Archive for the ‘Child Welfare’ Category

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Are We Doing Enough to Make Our Children Happy?

May 6, 2014

 

stairs

 

A new survey tells us the same gloomy details about how unhappy our children are. It’s not that I discount their findings or wish to in any way dismiss the issues raised, but where is the companion article with ideas and initiatives for making our children happy.

The internet and other technology are not to blame for the state of our children. Blaming these things both undermines the problem and makes it harder to raise solutions.

So my message is to read this with a desire to make a difference rather than to wallow in the current state of affairs:

 

Children’s happiness drops after the age of 11 as they get caught up in modern issues such as cyber-bullying, online porn and sexting, a study has found.

Charity and youth workers surveyed almost 7,000 children over three years and found girls were far worse affected than boys.

Their self-esteem, ’emotional well-being’ and satisfaction with their community sank sharply after the age of 11, continuing to get worse up to the age of 16.

Boys’ happiness, meanwhile, remained far more stable.

The researchers blamed the march of technology as one of several factors making teenagers unhappy.

Dr Simon Davey, Programme Leader of the Emerging Scholars’ Intervention Programme, said: ‘Technology and the pace of change have accelerated pressures, made them more extreme and increased competition.

‘Girls in particular are more vulnerable to social pressures affecting their confidence and capability.

‘Measuring well-being – one of the ultimate expressions of confidence and capability – has been difficult for us but [these] well-being tool helps us take a quantitative view for the students we work with.’

The study, carried out over three years by around 50 youth charities, is due to be released on Tuesday.

In total the charities surveyed 6,890 children aged 11 to 16 – 3,176 girls and 3,714 boys – and ranked them on eight measures of happiness.

They were overall satisfaction, self-esteem, emotional well-being, resilience and satisfaction with friends, family, community and school.

Click on the link to read Why Getting Our Kids to Toughen Up is a Flawed Theory
Click on the link to read  Stop Pretending and Start Acting!

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Why Getting Our Kids to Toughen Up is a Flawed Theory

March 16, 2014

 

 

The push to make our children more resilient both goes against the grain of the evidence and sends the wrong message to children. Evidence suggests that children have a greater resilience than adults, yet it has been a policy for a while to get teachers to instruct their students to become more resilient. This resilience message also encourages victims of bullying to internalise their hurt rather than approaching a teacher. Any such deterrent is problematic.

Above is a brilliant clip, depicting teachers making light of hurtful comments made about them. If it wasn’t for the cameras, some of these comments would really hurt and frustrate.

Teachers, entrusted with the job of building resilience struggle with negative commentary just as much, if not more, than their students. Watch how they turn to mush when a parent criticizes them or a colleague questions their professionalism.

These are the very teachers encouraging our children to harden up and turn the other cheek.

 

Click on the link to read  Stop Pretending and Start Acting!

Click on the link to read  Some Principals Seem to Be Ignorant About Bullying

Click on the link to read Teaching Kids to be Competitive Often Leads to Needless Pain

Click on the link to read 6 Tips for Kids Who Worry Too Much

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In My Opionion Pedophiles are the Same as Murderers

March 13, 2014

cowan

Whilst it was a relief to see the evil killer of poor young Daniel Morcombe receive his guilty verdict, it came with a most horrifying revelation.

Only after a trial verdict is delivered can the criminal record of the accused be released to the public. It turns out that Daniel’s killer, Brett Peter Cowan, has a past:

Daniel Morcombe’s killer Brett Peter Cowan was finally found guilty when the longest-running police investigation in Queensland’s history came to a dramatic end on Thursday.

Fairfax Media can now reveal Daniel was not Cowan’s first victim.

Ten years before taking Daniel from a Sunshine Coast bus stop, Cowan lured a six-year-old boy into the bush in the Northern Territory.

Cowan viciously raped the little boy on a rusted car wreck, leaving him with severe head injuries, a collapsed and punctured lung, a deep cut at the base of his scrotum, a bloodied nose and scratch marks over his torso.

The boy was found wandering naked, dazed and distressed near a petrol station on the Stuart Highway and taken to the Royal Darwin Hospital where he was placed in intensive care.

Cowan, then aged 24, initially denied having any involvement in the attack, but confessed when questioned a second time by police.

He told police he needed help and requested to be imprisoned in the Moreton Correctional Centre in Queensland, where he could participate in a sexual offenders treatment program.

Cowan was already a repeat offender by this stage. In September 1989, Cowan took a seven-year-old boy into a public toilet in Brisbane, where he digitally and orally raped the child.

Cowan was sentenced to seven years’ jail for his assault on the boy in the Northern Territory, but his non-parole period was set at no more than three years and a half years.

