"Organizations like Parents Anonymous provide self-help groups that seek to guide and support their members in changing behaviors that injure themselves and their families. The organization functions like Alcoholic Anonymous." Heidi Marie Grow, Kinsley High, Kinsley, Kansas
"TWIKA is a program that teaches parents how to teach their children about alcohol and drugs." Amy Severson, Colby High, Colby, Kansas
"Many schools in the area are attempting to help the parents take care of their children better. They are trying something called 'parent networking,' which is compiling a list of phone numbers so parents can contact each other easily. This idea is intended to prevent things such as parties, when parents leave town. The list of phone numbers is provided for the parents that want to be more involved in their children's lives, and keep better track of what they are doing. In schools that have been doing this for awhile, it has produced many benefits and seems to be very effective." Mary Conway, Phoenix High School, Phoenix, Oregon
"There is a new grass-roots organization in Washington called Parent Action. It is a lobbying organization to demonstrate the energy that parents have. This organization will help the parents to try to understand their children a little better." Dallas Hacker, Strasburg High School, Strasburg, Colorado
"The family preservation movement is aimed at keeping parents and kids together, since research indicates that kids do better if they remain with their biological family. Fourteen states are currently using this system and there were over 20,000 participants in the last three years." Suzanne Pollman, Seaman High School, Topeka, Kansas
Suzanne Pollman, in her excerpt above, told us "research indicates that kids do better if they remain with their biological family." Isn't it possible that Jimmy T, in the excerpt that follows, could have been saved in a Boys Town setting?
"There was a kid by the name of Jimmy T. who lived in Chicago and wasÐin a gangÐat the age of fourteen. His parents didn't know where he was most of the time and really didn't care. Since Jimmy had no parents to turn to for help, at the age of sixteen he was pressured into a drive-by shooting. He killed two and wounded three. After Jimmy had done the shooting he became so afraid and was so scared that he just shot himself to try to end the misery." Michael Bevins, Rock Hill Senior High School, Ironton, OhioChildren can't choose their parents so why not acknowledge the fact that some would be better off living apart from their biological families? Consider the following excerpt from Matt Michalski's paper:"I am a person who at one time in my life had four brothers and now I only have two. My parents were foster parents to three children. One of these children suffered from Down's Syndrome, and another was Puerto Rican. The organization that my parents received these children from took them away from us because the natural parents wanted them back. The children's parents didn't have adequate capabilities to raise these children. In the span of 30 days both children were dead. These children were victims of the system. They were subject to mistreatment and they had no say in it. The system should let the children decide their own destiny regardless of age. These children should not have to be responsible for someone else's mistake; and pay for it with their lives." Matt Michalski, South Kent High School, South Kent,ConnecticutMatt's "brothers" may have suffered unintentionally; been killed by neglect or incompetence, but we too often hear about innocent children who have been intentionally abused. In fact recently, and close to home, a man was arrested on suspicion of beating his ten-week-old twin daughters. Today in the news we hear that an eleven year-old was "traded to a neighbor for beer and cigarettes.""Stories of child abuse can often be horrifying and implausible. If you make the choice to have a child, then you have a responsibility to provide the best life you can for the child. Robert Lee Harvey, a 31-year-old unemployed landscaper from Wellesley, Massachusetts, was charged with first-degree murder in December of 1988 for the death of his [six-year-old] son, Benjamin. Police found him standing over his son's body with a hunting knife in his hand. Harvey had allegedly slashed the boy's throat. What possesses a parent to harm an innocent child? When two-year-old Rebecca accidentally soiled her underwear, her mother and the mother's boyfriend were not pleased. So they heated up some cooking oil, held Rebecca down and poured it over her. Then they waited a week or so before Rebecca's mother, unable to stand the stench of the child's legs, which were rotting from gangrene, took her to the hospital. After a month's stay that saved her legs, Rebecca was able to move to a foster home. How could you live with yourself after you intentionally caused pain