County Places 200-Pound Third-Grader In Foster Care

reply to post by DrunkenDonuts

Justify it all you want. It still comes down to "Guilty until proven Innocent".

TheRedneck

reply to post by TheRedneck


Right and the child will suffer PTSD and food issues , abandonment, and all the other emotional traumas you can imagine over this. The child is the real victim being victimized here.

reply to post by TheRedneck


It all comes down to personal responsibility, in my opinion. Socioeconomic status and school lunches aren't excuses. We're blaming the state for something it should never have had to get involved with in the first place. But I will cede we only have this article to go on. I hope the child gets the proper love and nutrition so that they have a full life, and not one cut short.

reply to post by DrunkenDonuts

Personal responsibility is not about the state taking over responsibilities from persons. It is about persons accepting responsibility and consequences for their actions. In this case, I see two areas where that is illustrated: the responsibility of the parents to raise the child to the best of their ability, with the consequences of failing being that they will have to see their child going through later problems in life. Secondly, the responsibility of the child to not binge when he has been told not to, with the consequences of him gaining more weight.

Personal responsibility cannot exist without personal consequences being involved, and there is no requirement for a government to mete out the consequences it thinks should apply. Nature and society handle that chore.All government does when it becomes involved is to either mete out undeserved consequences or to excuse personal responsibility.

As I have stated, it is rare for a child that obese to be so because of simple eating. It is more likely the actual cause is a malfunction in the hypothalamus or pituitary gland. But, for the sake of the children, we will now, because of that medical condition, remove him from everyone and everything he has ever known and thrust him into a strange place... that'll show that mother for letting him eat!

Yeah, spare me.

TheRedneck

While I don't necessarily agree that the county should have stepped in and took their child, allowing your child to get to this point is incredibly irresponsible. Parents need to take responsibility for what they do to their kids and not try to pass the blame off on the restaurants, schools, or anyone else because at the end of the day they are the ones that buy the food for them, and they are the ones that allow them to get into these kinds of situations.

Originally posted by wildtimes
from the article linked in the OP:

The case plays into an emerging national debate that has some urging social-service agencies to step in when parents have failed to address a weight problem.

Others suggest there's hypocrisy in a government that would advocate taking children away for being overweight while saying it's OK to advertise unhealthy food and put toys in fast-food kids' meals.

In my experience as a social-service worker (not in Ohio), there would have been multiple attempts to educate the parents/mother before the child was removed. She'd have had a case-worker (with an established intervention plan possibly including regular dietican visits and fitness consultants) before the child was removed. Even then, most CPS state agences would try to find a relative with which to place the child.

As for the advertising....just because unhealthy food and toys in kid-meals is advertised doesn't mean the parents have to take their kids there! When I was a kid, we RARELY had chips, soda, or other sugary treats in the house. RARELY did we go out to eat.
My mom cooked 99% of the meals we ate, and despite our begging to go to McDonald's, they just said "NO."

I am now in my early 50s, 5'5" and weigh about 115 lbs. I eat whatever I want, but I have very little interest in sweets, and I raised my own two the same way. A meal out -- especially that included a "toy"! -- is a Treat. A Special Occasion. It should NOT be the main source of sustenance.

Just saying. This mother should have been seeking additional help if what she "tried" failed. If she did not, and the child was "sneaked" food, either he has a medical problem, or the mother is neglectful. I just don't see any other options. The child is sick, or he is neglected. Either way, he needs care, and I'm glad he will get it. Hopefully the mother will be educated in the meantime and/or given further advice as to how to control the child's weight, or they will discover a thyroid problem and be able to help the kid.

So far you seem to be the only one with a inside perspective on this matter. My question is how many times do you think the state tryed to solve this by pursueing a different avenue before it came down to taking the child?
I was also wondering if it was the school that brought this to there attention or could it have been a doctor?

