Offense Against Family and Children?

[gideonmacleish]

It's been a long, long time since I have posted here. Some of you may know why. I was the target of a widespread smear campaign, and some of the participants trolled these forums for information. One even claimed that he came across someone here who "knew me personally". I don't know if his claim is true or not, but if it IS true, it means I have a stalker on here, so I bowed out for awhile. Just a caution for anyone posting on the boards (and hello to the stalker!)

Anyway, last week, my daughter woke me up on Wednesday to tell me she thought she pulled something. She had been playing at the playground the night before (I was at work and came home after they were in bed) and fell off the monkey bars and hurt her arm. She couldn't move it. I took her to the hospital immediately. Broken arm.

Because of the break, and because she didn't go in until the morning, CPS and the police came by to interview me. While I'm not crazy about that, I'm going to have to give the benefit of the doubt to CPS on this one. Too many cases have happened where they didn't investigate and something bad happened. And they were friendly and professional throughout.

The interview finished quickly, and without incident. But what got me was the entry in the police report the following day. While it doesn't name names, the call was listed as an "offense against family and children".

When even the newspaper assumes guilt, as this one obviously did, how can people expect to get a fair trial? Children can and do receive injuries that are not inflicted by their parents, and I find it ironic that we are accused of "seeing boogeymen" everywhere, when the press, CPS, and many people in the community do the exact same thing.

Anyway, the most important thing. My daughter's doing well and she's not in a lot of pain. Everything else is small potatoes.

[MaggieC]

The overbearing lack of objectivity with the whole process is scary.

Think of how many parents have been bullied and am now afraid to take their children for routine hospital and doctor exams as a result of normal childhood injuries and/or illnesses.

CPS procedures and assumptions make the whole world turn upside down.

Reminds me of when I was involved in education- too many profs who never really lived. Their whole world was contained within the four walls of a classroom. From the PH.D to retirement -never venturing off campus.

Life is not so cut and dry. I hope these social workers realize this. But hey, maybe they won't but one day they might themselves be a subject of a CPS investigation.................................

Maybe only then will they see it for what it is.

I am glad your daughter is doing well.

[gideonmacleish]

Yeah, that was the thing that got me...how many parents neglect their kids' medical care out of fear?

In our case, the big question was, why did we wait until the following day? The truth is, we found out in a rather unique way that our oldest has a high threshold of pain, as she didn't indicate anything that would make us think this was a broken bone.

Fortunately, for us, she's an articulate and intelligent thirteen year old and told them precisely what happened.

Thanks for the well wishes.

[Momoffor]

Gideon,

Its ironic that you mention wondering how many people neglect to take their kids for medical treatment out of fear. When we moved to Hawaii, the first thing all the parents in the area warned me about was not to take my kids to the hospital for injuries unless I absolutly had to 'because they will turn you in for any and every injury'

I didnt think about it fully until YEARS later, when I was dealing with CPS and that they dont just go after bad people who do bad things to their kids.

Although I am not one to take my kids to the doctor for every sniffle and boo boo, I still take them when its needed.

The other day, a neighbor girls rottweiler got away from her while walking it. It was on one of those corded expanding leash things and my sons were playing football at the park. The dog had run around my youngest son a few times wrapping it around his legs and then took off dragging him for awhile. When the dog was caught and the 'cord' taken off my sons legs, he had pretty bad 'rope burn' marks on his legs where you can tell it was some sort of cord that had been wrapped around him. It was painful for him and it does look pretty bad as it looks like he has been tied up tightly. I was worried about him going to school the next day, and sure enough, the teacher asked him what happened, and he was sent to the school nurse who tried to grill him further as to what happened. (It was nothing neosporin and band-aids couldnt cure, but still looked nasty and painful)

Thank goodness I have some kids that dont like people and BS> He got pissed at the nurse for asking so many questions when he told her what happened and told her to give him some bandaids and leave him alone or else his mom would get her in trouble the way she did the little girl whose dog it was when his mom went and talked to the girls dad.

He got his band-aids, but with all the times my kids get sent to the nurse about 'injuries' I dont know how many of those times get called into CPS. My mother who is a teacher was telling me that the nurses keep a log of injuries that are mild that MIGHT be child abuse no matter what the story, and when they get enough, no matter what story they are told, they turn the parents in.

Gald to hear your daughters better. That high threshold for pain is an iffy scary thing. My autistic son is that way as well, and he doesnt compalin about anything until it is already beyond the point of unbearable to a grown man. There have been many times we went to the doctor for an injury of some sort where he is just gritting his teeth a bit from the pain and the doctors comment they dont understand it, because they types of injuries would make a grown hells angel of a man cry.

Cant make them strip down and do a body check on them to make sure things are ok, just have to hope they say something isnt right!