Yet the authorities ignore cases of OBVIOUS abuse and 1000s of children die. This stinks.
My wife is a primary school teacher and has seen numerous cases of this as well as the other side where kids with obvious abuse, broken leg with strap marks on the leg, for instance, that are ignored. When our daughter fell off a jungle gym and broke her elbow we had Family Srvices threatening us.
Good grief! Having had 5 kids, I can attest to the fact that through the years, at least one of my kids had an unexplained cut on his tongue.
There is a concern that too many black children are being removed from homes compared to white children and there is pressure to ‘even up the numbers’. I suspect this family is white.
Creedance? Sounds like a sequence of steps set rhythmically to music and performed by a Canadian Indian tribe. Truly an odd name for a child.
One size fits all? These social workers would have gone screaming over the hill had they been around during the 20's and 30's...families torn apart by a real depression...abuse of children? Yes, but it was called survival instead.
My eldest son, as an infant around 9 months, wanted to walk. He would pull himself up on a chair or table and then turn around and throw his head forward for momentum and try to make it to another object or piece of furniture. He made it most of the time but also banged his head sometimes when I could not catch him. I could not let him out of arms length for a few months and still he’d bruise himself. It was a nightmare, but thankfully no one accused us of hurting him. He did it at the doctor’s office, too. Finally, his legs were strong enough to walk. I was so relieved!
It will take months. There is a procedure to the state’s custody. First there is a protective custody hearing and the judge routinely takes the children into state’s custody, very similar to a preliminary hearing. Then there is an adjudication. The couple needs to get not just any attorney, but get one that does the child abuse/neglect (CA/N) cases routinely. A two month old baby is very vulnerable, and the failure to thrive generally means the baby has not gained or even has lost weight since birth. A “cut” on the tongue in a two month old could mean a cut on the tongue, although how would a two month old put something sharp enough to cut her tongue in her mouth, or the “cut” could be a commonly found in abused babies torn frenulum from having a bottle or something else jammed into her mouth, or it could be a wound in the tongue from dehyration, all of which are not good.
So during the adjudication, which has to take place within a very tight time deadline, the evidence will be presented by the investigators and the foster care case manager about the injury and the neglect.
During disposition, the foster care case manager will make recommendations for services for the family in order to meet the goal of reunification between parents and children. In this case, perhaps parenting classes, a parent aid, state funded day care so the parents can work, nutrition classes, maybe a drug evaluation, maybe a psychological evalution, to see if mom or dad has a drug problem (meth most commonly although presecription pain pills is another common problem) or a psychiatric issue. If the parents do everything that is asked, never miss their visits with the children, don’t miss court, learn that the children need snacks as well as meals, are feeding on demand as opposed to some wacko Christian food denial thing (I am a Christian, I am talking about those wacko child domination programs that force children to wait to eat til their parents are happy with them, not saying that is what goes on here, but it could be), and learn how to redirect as opposed to hitting for discipline (oh now the Freepers who love spanking will come out) the parents will be reunited with their children and will have learned something.
It could take 6 months or longer if the parents refuse to get with the program and if after 1 year, they haven’t been to their classes and evaluations, the state can move to have their rights terminated, but it is not easy to terminate their rights.
Meanwhile, if there is an appropriate aunt, uncle, or grandparent willing to take on the children, they should intervene in the case, go through the background checks and get licensed as a foster home and give the kids a family member to reside with while the process goes on. This is the preferred placement, with a willing and appropriate relative.
Yes the process is mysterious and frightening, but it is not the state stealing and selling kids. If the parents refuse to show they are drug free, psychologically ok and understand what a child needs to develop, it is difficult, otherwise it is not.
It’s cases like this that forced me to NOT take one of my kids for medical attention after he got injured in an accident with his mom playing with him. For a couple of hours I wasn’t sure if it would get better on its own, so I had contingency plans to get out of town...figuring that mom had a much better chance of keeping the kid. Thankfully it got better on its own (after a few hours), but then it happened a second time (probably weakened), and finally a third time - which was at school - and that was GREAT, because it meant we could finally get him treated. We did, and he never had the problem again (it was a dislocation, it needed to be immobilized), and no CPS files were ever opened.
It is a STATE LAW in Texas, and probably every other state, that ANY ADULT that has contact with a kid has to report everything that cannot be easily explained...we simply respond to that law.
BTT
Actions speak much louder than words...In these cases they are yelling...
How many children will have to suffer because of the fear of the state? You are putting caring parents in a tough spot...In so many words you and your kind are losing the faith and trust of your patients or their care-givers.
The article mentions the baby having cuts on his tongue and the parents not knowing why.
Very low iron can cause the tongue to crack and bleed painfully.
If they are formula feeding, the baby may have low iron with no abuse at all.
Seriously, no one should risk taking their kids to the ER if you might lose all of your children to the government. I’d rather have a child abused and killed by his parents than 4000 kids removed from safe, loving homes without a fair trial. That is what our justice system is based on.