It is hard for me to even visualize a 200 pound third grader I am 6ft3 and weigh 12 pounds more and even I could lose some weight. The one thing I am sure of is that this child could not possibly be happy in that state of fitness.

reply to post by TheRedneck


You are so right I agree with you...I have raised six children, and they were all different sizes, and weight. They all had the same diet...I also took note that not all children grow at the same rate as well. My eldest son grew so fast he reached six feet tall by the time he was sixteen. My youngest son has just reached six foot tall at eighteen, and is a little stockier than his older brother. Shoot my daughters are all different in size and weight too. They ate healthy, and all of them were active with sports and other activities...One them has always had problems with her weight though, and had no medical problems. The Doctor just said not to worry about it, she out grow it. You know what? She did just that...

As for as the story the op has brought to our attention. The county was wrong period...A child should not be removed from their family home or from their parents at all, unless there is physical abuse involved, beatings, unexplained broken bones,...etc...

reply to post by TheRedneck


According to the article he has been enrolled at a program at a local hospital for overweight children for over a year now. The social workers have also been monitoring him for over a year now (although I must admit that is vague and can mean a whole range of things). I do see where you're coming from. They should exhaust all resources, more doctors' opinions, etc, if they haven't already done so. I can only go by what the article says.

I completely agree that as a society we seem to be going backwards. People will disagree on government and how it should function. I sure as hell usually don't want it in my every day life, so I certainly respect that. The way I've been seeing it more and more lately is that it's a catch 22 - the people feel as if they need the government more and more while yet being failed and angered by it.

reply to post by DrunkenDonuts

Social workers around here are usually two-year college grads, with little work experience and no grown children (a lot with no children at all, some even still single). Some are good people, but others are absolutely not. There are eyewitness reports of workers backhanding children that have been taken from their families by force to make them stop crying.

And how many times have you heard of someone having their disease diagnosed after death, despite repeated hospital visits while they were alive?

It's just not cut and dried, and those are the cases where government should tread very lightly.

I sure as hell usually don't want it in my every day life, so I certainly respect that.

The only sure way to keep government out of your life is to keep it out of everyone else's.

TheRedneck

By the time this kid is 18 he is going to be really screwed up.

The first thing the state will do is to try to program this kid into believing that they are right no mater what.

My guess is the real cause for him being over weight is some type of metabolic disorder.

But that will not stop the state from taking it out on the kid just to prove the state is always right.

Havent got time to read the whole thread to see whether this has already been stated. Apologies if it has.

ALL MEAT AND DAIRY products contain GROWTH HORMONES.
Now I'm not a rocket scientist but I suspect if you were to eat food containing growth hormones the result is likely to be.....GROWTH!!!

I know people who actualy eat reasonably well and they are huge and they cant understand why.

GROWTH HORMONES = GROWTH.

All the time governments allow these PROFITABLE hormones to be used they should not be allowed to take away children affected by them. Shame on those who think otherwise.

reply to post by TheRedneck

I see two areas where that is illustrated: the responsibility of the parents to raise the child to the best of their ability, with the consequences of failing being that they will have to see their child going through later problems in life. Secondly, the responsibility of the child to not binge when he has been told not to, with the consequences of him gaining more weight.

I dont agree with the first area, that is NOT personal responsibility. That is inter-personal responsibility, because another person - the child - is affected.

As for metabolic disorders, of course, these should be ruled out in the first place. I am sure it was already done.

CPS should have handled this in a different way.

I think a more appropriate approach would have been this.

CPS provides the food (breakfast, lunch, dinner and the snacks) that the kid will be allowed to eat in order to make him lose weight.

If results are not seen in 6 months, then a closer investigation would take place and if indeed the family is not doing their part then I think it would be acceptable that they remove this kid from that house for his well being.

Allowing kids to become obese is child abuse.

You may think you are being loving and nurturing, but you are not.

At least some people care about this child's welfare.

Details are sketchy, so if they kid had a Eating distorter than that kid needed a doctor and not a new mom. If the mom was force feeding him or proposal making him fat then well I would say that could be a type of child abuse.

