A Conspiracy Against Children: Exactly who is out of control?

It's been a while since I've visited this thread...

These articles find a perfect home here:

4 -year-old Accused of Improperly Touching Teacher


A four-year-old hugged his teachers aide and was put into in-school suspension, according to the father. But La Vega school administrators have a different story.

Damarcus Blackwell's four-year-old son was lining-up to get on the bus after school last month, when he was accused of rubbing his face in the chest of a female employee.

The principal of La Vega Primary School sent a letter to the Blackwells that said the pre-kindergartener demonstrated "inappropriate physical behavior interpreted as sexual contact and/or sexual harassment."


More...

And:

School accuses 5-year-old of sex harassment

A kindergarten student was accused earlier this month of sexually harassing a classmate at Lincolnshire Elementary School, an accusation that will remain on his record until he moves to middle school.

Washington County Public Schools spokeswoman Carol Mowen said the definition of sexual harassment used by the school system is, "unwelcome sexual advances, request for sexual favors and/or other inappropriate verbal, written or physical conduct of a sexual nature directed toward others."

Mowen said that definition comes from the Maryland State Department of Education.

According to a school document provided by the boy's father, the 5-year-old pinched a girl's buttocks on Dec. 8 in a hallway at the school south of Hagerstown.

Charles Vallance, the boy's father, said he was unable to explain to his son what he had done.

"He knows nothing about sex," Vallance said. "There's no way to explain what he's been written up for. He knows it as playing around. He doesn't know it as anything sexual at all."

The incident was described as "sexual harassment" on the school form.

More...

Idiots!

While on the topic of sex, what do you think about this one?

Ga. Supreme Court rejects teen’s appeal in sex case

The Georgia Supreme Court has turned down an appeal from a teen who was sentenced to 10 years in prison for having sex with a 15-year-old.
In a ruling released Friday, the court denied a motion for reconsideration filed by lawyers for Genarlow Wilson, who was 17 when he and the 15-year-old engaged in consensual oral sex. He was sentenced for aggravated child molestation.

...

Hunstein added she was ‘‘very sympathetic to Wilson’s argument regarding the injustice of sentencing this promising young man with good grades and no criminal history to 10 years in prison without parole and a lifetime registration as a sexual offender because he engaged in consensual oral sex with a 15-year-old victim only two years his junior,’’ but said the court was bound the by limits set by the Legislature.

How those people can accuse 4 and 5 year olds of sexual harrassment is beyond me, considering that they couldn't possibly have any kind of sexual motivation behind their actions. Your first child really needs nothing more than an explanation that some people might not appreciate that. The second kid probably was just being a bit mischievous, and I think deserves a small punishment, but nothing more than a scolding or something, unless he keeps at it.

As for that case between the teenagers, isn't there a law in most places that if you are within a certain age of the person you are having sex with, that it is not molestation? For example, If a boy 18 years and 1 day old has sex with a girl 17 years and 364 days old, that should not be statutory rape, assuming it was consentual. I think it's usually 2 years range in most places. While on a moral level I don't approve of this, on a legal level there shouldn't be anything wrong with it, again assuming both people consented to the act.

It never ceaces to amaze me how bad the world has gotten. We are now at the point where our justice system seems to make no real distinction between children and adults. I understand cracking down on serious and violent crime, but this is ubsurd! There is a difference between a youth robbing someone with a knife, and an elementry school kid pintchung someone as a joke. The system is a mess!

Tim

[edit on 6/19/2007 by Ghost01]

This reminded me of what happened to me in high school. I love learning, was very depressed, didn't have many friends, and the ones I did have thought I was a little odd. I never liked talking about who the cutest boy was or the latest pop star... I liked talking about current events, art, music, and history. Mind u I thought certain boys were cute yes, but to me it was no one else's buisness who I liked. There was this one girl who didn't like me since middle school... we kinda had it out... she said some bad things about my Mom who had just passed away and I got upset. I yelled at her, but instead of punching her I practically threw my chair across the room and stormed out of the cafeteria. From what I heard after that she got dention and a dressing down from one of the teachers who heard excatly what she said to me.