How can they let a man who has raped and nearly killed a child out of prison within 4 years? Why is there such a gulf between the sentences of child sex offenders and murderers? To me they are highly comparable.
In my opinion a child sex offender should receive a similar sentence to a murderer, and should they ever re-offend upon release, they should never see light of day again.

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Posted in Child Welfare | 3 Comments »

Governments Should Ban Schools From Imposing Toilet Rules

March 10, 2014

 

toilet roll

I have vehemently opposed school toilet rules for some time, arguing that it is unfair and unhealthy to impose such a rule. The evidence seems to back up my claim:

Some primary school children are at risk of developing kidney and bowel problems because they have difficulty getting permission from their teacher to go to the toilet.

And others say they are avoiding the school toilets because of where they are located and worries about sanitation and security.

Almost 1,000 school-aged children attending eight Irish primary schools in the east coast were surveyed and 545 children responded.

While, overall, children had a positive perception of their school toilets, and used them if they needed to, around 57pc said they experienced difficulties going to the toilet.

The findings emerged in a survey of pupils by Maeve Smyth, a public health nurse with the Health Service Executive (HSE) in Wicklow. She was prompted to investigate the issue after school-aged children attending her bedwetting clinic said they found difficulties following their care plans while at school.

“These children described how they were reluctant to use the school toilets and permission was often denied,” she told the nursing and midwifery conference at the Royal College of Surgeons.

“Significantly, 57pc of the children had difficulties getting permission from the teacher to use the toilet when they needed to.

“And 34pc of children also intentionally avoided using them. These findings were significantly related to age, location, sanitation and security.”

She added: “Prolonged postponing increases the risk of, or exacerbates the problem of, urinary and bowel disorders.”

A spokesman for the Irish National Teachers Organisation (INTO) said the finding that 34pc of children intentionally avoided using school toilets should be further investigated by the schools concerned.

He said: “Regrettably, sanitation was an issue in some schools due to government neglect of school buildings. While progress has been made in many schools in recent years, there is still a backlog of schools awaiting funding.

“A school board has a duty to ensure that the overall hygiene of a school is of an acceptable standard. But where it is identified that it is of a less than acceptable standard, then the board should be funded by the Department of Education to urgently redress the situation.”

He added: “In general, the union advises against children being forced to line up to go to the toilet at specific times.

“Where possible, children should be facilitated to go to the toilet when the need arises. However, this is not always possible where toilets are external to the classroom.”

 

Click on the link to read Even Prisoners Don’t Have to Beg for Toilet Paper

Click on the link to read School Makes Children Pay to Use the Toilet

Click on the link to read School Toilet Trial is a Terrible Idea

Click on the link to read Schools Putting Spy Cameras in Toilets and Change Rooms

Click on the link to read A Toilet Break is a Right Not a Privilege

Click on the link to read Even Prisoners Get to Use the Toilet

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Posted in Child Welfare | 3 Comments »

Would they Have Let the Pedophile Teach Their Child?

February 17, 2014

 

abuse

A pedophile teacher was allowed to continue working even though the school principal and student protection officer were aware of sex abuse cases against him.

This leads me to a most obvious question:

Would the Principal have intervened if this teacher taught his child?

May I answer? Of course not!

And this leads me to one of my biggest gripes against the current education system. Teachers and Principals are trained not to be emotionally involved with their students. This destructive advice leads them to becoming emotionally distant.

We must become emotionally involved with the needs and rights of our students. We must treat them, at times, as if they were our own (of course within the proper professional boundaries). I often refer to my students as my kids. Of course, I know they are not literally “my kids”, but it’s just an expression illustrating my general concern for their best interests.

If teachers and school staff are taught to become less distant and to fight for the well being of their students, these types of issues just do not arise:

A pedophile teacher continued to work and abuse girls at a Catholic primary school despite both the principal and the student protection officer knowing about child sex abuse complaints against him.

Gerard Byrnes was eventually jailed in 2010 after pleading guilty to 44 counts of abusing 13 girls between 2007 and 2008.

School Principal Terence Hayes and student protection officer Catherine Long first heard a complaint from a schoolgirl, who said Byrnes touched her breast, in September 2007.

The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse heard in Brisbane on Monday that during a meeting with the girl’s father, Mr Hayes said he would deal with Byrnes internally.

But neither Mr Hayes nor Ms Long told police or parents about the allegation.

Ms Long said Byrnes regularly gave girls lollies and had them sit on his lap, and girls were “hanging off him” when he was on playground duty, but she thought he was just a popular teacher.

Meanwhile other parents began to find out that their daughters had been abused from police, who had been told by other victims.

A mother, known as KP, told the inquiry that after police swooped on Byrnes, the Catholic Education Office and the school denied any knowledge of allegations against him.