to a child?" Amy Ziegler, DeForest High School, DeForest, WisconsinA single Oklahoma hospital documented the treatment of 1,200 abused kids in a single year.On May 26, 1994 a boy in Kentucky brought a gun to school and told his teacher he had just killed family members with it. Children kill 300 parents each year in this country. Isn't it time to reexamine fifty year old policies that blindly seek to encourage family preservation at the expense of the children who may simply be programmed to not express their true feelings?Fifty years ago Herman and Druie Dunton of Rush Valley, Oklahoma would have been removed from their home after county officials received hundreds of calls from family and neighbors. But Herman and Druie are today's kids and public policy is intent on keeping families together because "research indicates that kids do better if they remain with their biological family." One aunt alone made 25 to 30 calls alerting the authorities to suspected child abuse; but Grady County, Oklahoma only has two investigators for every 500 complaints. Finally, since nothing was done to help the Dunton boys, concerned adults stopped calling. With no protection from the adult world, the children were left to their own devices. In desperation the overwhelmed eighth grader used a shotgun to protect his younger brother and end the abusive treatment of a sadistic father.Public policy makes it almost impossible to separate children from parents. Kids are generally too scared to talk, but without their testimony today's safeguards mean suspicions must be ignored, as they were in the Dunton case. As an Oklahoma social worker commented, "If that's the policy it's not working and we need to change it." Change? Perhaps. But is "the battered child syndrome" and other excuses which allow murder to be reclassified as self-defense, the way to go? The battered-child-syndrome-defense had its start in southern California and was used successfully to exculpate the Menendez Brothers; the young men accused of killing their wealthy parents in Los Angeles. The defense has spread and is being used by a number of youngsters, including a 16 year-old who in 1991 killed his arthritic 77 year old father in Panama City, Florida.Can we as a society be surprised? After all, as the poem says: Children Learn What They LiveIf a child lives with criticism, he learns to condemn.If a child lives with hostility, he learns to fight.If a child lives with shame, he learns to feel guilty. If a child lives with tolerance, he learns to be patient.If a child lives with ridicule, he learns to be shy.If a child lives with encouragement, he learns confidence.If a child lives with fairness, he learns justice. If a child lives with security, he learns to have faith.If a child lives with approval, he learns to like himself.If a child lives with acceptance and friedship, he learns to find love in the world.The solution to our societal dilemma is not clear-cut and so we stand helplessly by letting the problem develop as if it had a life of its own. On the one hand we cannot remove children from their genetic parents without irrefutable evidence of abuse; something that is almost impossible to obtain. On the other hand we cannot condone the killing of parents by their children as justifiable retaliation for that abuse. We are stymied and our young people are forced to fend for themselves. On page 25 Jason Dawdy was brilliant in his analysis of teen pregnancy. We ask you to listen to him once again:"The solutions implemented must be human ones if they are to break through the desolation of America's neglected. As a nation we must seek these children out and put them on their feet, then stand by to help them when they fall. In more personal terms, I ought to be concerned about my friends, teachers ought to be concerned about their students, and parents simply must be concerned about their children. The concern I speak of is difficult to give, it involves listening with an open mind and reaching out with an open heart." Jason Dawdy, Seaman High School, Topeka, Kansas Can't we agree on rules and circumstances that will allow children who are born to non-nurturing parents to be raised in community sponsored safety zones, without stigma or blame attaching to the child or the family? We have the power to make this an acceptable public policy choice. As a society we once tolerated racists and smokers. Today we make the lives of both groups miserable. We once thought it important that a stigma be attached to the acceptance of charity or to working moms. We have succeeded as a society in making people on the dole feel as if it is their due and making the working-mom feel, in many cases, even more accepted than homemakers. As a society we have the power to change attitudes about parenting and children.We ask againÒmore insistently and a little louder:Doesn't anyone care about the children?bout the children?