Later on, HS comes around... she hangs out with the same friends as me. Like I said, I didn't have many friends... only one or two because the rest of my friends went to a diffrent HS. My best friend who did go to school with me hung out in a crowd that I did not want to be a part of(smoking, drinking, drugs, etc.) So I was pretty much a loner... during lunch I sat outside or down by the auditorim reading a book. This person started a rumour that I was a Lesbian, etc. I started getting harassed left and right, deogotory things written on my locker, being tripped in the hall, being made fun of on the bus, spit on, you name it. The school did nothing! I tried to switch schools, etc. All this also spin tailed my depression further down the hole... and in the end I just gave up and said screw you... and quit. Now I am regretting that, but I was afraid that I was going to get seriously hurt. It's kind of funny know though cuz I ran into one of my 'friends' who belived this and was against gays and lesbians and had my son with me and my fiancee by my side. She just stared and blurted out I thought u were gay! I gave her a look and told her I never was, and if I was who really cared cuz it was my life and no one elses.

Oh, what about the teachers who are untouchable? My sixth grade Math teacher scarred me for life. She made me give up completly on Math(I have LD in that subject.) She told my parents that I was the worst student she ever had in all her years of teaching... she'd ridicule me in front of the other students for not getting the Math... my parents tried to do something about it, but the school said that it was her last year of teaching and that they weren't going to do anything. They wouldn't even switch me because all the other classes were full. Thank God for the LD staff(I wasn't offical with my LD until seventh grade... yeah took em that long to figure it out and get me some help!) One of the LD teachers who saw a lot of the crap going on told me to go down to the LD room when it was time for work time or taking tests. She cleared it with the school and told Mrs. Travis but the teacher would rarely ever let me go... just when the LD teacher was down there did I get to go.

Reading these articles and my own experiences makes me scared for my child. Heck, just looking around at this society is making me wonder if I did the right thing by bringing him into it. But, you never know what is going to happen... he and others are going to shape this world, and all you can do is try your damnedst to raise them right, instill values, and give them lots of love.

Google Video Link

This may be of interest, It talks about how mecury in autism has a link. Also talks about how the CDC knows about it, and other things.

I have not updated this thread in some time. Not because there is any shortage of material, but rather because at some level the subject matter is so disturbing to me, it's just not healthy for me to post here too often.

But I can't ignore this one:

School of Shock

Rob Santana awoke terrified. He'd had that dream again, the one where silver wires ran under his shirt and into his pants, connecting to electrodes attached to his limbs and torso. Adults armed with surveillance cameras and remote-control activators watched his every move. One press of a button, and there was no telling where the shock would hit—his arm or leg or, worse, his stomach. All Rob knew was that the pain would be intense.

Every time he woke from this dream, it took him a few moments to remember that he was in his own bed, that there weren't electrodes locked to his skin, that he wasn't about to be shocked. It was no mystery where this recurring nightmare came from—not A Clockwork Orange or 1984, but the years he spent confined in America's most controversial "behavior modification" facility.

In 1999, when Rob was 13, his parents sent him to the Judge Rotenberg Educational Center, located in Canton, Massachusetts, 20 miles outside Boston. The facility, which calls itself a "special needs school," takes in all kinds of troubled kids—severely autistic, mentally retarded, schizophrenic, bipolar, emotionally disturbed—and attempts to change their behavior with a complex system of rewards and punishments, including painful electric shocks to the torso and limbs. Of the 234 current residents, about half are wired to receive shocks, including some as young as nine or ten. Nearly 60 percent come from New York, a quarter from Massachusetts, the rest from six other states and Washington, D.C. The Rotenberg Center, which has 900 employees and annual revenues exceeding $56 million, charges $220,000 a year for each student. States and school districts pick up the tab.

The Rotenberg Center is the only facility in the country that disciplines students by shocking them, a form of punishment not inflicted on serial killers or child molesters or any of the 2.2 million inmates now incarcerated in U.S. jails and prisons. Over its 36-year history, six children have died in its care, prompting numerous lawsuits and government investigations. Last year, New York state investigators filed a blistering report that made the place sound like a high school version of Abu Ghraib. Yet the program continues to thrive—in large part because no one except desperate parents, and a few state legislators, seems to care about what happens to the hundreds of kids who pass through its gates.

