Posted on 02/12/2018 11:31:54 AM PST by nickcarraway
"The parents of special needs children are especially vulnerable to state intervention."
This mom's story in The Washington Post will kick anyone in the gut. Texas writer May Cobb was out for a day with her mom, her husband, and their autistic 5-year-old who, miraculously, was doing great. By great, Cobb explained, she meant he had not had a single meltdown during the hour they were at a park and on the boardwalk near Lady Bird Lake in Austin. He hadn't stripped off all his clothes, and he wasn't banging his head over and over again.
Sure, his hair was messy—his sensory issues render him distraught when he gets his hair brushed. And his pants were too short—but at least he'd actually chosen a pair to wear, rather than tearing them off. So all was as right as right can be when you have a kid with autism.
But then, as the family was heading to the car, a pair of cops approached Cobb:
"Can we talk to you a second," he asked, "about your son?"
My husband called out over his shoulder, "He's autistic," and kept walking my son to the car.
The officer's face burned with embarrassment. I assumed he was getting ready to inform me that rock-throwing wasn't allowed, but he said, "We got a call about your son. The people who called were worried that because of his hair, and because of his pants, that you weren't taking good care of him."
Because strangers care so much more about kids than their own parents do.
Now my faced burned with anger and my stomach was sick with shock.
"He's autistic," I told them, "and because of his severe sensory issues, we have difficulty brushing and cutting his hair."
Both officers nodded their heads in understanding.
"You're talking about my grandson," my mother hissed.
"Yes, there's clearly nothing going on here," the red-faced officer said.
"I'm so glad you were called to investigate this instead of more serious crimes," I said, tears threatening to strangle my voice.
"It's clearly just a case of bed-head," the same officer said by way of apology. "Sorry to have bothered you."
We bid them goodbye and joined my husband and son and walked back to our car.
They were worried you weren't taking good care of him.
This happened in November but Cobb just wrote about it last week because it has taken that long for her to process the event with a modicum of serenity.
As she ticks off all the other times her family probably looked strange to outsiders, she is grateful for the many people who did not call the cops. But the fact remains that "the police were called on us because my son was having a bad hair day. What does this say about our society?"
It says that we are increasingly convinced that it is up to every onlooker to assume abuse rather than to give parents the benefit of the doubt when anything, even a child's hair, seems amiss—that this is good citizenship.
This presumes that the authorities are going to make things better, and that an outsider can really tell what's going on.
"I have to praise the common sense of the police here," Diane Redleaf, a longtime family civil rights lawyer and director of the Redleaf Family Advocacy Institute at the National Center for Housing and Child Welfare, told me. "The family had the good fortune not to have child protective services called against them. Others have not been as lucky."
She recalled one case presented to the federal court: Dupuy v. McDonald, a class action challenge to policies that banished parents from their homes when they were victims of child abuse calls. In that case, Chicago high school science teacher James Redlin had been the target of an anonymous tip to state child protection authorities after a commuter thought he'd fondled his mildly autistic 6-year-old son on the subway.
Redlin explained that he'd been tickling his boy, as therapists had encouraged. Without verifying any of the context, authorities threatened to take his son into foster care unless Redlin's wife, who uses a wheelchair, provided 24-hour supervision of any contact between her husband and their son. The case dragged on all summer, with the authorities finally determining the charges to be "unfounded."
"The parents of special needs children are especially vulnerable to state intervention," said Redleaf. "And as for anonymous calls to the authorities, this practice needs to end. It is far too easy to disrupt or even destroy a family with one quick call from a cell phone."
My friend Linda Gasten, mom of a young man with autism, has this advice for onlookers: if you see kids "making unusual noises," consider that they may have a disability, and that it's likely the parents are doing the best they can. It's abundantly less likely that they are monstrous abusers who are taking their victims out for a day of fun, in public, at the park.
I have a daughter who has a brain injury. She was 5 before she could talk. When she first started talking we gave her whatever she asked for.
Well, that just couldn’t be sustained and she had a meltdown when I said no to getting her a sida. I disn’t have money for it.
It says women are destroying western civilization..
So glad your son has grown up to be a healthy person. God bless.
I have a severely autistic, non-verbal, self-injurious, 8-year-old daughter, and face many of the same issues.
Once, a young girl, probably about 12 years old, modeled for me what I think every ADULT should do when they see a parent in public with a child like this, and they have some concerns.
She didn’t call the police, she didn’t stay at a distance and give me a dirty look. She came over and talked to me and asked questions like - “Is she your daughter” and asked my daughter “Are you okay”?
Another great example was in a supermarket during a meltdown at an auto checkout and someone came over and offered to bag my groceries while I got her under control.
