doctor disease redux

[Wojtek Sokolowski]

At 10:39 AM 5/24/01 -0400, Christopher Rhoades Dÿkema wrote:
>Please, Wojtek, I am a mandated reporter under Article Ten of the New York
State
>Family Court Act. At work I have a logbook full of the reports I have made
over
>the last 17 years. It is not completely, but mostly, urban legend to
assume that
>normal child discipline leads to the inappropriate consequences you mention.
>More legitimate reports do sometimes lead to maladroit and sometimes quite
>unfortunate responses, but usually where there's smoke there's fire.
>
>With that said, I should mention another part of my professional function
which
>is to assist in evaluation of ADHD kids (whatever ADHD is, it is something,
>Peter). There are some who are really dangerous, though very young. I met one
>kindergartner, for example, that we had to hospitalize. His mother was a
recent
>immigrant, and didn't know how to get help when she found, when he was three,
>that she had to hide the kitchen knives so as to protect the family while
they
>slept. Instead she only got help when he went to school and the school got
>scared of him and sent him in to the emergency room He was openly homicidal.
>"Kids being kids" doesn't cover all of reality.

Chris, you are a true voice of reason and experience in this debate.  I
agree that most child abuse cases are handled properly, but there are
notable exceptions.  The most dangerous ones are those carried out by
zealots waging a war against something (drugs, welfare, poor people, etc.).  

I also need to add that oftentimes parent(s) lack any legal representation
at hearings because they cannot afford one, and their working-class
parenting style that does involve physical punishment can easily be spinned
into "abuse" by a lawyer appointed child advocate.

Another observation - as a rule, public mental health services are not
available, until the child "gets into the system" i.e. is arrested or
charged with a crime.  In theory, schools should facilitate psychiatric
evaluation of "problem" children, and if they get sufficiently scared or if
the parent is persistent enough, they sometimes do that.  But as a rule,
public menatal health services are nonexistent in this country.  The only
preventive choice a parent has is between private counseling @
$100/session, which may or may not produce any results several thousand
dollars much much later, or medication which in addition to much lower
price tag works immediately.  

wojtek