More...

This article is a six page description of a society gone mad!!!!!





[edit on 31-8-2007 by loam]

I have obviously taken a break from this thread again, but wanted to make sure I link these two important threads:

I've been censored

Is Ritual Child Abuse a Hoax?

I debated with myself for several hours about whether or not to post to this thread. Obviously I decided to give it a go...but want to state that in arguing the other side of the fence, I'm not condoning the use of force and/or having police involved in schoolyard issues.

Having said that...have any of you, that think the police/society/the world have gone crazy and are treating our kids unjustly like crap, been to an inner city school during school hours. Particularly the principal's office. We live in a fairly "tame" city, but in one of the, for lack of a better phrase, lower income areas. Two of my children attend the elementary school near our home. This school teaches JK - grade 6. I am in the school on a daily basis as I volunteer to their breakfast program, and my middle son is hearing impaired and uses an Educational Assistant as well as an Intinerant teacher for deaf and hard of hearing children. I have regular meetings with these 2 teaching assistants as well as my child's teacher to make sure he's getting the support he needs.

Almost daily there are several children in the office for various reasons. Some of them normal schoolyard incidents. Other's a bit more frightening....setting fire to the washrooms, smashing a chair into another student's head, stealing, swearing, hitting/kicking/punching teachers...etc the list goes on. While I was there one day a grade 4 student threw a chair through the office window separating the office from the hallway (narrowly missing a group of other children). I've seen kids running through the halls slamming locker doors yelling out swear words, seen teachers coming to the office for bandaids for bitemarks in their arms...it's insane. My oldest son was once taken under the staircase and asked by a classmate to show her his private parts....this was in GRADE ONE.

So who is out of control? It's these kids. Is it their fault? That I can't answer....One opinion that I have is that it may go back to when all of these 13, 14, 15 year old kids began having children when they could barely control themselves. The kids are raised without discipline and with no sense of consequences. They think they can do what they want, when they want, where they want, and the schools are supposed to now take this child in and somehow revert him into an upstanding citizen.

I attend a weekly parents meeting to get support for my hearing impaired child and I can't tell you how many times I've heard stories from other parents about how unjust the school was..."little timmy did nothing wrong and the school sent him home...." "little susie was just upset and expressing her feelings when she threw that chair" SO many parents all in denial of how much of a terror their children are outside of the home and all quick to judge and blame the "lazy teachers"

I don't know if this is the right way to think about this, I'm really on the fence. We raise our kids for 4-5 years...laying the groundwork for what kind of person they will be when we send them out into the world of kindergarten. And somehow when they get in trouble at school, we instantly blame the teachers or principals. How about the parent that did nothing to teach their child right from wrong at home during their most important formative years?

Michelle

I've been to 15 schools.
I'm 17 and last fall i quit school near the beginning of my 12th grade year.
I was going to a public school in a somewhat wealthy part of Vancouver, BC. (My family doesn't have very much money above and beyond what's necessary to survive/pay off my mother's student loans, but we sacrificed practically all our "extra" budget (which meant zero going out to dinner except on birthdays, zero going to see, or even renting movies, no new clothes unless I grew out of/wore out some, so I already stuck out like a sore thumb at the school as I always have))
I started at that school in grade 10, made a couple "friends" whom i really knew nothing about but could sit with to eat lunch, went out on a few dates with one of them then we broke up so it was too much for me to spend time with them any more. I did everything alone for most of my 2 years there.
I have gotten death threats from students directly in front of teachers with no repercussions.
I have been called a lesbian/dyke in the middle of classes where the teacher does nothing, despite a "zero tolerence for discrimination/harassment" policy.
My school counsellor talked to some of my teachers about the bullying issues, and yet close to when i left the school i brought that up when someone was making fun of me during a class and I stood up for myself and the teacher flat-out made fun of me, making the whole class laugh.
He then told me I was mistaken and that I "Couldn't possibly know that unless I was in the room at the time" and therefore he must be right that she never told him, when i know for a fact that she did, she made a point of that teacher in particular as that's where the worst of it occured (it was a film/tv production class and he was the only teacher in that department so I had no real options because I was hoping to be able to make somewhat of a career in that area, and you need the courses to get into the colleges for it)