Either way I'm not giving it to the country on this one, even if it was child abuse I still take points off. Same country that cuts physical Ed programs and has declared Pizza a vegetable.

Originally posted by TheRedneck
Has anyone supporting this action considered the possibility of a glandular or hormonal dysfunction that was undiagnosed by the doctors involved?

Just sayin'... some folks are awful fast to point a finger of blame at others...

TheRedneck

That was one of my assumptions. The article is vague in details and leaves a lot of room for interpretation. My guess is that a medical condition is mostly to blame for his obesity. I have no way of knowing though, perrhaps my distrust for the government is causing me to side with the mother.

reply to post by Maslo

I dont agree with the first area, that is NOT personal responsibility. That is inter-personal responsibility, because another person - the child - is affected.

Said like someone who has never raised a child. No offense intended, but until you are a parent yourself you cannot understand the bond that exists between parent and child. It is quite more intense than a little person staying in the guest room, stronger by degrees than the bond between a child and parent.

TheRedneck

reply to post by Grimpachi


I was a Masters level social-worker until I retired in 2006; my knowledge comes from working with families as a counselor and educator. Various situations in that state (not where I am living) came across my desk, and I, being a mandated reporter, had to know the DFS "drill."

In that state (not Ohio), the DFS uses "family preservation" as their best practice. That means IN THEORY, they will spend months, even years, supervising, coaching, helping, rehab, education, community connections to assist the parent in shaping up. In practice, their actual social workers were generally young, childless 4-year grads; the case managers often had no credentials at all, and the case-loads were unrealistically excessive. I had raised two kids by the time I got into the field, and it is true that an experienced parent makes a better case manager or counselor. Especially when a family is looking at "trouble" from the authorities, they get some fresh-out-of-the-classroom Bachelor's degree who wants to save the world (a fine ideal) and they are going to shut down. It's insulting to them, in many cases, to be advised by someone who's never walked that mile.

I did have several clients who saw me regularly for behavioral health therapy (psychotherapy); some of whom had lost their kids, others still trying to make it through the system. At that time, the very last resort was to remove the children and take away parental rights in cases where no progress is made, or rehab appears to be improbable after multiple failed efforts to intervene, or of course if the child is in mortal danger.

It would surprise me if this mother's claim that she "tried" was true. But I don't live in Ohio, and every state handles their CPS differently.

Thanks, though, for the acknowledgment.

EDIT: As for the other question regarding who notified the "authorities," in my state ANYONE working with children is a mandated reporter, from school custodians to teachers to administrators to nurses and doctors. So it could have been either a doctor or the school, a neighbor, or both. Also, one can make an anonymous call here as a citizen if not a "mandated reporter" (which ALWAYS goes into case files for obvious reasons), so here, at least, it could have been anyone who originally "called them out."

reply to post by ANNED


Wow, that's a very bitter outlook. I'm glad I don't live in a state where that's the common "assumption."

And if that kid does not get help, he won't LIVE to see 18. If he gets the help he needs, he might learn something, and get healthy at the same time. Just because a worker's salary is paid for by "the state" doesn't mean they are all inept, bossy, know-it-alls. As in any profession, there are all types of people, all with their own agenda and reasons for having got into socal work -- some to retaliate, some to crusade, some to try to change the system, some to prove the state is poorly run, and some who actually want to help, and are able to build trusting relationships with families to whose cases they have been assigned.

reply to post by Corruption Exposed


Cigarettes are nasty and yes, it's too bad people feel like it's OK to smoke in their kids faces. Too many people smoke and the tobacco companies make too much money and the government probably gets some of that money and so no one bothers to enforce harsh punishments against parents giving their kids lung cancer, asthma, and so on.
So what if she says she was getting him help...it wasn't working. Why did mommy just say no to all that that eating? I a willing to bet that kid is a mean little cuss that is demanding his food, and she does nothing but serve it up. Weakness on the mom's part here. I still stand, someone had to take control of that kids food intake before he dies of a heart attack at 16.