidnap.com/2017/07/05/should-all-homeschooled-children-be-required-to-report-to-child-protection-services-to-check-for-abuse/)

by Richard Wexler
The Chronicle of Social Change

Excerpts:

Marie Cohen’s latest column (https://chronicleofsocialchange.org/blogger-co-op/protect-homeschooled-children-maltreatment/25708) in The Chronicle calls for requiring that every parent who homeschools a child bring that child before a mandated reporter of child abuse for periodic inspection.

As with every other well-intentioned proposal to intrude on families, the problem with this one is the harm it would do to children in 32 states. (In 18 states everyone is a mandated reporter, including every parent, so, presumably, the proposal would have no effect at all.)

But in those 32 states, consider the real-world impact of requiring parents to submit their children to inspection by a mandated reporter, in this case probably a public school teacher:

The teacher knows that this child is being brought before him or her specifically to be checked to see if the child is being abused or neglected – that creates an inherent bias toward finding such maltreatment.

To the extent that the mandated reporter has been trained at all, it often involves broad, vague lists of “symptoms” or “warning signs.” One website alone lists 77 different “signs” that could be child abuse. They also could have many other causes. At least one of these “signs” probably could be found in almost any child at some point in that child’s life.

The mandated reporter knows that if s/he fails to report and then it turns out the child really was abused s/he could face dismissal and perhaps even criminal penalties. There is no penalty for a false report made in good faith.

Children will know the purpose of these visits, and they will sense the tension they cause in their families. That makes them, inherently, an act of emotional abuse against the children. As three of the leading child welfare scholars of the 20th century, Anna Freud, Joseph Goldstein and Albert J. Solnit wrote, in calling for far higher standards before ever intervening in families:


Children react even to temporary infringement of parental autonomy with anxiety, diminishing trust, loosening of emotional ties, or an increasing tendency to be out of control.

Why Single Out Homeschoolers?

The singling out of homeschoolers is odd for other reasons as well.

The children most at risk of abuse or neglect are the youngest. So the same logic behind this proposal requires that every child from birth to at least kindergarten age also be presented for periodic inspection.

Cohen even is selective in the lessons she chooses to draw from horror stories; and once again, horror stories are Cohen’s entire argument. In the two Iowa cases she cites, the children were homeschooled. They also were adopted from foster care.

In one case, relatives desperate to take in the child were turned down.

Yet Cohen offers no sweeping conclusions about regulating foster care or adoption.

euphemia
07-05-2017, 01:48 PM
No. Just no.

euphemia
07-05-2017, 01:50 PM
I don't suppose the zealots would consider what goes in in government schools to ever be abuse, even when a married teacher sleeps with a student. The argument for intrusive behavior in schools is often defended in that the school is acting en loco parentis. I wonder if this makes the sexual abuse incest?

Swordsmyth
07-05-2017, 01:51 PM
Should CPS be investigated for pedophilia/child trafficking?

euphemia
07-05-2017, 01:56 PM
Yes.

tod evans
07-05-2017, 02:40 PM
Government child services are on par with the 'family' courts...

They should be abolished and their employees and advocates flayed.

jllundqu
07-05-2017, 02:59 PM
This is one of the comments and summed it up perfectly for me:



There are several problems with Cohen’s opinion. First, research shows that homeschooled children are less likely to be abused/harmed than those in institutional public and private schools http://archive.aweber.com/n... Maybe she should be promoting homeschooling by more and more parents.

Second, millions of public school children are sexually mistreated and/or abused by school teachers and other school personnel in spite of the plethora of regulations and laws that control the public school environment and in spite of school personnel being mandatory reporters http://www2.ed.gov/rschstat...
www.sesamenet.org www.cdc.gov/violenceprevent... You can pass all the laws you want and still evil is done to children.

If Cohen and her type want to protect the most American children the fastest, pass a law that requires all public school children to be privately interviewed 4 times per year about any and all sexting, harassment, bullying, sexual advances, inappropriate touching, and more by school teachers, coaches, custodians, administrators, and other students and publicize the findings in a local newspaper 4 times per year.

Finally, the state/government is not our nanny or mother or father in a free nation. Its job is to punish the evildoer if a crime is committed. In a free nation, citizens are considered innocent until proven guilty. In a free nation, parents and others are not treated as suspected criminals and called on to prove their innocence or goodness. In a free nation, parents are not told with whom their children must associate. Cohen tries to flip liberty on its head. Cohen needs to read history (try even the 20th century) to see what happens when nations/states try to control parents' and others' behaviors "for their own good."

euphemia
07-05-2017, 03:20 PM
Until government shows it is proficient in teaching reading and math, it should stay out of the business. Even liberal NY parents are fed up with week education. They have been pushing back against incessant testing meant as job justification for teachers and administrators who wouldn't know education if it came up and bit them on the nose.