When I was in grade 5 I was given detention by my teacher (for defending myself VERBALLY to another student) and I tried to skip it by going outside for lunch despite knowing about the detention, and the teacher grabbed my upper arm and physically DRAGGED me across the playground where all the kids were, then up 2 flights of stairs to the principals office, then let go of me just outside the office's view. I had finger-shaped bruises on my arm but was too afraid to tell on him for it. Thankfully that principal thought I was an ok kid and we just hung out there for a while and chatted. On more than one occassion i became physically ill from fear of going back to the classroom.

In grade 2 my teacher used to dump my desk out in front of the entire class and make me clean it up (because i would, as a nervous habit, rip paper into tiny pieces, which never harmed anyone or made a mess on the floor, and i always knew where my homework was) despite her desk being a complete mess.

In grade 1 I switched schools in the middle of the year because we moved, and the new school made me erase everything in my mathbook that i had done prior to their schedule (i had been allowed to work ahead in my last class)
I think i spent 2 hours erasing at least 100 pages of work.

I knew how to calculate simple tax, read, write somewhat legibly, and do all sorts of things before i started kindergarten (I had already read Black Beauty, my first all-the-way-through novel on my own) and they told my mother that she was teaching me the "Wrong Way" and that they were supposed to be the ones teaching me. (oh and lets not forget, my birthday is in december so they tried to hold me back a whole nother year despite me already being ahead of the other students)

i had a neighbor who in grade 3 could only read books with one sentence on each page in giant letters.

reply to post by loam


There is no conspiracy against kids.

The media: makes kids shows and games more violent and use aggressive marketing.

The schools: don't teach to improve knowledge, they teach for grade inflation to keep their school ranking high and give out medals for average effort so the kids feel good about themselves.

The parents: want an easy life so they buy cell phones for their 8 year-old because everyone else has one and don't enforce rules like a bedtime or what they watch on the telly or eat.

Its a perfect storm to grow poorly educated kids with a sense that they can do what they want because no one says no or punishes them.

Kids need structure and rules in order to learn.

Here's a particularly offensive one:

www.nytimes.com...

At worst, Hillary Transue thought she might get a stern lecture when she appeared before a judge for building a spoof MySpace page mocking the assistant principal at her high school in Wilkes-Barre, Pa. She was a stellar student who had never been in trouble, and the page stated clearly at the bottom that it was just a joke.

Instead, the judge sentenced her to three months at a juvenile detention center on a charge of harassment.

...

The answers became a bit clearer on Thursday as the judge, Mark A. Ciavarella Jr., and a colleague, Michael T. Conahan, appeared in federal court in Scranton, Pa., to plead guilty to wire fraud and income tax fraud for taking more than $2.6 million in kickbacks to send teenagers to two privately run youth detention centers run by PA Child Care and a sister company, Western PA Child Care.

How do you like that? The more children the sent to detention centers, the more money the judges made in kickbacks. Some kids definitely belong in such places, and I make no apology for them, but I don't think making fun of an assistance principal on MySpace qualifies.

Loam I have read a few comments that I pretty much agree with for the most part.

Granted the posts cannot be used for all situations but they go with several instances at least.

In the cases of police handcuffing children I do not really see a problem with that as long as they do not do it in such a forceful way as to hurt the kid. It is safer for the kid to the restrained than for them to be able to just do whatever. It is safer for the kid and those restraining them. If the kid is punching and kicking they could just as easily grab something and use it as a weapon. Granted an adult should be able to disarm a child but that still only increases the chances of a child or adult being hurt in the process. It is easy for any of us adults to sit back and say we could easily disarm of even make a child obey. But in reality that is not the case. The child is not ours and is even less likely to obey and act in a civil manner than if we were the guardians of the child. The first story at the very start of this thread actually deals with a case in the town I live in (I am actually surprised the case made national attention). In the story it says the kid was hitting and kicking his principal and the cop that was called.
When I went to school (a smaller school not far from here) they did not call the police when you got into trouble. The teachers took care of it and then when you got home it was taken care of again. The problem here is that schools are no longer allowed to truly discipline children any longer and really neither are the parents. Laws have retarded the act of disciplining children for the most part. I do not mean beating the kid but a small tap on the rear is not going to hurt them.