So yes, there are much better things to do then call the police ... it’s called getting involved personally and being a good neighbor, asking questions directly if you’re concerned and then offering help if you can, as these two Good Samaritans did.
It’d be a much better world all around if folks could follow those examples in situations like the one described in this post. For example, one could have walked over and said something like - “Pardon me, I’m just concerned about your child, is everything okay?” And then upon hearing about his condition, one could make a more informed decision as to whether any outside authorities needed to be involved.
Sure, one encounter with the police may not seem that troublesome - but just think about the added stress to these families caused by multiple such encounters that occur simply because they choose (as they should) to NOT cloister their special child in their homes, but try to help them learn to engage in public by bringing them to shops and parks, etc. So I implore everyone reading this to think about that before taking the easy way out by calling the police every time over the slightest concerns in these situations.
For heaven’s sake,ONE busybody doesn’t make an entire city a s-—hole.
.
They are lucky they got nice cops. I’ve read so many horror stories that started just like this.
Between the busibody caller, the dispatcher who may or may not be an idiot, to the cops who may or may not be idiots or juiced on steroids, distortions occur that can lead to tragedy. Maybe we will soon be able to text pics/video to 911. I wonder if that would help.
“You’d call the police if you saw someone wearing a coat on a hot day?”
Like Klebold and Harriss?
My quote “normal” twin had a meltdown when she was 6. Her special needs sister wasn’t feeling well and we had to leave a skating party early.
She was seaming and yelling and throwing things in the car.
I pulled into a McDonald’s Parking lot and told her to get out of the car.
I wouldn’t let her back in while she was screaming.
A guy saw this and starting yelling that he was going to call the cops for child abuse for me.
Then he noticed my other daughter in the car.
The one that was screaming shut up quickly and hot in the car when he started coming over.
She never behaved poorly in public again. She’s 21 and remembers it. She’ll admit that she was terrible.
After 26 years of marriage, I’m still smiling....
It says women are destroying western civilization..
“I think the parents here are way too sensative..”
Here is the problem, if your kid is a paraplegic, it’s obvious to everyone who sees him what “his problem” is.
No so for kids with autism (kids ‘on the spectrum’).
Ponder these:
- dealing with the fact that family & friends can no longer “put up with” your son’s emotional outbursts at a restaurant or other family event.
- wouldn’t it be nice if your family could all go to church together?
- wouldn’t it be nice if you could have a baby-sitter who didn’t mind getting beat-up by your son, or one who didn’t mind when your son breaks their things, or pees on the floor when the sitter is around.
- etc. etc.
But yeah, we tend to be sensitive to “the looks”.
Let me know when you’ve walked a mile in shoes like ours...
Mixed feelings...glad that some people care, but not happy at the conclusions sometimes jumped to.
If you wait until you hear the "Allhu Akbar" BOOM, you've waited too long!
Couldn’t agree with you more. I have an autistic nephew and every time some idiot says they are just spoiled or parents are just milking the system for some more money or extra attention it makes me angry. These people obviously have never had to deal w/autism. Much less 24/7/365. I wish all those people would spend just a day with one autistic kid. They would at least stop posting such nonsense.
He would be cared for in the Netherlands.....
Send him there...
Unfortunately, I don't even think, for one minute, they think they are having a detrimental impact.
They think they are #bossb*tches, "women on the rise" and you are just intimidated by a strong woman and all the other BS they repeat.
I literally saw a crew of them in Walmart this morning having a serious committee meeting in the snack aisle. Serious as heart attacks about whatever irrelevant decision they were making.
They think they are #bossb*tches, “women on the rise” and you are just intimidated by a strong woman and all the other BS they repeat.
But I don’t suffer misandry, and I tell them so.
The officer looked shocked and said, "Um, we got a call that someone was here with a battered child and you were pointed out". Well, we went to the Kids section and I introduced him to my Scoobie covered son. It was obvious to the officer that the Band-Aids weren't covering injuries since a couple of them had come loose and been stuck on again at a different angle or were just in a row down his arm, etc.
He actually got ticked off because he knew I had pushed the issue about abused kids once when a foster care family was involved and it led to three people going to jail after seven current and former foster care kids testified about being abused (there were more but they were either very young or didn't want to testify).
People can make honest mistakes like when they see a black eye and a cut on a child's face, multiple bruises on both arms when the kid plays football or wrestles which often leads to bruising on young kids, is into BS Kung Fu fights (that was a fad for a while leading to many broken bones and nasty looking injuries from kicks to the face), etc. But a four year old covered in Scoobie Band-Aids and a child with messy hair are instances of someone trying too hard to be 'concerned' (in my experience to impress whoever they're with) and sucking up the time of officers who could be doing something more useful.
JMHo
You should probably stop that.
Five years from now, you'll be shocked to find out you were engaging in "inappropriate conduct". (:
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