I’ve been following the blog, I Was a Foster Kid, for a while now. It provides a strikingly honest, unvarnished view into the experiences of someone who was in the foster care system. Here’s a snippet from the latest post: Read more…
But the pain remains. This post says it well. It is so critically important to be aware of the children around us. Aware of their circumstances. Aware of hidden pain. Whatever each of us can do to prevent child abuse, we need to do.
…Recognize that I hang-on by a thread, every day of my life. Know that I just got released from the hospital because I stood on a bridge wanting to die, again. Know that Ihate everything about me. Know that I don’t care if tomorrow never comes. Know that I look at physical scars and remember what happened every day. Know that my heart bleeds in excruciating pain and it won’t stop…..it doesn’t stop.
While looking into the child welfare and child abuse prevention resources for the previous post on April being Child Abuse Prevention month, I ran into several posts that declared the entire thing to be nothing more than propaganda or hysteria. Rather than passing them by, I looked into the posts, and in the interest of presenting dissenting and often unheard viewpoints offer this summary. Read more…
April is Child Abuse Prevention month. Recognizing the fact that child abuse can be insidiously invisible in our society and that all to often the cries and screams of the children go unheard, we are all encouraged to use this month to educate ourselves and build awareness. Read more…
This is a great post on child abuse and domestic violence and their implications for social justice. It includes good book recommendations and two action steps for Darkness to Light and National Sexual Violence Resource Center.
Not long ago I wrote about a recent article in The Atlantic that discussed the fundamental problem our society has with sex offenders. We typically are not willing to lock them up for life sentences, but when sex offenders try to find a place to live after they are released from prison, it’s clear that we don’t believe they are safe to allow back into society.
It’s all too often unheard. It’s all too often invisible. Despite the fairly recent headline grabbing reports of sexual abuse of young boys by Catholic priests, the fact remains that sexual abuse of male children the lowest reported form of child abuse in the United States. Read more…
Texas is concerned about a marked increase in child deaths due to abuse or neglect. 280 children died in this manner last year. Read more…
I will admit that the debate about what constitutes child abuse and what constitutes corporal punishment has multiple dimensions and is almost always informed by religious convictions. But when people within the conservative Christian home school movement begin to call out the teachings of extreme disciplinarian advocates Debi and Michael Pearl, I think it is fair to say that those practices constitute abuse. For example:
The Pearls point out on their website that 1/4″ plumbing supply line is cheap enough that you can have a length of it in all the rooms of your house, in your car and even drape a length of it around your neck.
Understandably, the Pearls would say this couple had taken their advice far beyond its intended limits.
However, people with a steady, normal, functional frame of reference regarding family life would say the Pearls’ approach to “training” — their word for studiously nonchalant flickings, whackings and whippings designed to condition young children to obey — is already well past the normal limits. Normal parents, for example, don’t drape plumbing supply line around their necks – they just don’t.
Children require discipline, yes. But excess, especially if backed by a sense of religious certainty, easily results in abuse. I propose that if anyone feels they are disciplining a child as part of a religious conviction, they have a duty to error on the side of restraint.
Your thoughts?
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h/t Leisure Guy
I have been giving quite a bit of thought to an article in the recent issue of The Atlantic. What do we do, what should we do when two voices collide? Especially when one of those voices is a major source of injury and pain to the other voice. Read more…