Now add that to media that shows violence on a constant basis and you get more aggressive kids. I am not blaming the media completely I am blaming the combination of media, lack of parenting, and lack of discipline for children. Why does it not affect most but still affects others? Simple, because those same kids it does affect have little or no positive influence in their lives. I think for the most part this is due to government interference in the family. Families have been overrun with government influence and it seems as if the children are now more raised by the state and less by the parents. This could also be due to the fact that many of the jobs people hold down are now requiring a large amount of work time invested just to give a morsel of pay to get by with.
This media though is not spread apart as it once was either. Now not only will many kids spend hours playing violent games but they do so while watching violent TV and listening to violent music. They are multitasking violence in other words. Then they try to imitate their “heroes” because their parents are not there to tell them not to imitate these “heroes”.

It is not completely the fault of the kids as I already said. The parents and other adults in their life are too busy to really provide a stable life for them. The adults today are too busy with their own lives to help the kids. In part that might be due to a large number of teen pregnancies that was not there are often in the past. Many of these younger parents are then too busy trying to still live like a teen without a kid than trying to really be the parent they should be. Some of the children are left with grandparents or someone that is not a family member while these teens go out and do whatever. There are far too many part time parents today than there used to be in other words. Part time parenting is not the way to parent.

The real issue I see is the number of adults that are abusing kids. It is likely this number has always been there but is being more reported than it once was. You cannot go one day without numerous cases of children being beaten, sexually assaulted, or just flat out ignored. You can find case after case of children being beaten on a daily basis many of them ending up in the hospital or worse. Other cases have people either selling their kids into the sex slave world or them being used in that same world by someone who have taken them for that same reason. This is in my opinion the worst issue we have to deal with today. That is the most torturous thing a child. Children being abused or used in a sexual manner is devastating for life many times. It lowers the trust of others they will encounter and in many cases leads them to follow the same line of criminal activity that was given to them as a child.

For the most part I think the government has destroyed those who are just becoming parents and the kids of future generations by taking much of the control away from the family. The family has been torn apart and is only a tiny spec of what it used to be. There is now a higher divorce rate and more single parenting than there used to be. Couple all of the things mentioned so far and you have something that you see in the media. It is a result of adults in the past wanting to allow more in one area and reducing the other. The government along with the complicity of adults has destroyed the family unit. It is the destruction of that family unit that gives us the stuff you see in this thread.

Raist

This is a good thread to place here:

The Lost Children in USA.

And from that thread the following post from greeneyedleo with other great inks:

Originally posted by greeneyedleo
Though the thread is a little old, it might provide some more information: Conspiracy of Missing Children

Some more good links on this subject:
www.abovetopsecret.com...
www.abovetopsecret.com...
www.abovetopsecret.com...
www.abovetopsecret.com...
www.abovetopsecret.com...
www.abovetopsecret.com...


Missing Kids.com - FAQ

Missing Kids worldwide - not just an American issue


Always great to keep this issue at the forefront of all issues.

[edit on 6-2-2010 by loam]

Ohio is quick to label child prostitutes as delinquents and to incarcerate them, rarely looking further at the adults involved

Pretty much says it all. :shk:

That article where police used tasers on an autistic kid is pretty horrifying. He wouldn't have had any idea what was going on.

I understand that some kids can be completely out of control, without any mental disabilities, but more often than not, it can be due to the upbringing. As someone who used to work for Coles Supermarkets (the Australian version of Walmart) I used to see A LOT of bratty and out-of-control children. And A LOT of them had terrible parents. The kind that shouldn't be even practising procreation in the first place. Junkies, bogans (rednecks), long-term alcoholics, people with severe anger issues, I had the most colourful of customers. And their children would scream the place down, demanding chips, lollies, toys, whatever. They would absolutely trash the aisles, and the parents wouldn't even bat an eyelid, just scream back at them to SHUT THE F*** UP!!!
It's blatantly obvious how those children will grow up. And they're our future.