“I found out later, through media reports and court processes, that this was not even true – Mr Hayes was aware of complaints about Mr Byrnes for over a year but did not report them to police,” KP told the inquiry by videolink.

 

Click on the link to read Kids Have Never Felt More Stressed

Click on the link to read Where is the Deterrent For Teachers Who Have Sex With Their Students?

Click on the link to read 6 Tips for Kids Who Worry Too Much

Click on the link to read Since When is Trying to Sell Your Baby a “Joke”?

Click on the link to read A World Where Sex Offenders Have “Human Rights” and their Victims Have None

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Posted in Child Welfare | 2 Comments »

Kids Have Never Felt More Stressed

January 20, 2014

 

 

A new survey concludes that UK kids are as stressed as they’ve ever been, with the school environment given as reason for some of the blame. Whilst we can’t interfere with a child’s home life, I can’t understand why more isn’t done to make kids feel happier at school.

At the moment schools seem to be reactionary. Instead of providing the safe and warm environment they preach in their marketing material, they seem to wait for a problem to arise and then rely on their tired policies and often lackluster procedures.  This achieves their main goal of avoiding lawsuits, but does little to properly make the child a top priority.

As long as many schools continue to concentrate on avoiding bad publicity instead of delivering an environment their students can thrive in, the stress will continue to mount.

Above is a movie about adjusting to change and dealing with stress that is well worth watching with your child.

 

Click on the link to read Where is the Deterrent For Teachers Who Have Sex With Their Students?

Click on the link to read 6 Tips for Kids Who Worry Too Much

Click on the link to read Since When is Trying to Sell Your Baby a “Joke”?

Click on the link to read A World Where Sex Offenders Have “Human Rights” and their Victims Have None

Click on the link to read Schools Pick and Choose What They Implement

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Where is the Deterrent For Teachers Who Have Sex With Their Students?

January 17, 2014

 

Children at school

One of the problems with the unacceptable trend of teachers having sexual relations with their students is that the penalties are often lenient.  Suspending the teacher is not good enough and this is evidenced by the rise in incidents. Teachers who have engaged in a relationship with their students must spend time behind bars:

Almost 1,000 teachers have been accused of having a relationship with a pupil in the past five years, according to figures from state schools. Of these, just over one in four faced police charges.

The figures, obtained by BBC Newsbeat through a freedom of information request, show that between 2008 and 2013, at least 959 teachers and other school staff were accused of having an inappropriate relationship with a pupil.

At least 254 of these cases (26%) led to a police charge, the findings show, although Newsbeat said it was not clear from the responses how many of these cases led to a prosecution, conviction or the teacher being dismissed.

The data is based on responses from 137 councils who were asked how many school staff had been suspended, dismissed or faced disciplinary action after being accused of some form of sexual relationship with a pupil. The statistics apply to state schools under local council control.

Donald Findlater, a child abuse expert with the Lucy Faithfull Foundation told Newsbeat: “If a child develops the courage to say something, we have to take it seriously.

“That does not mean we have to assume it is absolutely true, but we have to take it seriously and investigate it.”

He said he agreed that a false claim could ruin a teacher’s career, but added that research conducted for the government had shown that just 2% of allegations against teachers were malicious.

Teaching unions said teachers who abused their position should face the full consequences, but they had concerns about the impact of false claims.

Christine Blower, general secretary of the National Union of Teachers, told the BBC: “There can be misunderstandings and malicious allegations are made, so it is critical that investigations are carried out quickly with due process.”

 

Click on the link to read 6 Tips for Kids Who Worry Too Much

Click on the link to read Since When is Trying to Sell Your Baby a “Joke”?

Click on the link to read A World Where Sex Offenders Have “Human Rights” and their Victims Have None

Click on the link to read Schools Pick and Choose What They Implement

Click on the link to read 8 Year Old Indian Girl Divorces her 14 Year Old Husband

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6 Tips for Kids Who Worry Too Much

January 8, 2014

 

worry

 

Courtesy of psychologist Daniel B. Peters, Ph.D.:

1. Make a worry list.
Have your child make a list of all his or her worries and fears, both small and large. Just the act of recognizing and writing down worries can sometimes make the scary emotions seem less intimidating for your child. This allows you to identify which worries and fears you want to work on with your child, tackling one by one together.

2. Practice thinking strategies.
Help your children convert their worries into reassurances by teaching them new thinking strategies. For example, if their consistent worry is “I am afraid my mom won’t pick me up from school,” have them replace it with “I know my mom is coming for me because she ALWAYS does.” Together, you can say each worry and fear and come up with new sentences to combat the old. Practice these with your kids until they become habitual replacements for the old, incessant worries. This is a key skill for building resilience.