Though I do agree with some of the posts here, the increase of articles indicate that the police force are becoming more reckless, arresting and tasering any kid that'll kick up a stink, and don't seem to judge the situation properly.

No wonder I don't want to have any children; I'm too damn nervous how they'll turn out, and whether I'll be good enough to bring them up properly.

Originally posted by dr_strangecraft

I'm curious about the original post.

If a kid is punching and hitting the principal, or is hurting other kids, what is the appropriate response?

It is clear that all the posters here think handcuffs are inappropriate.


The police have a duty to protect the principal and the other kids from a child who is hitting kicking or punching them right?

So, what is the RIGHT way to restrain a child who is hurting others???

Well I don't know for sure. I wasn't there. Handcuffs are traumatic, humiliating and may be appropriate in some circumstances, but the option to take the child out of the situation and give them a chance to calm down should be the first one. When they are calm, that is when you address the behavior, and explain consequences and apply them consistantly. So it will stick, and they will learn something. If you use handcuffs and tazers all they will learn is that they are victims. Not only will the behavior not change, it may very well get worse.

And, because it's worth mentioning again... A tazer? Come on.

Let me put things in perspective. I'm 5'3" tall, and hovering between 105 and 110.

My daughter is on the autistic spectrum, wasn't really verbal until four and prone to melt downs when 'over stimmed' until 5 and up to 6, and she got the big genes. At three she was better than 40 lbs.

So, when the child flops on the floor and shrieks and kicks in the middle of Wal Mart, or the circus, or whatever event/circumstance we were at when she hit critical mass because the clown scared her, or someone on the intercom startled her, or the lighting was wrong, or the stars alligned, or whatever... This is how it would go:

105 lb me would scoop up 40 to 50+ lb squirming, writhing, screaming child, heft her over my shoulder like a sack of grain, clamp my arm behind her knees and walk out to the truck. Without stopping, without resting, without putting her down, and most importantly without getting angry. Usually dodging stares, comments and the occasional outraged blue-haired-finger-pointing-biddy who would (this would really happen... and frequently enough that I developed a swivel-side-step-and-walk-on maneuver) stand in front of me to explain why I was either abusive, or obviously not smacking the kid enough. After all of that, I would then proceed to wrestle the usually still kicking, noisy child into a car seat, and drive home.

I didn't yell. I didn't hit her. I didn't exaserbate the situation by frightening or stimulating her more. I didn't do anything accept restrict her movement, remove her from the situation, and let her calm down. I would physically over power her, true. But the only reason I was able to do that was because I remained calm, and did not get emotionally entrenched in her behavior. All that will do is make it worse.

Now, I am a big advocate for parents being allowed to discipline their own children, (and that's a whole 'nother saw, and maybe we'll get to that later.) But one must assess the situation subjectively, and keep your emotions out of it; and I'm willing to bet that if one is willing to use a damn tazer on a ten year old, or resort to handcuffs on an eight year old (or a five year old for that matter) one has no idea how to do either.

From where I'm standing I'm small, female, and I would put down real money, that I could have handled those circumstances better. These cops need to grow a pair.

it isndefinatly the adults with the problem....

Child is having a temper tantrum???

Easy, give them some space and quiet time until it passes..... dont poke the angry bear.

What is wrong with these people. Children have had tantrums since the begining of time.

Nowadays they want to lable them and drug them, when they are completley normal...

reply to post by loam


I used to volunteer for a group home, and there was a staff member who worked in another one that housed younger children (up to age 12). There was a 10 year old boy who would get so violent, he would threaten the staff and try to kick, bite and punch them. The boy needed to be held down by a large male staff member until he calmed down. I actually saw this in action and could see that for a little guy, that boy had some serious strength. I am not saying it is always right to handcuff a child, but we are never there when they are acting up or trying to cause harm to other students.

I have heard of teachers now getting sued and arrested if they use any force to stop other children from fighting or hurting other children.

This is a sad story, but there are two sides to it.