3. Don’t skimp on sleep.
Make sure your child gets enough sleep on a regular basis. Well-rested equals well-equipped mentally and physically to deal with minor daily stresses. The National Sleep Foundation recommends that 3- to 5-year-olds get 11-13 hours a night, 5- to 12-year-olds get 10-11 hours per night, and teens get 9.25 hours per night (although some do fine with 8.5 hours).

4. Make good nutrition a priority.
Make sure your child gets a steady dose of protein throughout the day. Many kids experience low blood sugar, also known as hypoglycemia. Low blood sugar usually occurs a few hours after breakfast and it looks and feels a lot like anxiety: they feel dizzy, start sweating, feel weak, and their heart beats really fast. Staying away from caffeine and energy drinks is also recommended as they mimic the effects of adrenaline and cause people to feel anxious.

5. Get some exercise.
Exercise burns adrenaline. If it’s not already a part of your child’s daily routine, add daily exercise to your child’s plan, and let him know that not only is it good for his body, but it will help keep the Worry Monster away. Exercise can include any activities that your child enjoys such as swimming, shooting baskets, hiking, soccer, dodge ball, tennis, martial arts, jumping rope, rock climbing, bicycling, dancing, gymnastics or yoga. Anything that increases your child’s heart rate will help fight the Worry Monster.

6. Don’t underestimate distraction.
Arm your children with a little healthy distraction. Let them pick a favorite activity such as ten minutes on the computer playing a brain game, time out for reading a favorite book, watching a half hour television show or bike riding around the block — and allow them to do that activity whenever a worry attack comes on. This allows them to combat worry with pleasure and takes their mind off the often paralyzing thoughts and feelings brought on by the Worry Monster. Before you and they know it, they have been distracted from their worries.

 

Click on the link to read Since When is Trying to Sell Your Baby a “Joke”?

Click on the link to read A World Where Sex Offenders Have “Human Rights” and their Victims Have None

Click on the link to read Schools Pick and Choose What They Implement

Click on the link to read 8 Year Old Indian Girl Divorces her 14 Year Old Husband

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Since When is Trying to Sell Your Baby a “Joke”?

December 28, 2013

 

ad

 

There is absolutely nothing funny about the ad above. I have no sympathy for parents who find it funny to put their children up for sale on websites, even if they only did it for a laugh:

A young mother tried to sell her four-month-old boy on the internet for £150,000, it emerged last night.

The 20-year-old advertised the ‘beautiful’ baby for sale on the Gumtree classifieds website on Boxing Day.

Police and social services were alerted after scores of people saw the ad and dialled 999.

Officers traced the woman and took the child and his two-year-old brother into care.

Last night the single mother, who suffers from post-natal depression, said the advert was just a ‘silly joke’ that backfired.

She claimed she had been dared to post it, but had no intention of going through with the sale and has been left devastated that her two sons have been taken away.

The full-time mother from Bradford said: ‘I had been joking with my ex about selling sperm and eggs and he sort of dared me to put up a baby for sale – but I didn’t mean our children.

 

Click on the link to read A World Where Sex Offenders Have “Human Rights” and their Victims Have None

Click on the link to read Schools Pick and Choose What They Implement

Click on the link to read 8 Year Old Indian Girl Divorces her 14 Year Old Husband

Click on the link to read Meet the Ten Year Old Girl Who has had a Thousand Criminals Arrested

 

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A World Where Sex Offenders Have “Human Rights” and their Victims Have None

December 23, 2013

POLICE

Striking a sex pedophile from a sex offender list is tantamount to reversing the crime. Tell that the victim who is almost certain to be scarred for life. There is no human right applicable to a person who raped another human being.

Reading this article makes me so angry. It’s political correctness gone mad. In pandering to the perpetrator we do worse than validate his crime, we become part of it:

More than 100 of the country’s most dangerous sex attackers – including paedophiles and violent rapists – have had their names secretly removed from the Sex Offenders’ Register, it has been revealed.

The criminals have used a human rights ruling to remove themselves from the list, arguing that they no longer pose a threat to the public.

The 108 convicts who have successfully used the argument, include one offender convicted of rape of a female under 13, another of burglary with intent to rape and one sentenced for buggery.

One police force removed a criminal convicted on seven counts of indecent assault on a boy under 16 from the register.

The figures were obtained under the Freedom of Information act, and asked for details of the number of convicted sex offenders who had their names removed from the register since the law was passed in September last year.

Nearly half of those who applied were successful, at rate of nearly four a week.

Those whose names have been removed from the list were once placed on it for life, but now no longer now no longer need to tell the police where they are living, or if they move near a school or young family.

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