ICYMI: 57-year-old Scarface actor Steven Bauer is dating 18-year-old Lyda Loudon http://t.co/sIIByzont3 pic.twitter.com/aHuCFi0BzT
— Us Weekly (@usweekly) July 28, 2014
2:09 p.m. ET: Stoddard said several injuries were found on the toddler’s body:Some video of the detective's testimony, "Detective: 'We've only scratched the surface'."
“Marks on the child’s face. It would have come from the child or a scratch being made while the child was alive and then not healing or scabbing over or anything after that, soon after he passed away.” There were also abrasions to the back of the boy’s head, according to Stoddard.
During the day, Harris was having conversations with up to six different women, according to Stoddard, who said explicit photos were being exchanged.
“We’ve only scratched the surface,” said Stoddard in regards to the searches done on Harris’ computers.
When public schools refuse to acknowledge gender differences, we betray boys and girls alike.More.
Fertility is the missing chapter in sex education. Sobering facts about women’s declining fertility after their 20s are being withheld from ambitious young women, who are propelled along a career track devised for men.
The refusal by public schools’ sex-education programs to acknowledge gender differences is betraying both boys and girls. The genders should be separated for sex counseling. It is absurd to avoid the harsh reality that boys have less to lose from casual serial sex than do girls, who risk pregnancy and whose future fertility can be compromised by disease. Boys need lessons in basic ethics and moral reasoning about sex (for example, not taking advantage of intoxicated dates), while girls must learn to distinguish sexual compliance from popularity.
Above all, girls need life-planning advice. Too often, sex education defines pregnancy as a pathology, for which the cure is abortion. Adolescent girls must think deeply about their ultimate aims and desires. If they want both children and a career, they should decide whether to have children early or late. There are pros, cons and trade-offs for each choice.
Unfortunately, sex education in the U.S. is a crazy quilt of haphazard programs. A national conversation is urgently needed for curricular standardization and public transparency. The present system is too vulnerable to political pressures from both the left and the right–and students are trapped in the middle....
Sex education has triggered recurrent controversy, partly because it is seen by religious conservatives as an instrument of secular cultural imperialism, undermining moral values. It’s time for liberals to admit that there is some truth to this and that public schools should not promulgate any ideology. The liberal response to conservatives’ demand for abstinence-only sex education has been to condemn the imposition of “fear and shame” on young people. But perhaps a bit more self-preserving fear and shame might be helpful in today’s hedonistic, media-saturated environment...
Is Sweden raising a generation of brats?Like I said, it's not just Sweden. I used to routinely tell my oldest son that my dad would've never let me get away with the way that my son would often speak to me, because things just weren't the same back when I was a kid. (My boy's 18 now and obviously we no longer have the same kind of discipline issues as when he was, say, 12.) But not only that, even the thought of disciplining children the way our parents used to raises questions of child abuse.
The country has built a child-friendly reputation on its mandates for long parental leave and provision for state-funded day care from age 1. But a new book paints an ugly underbelly to Scandinavia's child-centric ways. Youngsters here—deemed "competent individuals" by the state and legally protected from spanking—are becoming the chief decision makers in homes at very young ages in what some Swedes think is an alarming trend.
At the center of the discussion is David Eberhard, a Swedish psychiatrist and father of six who published a book titled "How Children Took Power" last year that sparked fierce debate.
Dr. Eberhard says Sweden's child-centric model has "gone too far" and his book suggests the over-sensitivity to children and a reluctance to discipline has bred a nation of ouppfostrade, which loosely translates to "badly raised children." "All this kowtowing to the kids actually causes kids and society more harm than good," Dr. Eberhard said in an interview. He suggests the trend could contribute to higher anxiety levels or depression at a later stage in life for these children.
His book is currently being translated into English and seeking an American publisher.
"I'm not advocating going back to slapping kids," he said. "Swedish parents have lost control [when] kids take center stage in family life."
Tellingly, the article has a gaping hole, a kind of journalistic elephant in the room. While the story points out that some states do not allow same sex couples to adopt, there are no critical voices in the piece. At all. No one who might have qualms about the notion of gay parents — for moral, ethical or religious reasons— is heard from.Well, the Times can't have critical voices of dissent. That'd spoil the left's extremist agenda.
Between 1973 and 1990, when my beloved mother passed away, she and her female romantic partner raised me. They had separate houses but spent nearly all their weekends together, with me, in a trailer tucked discreetly in an RV park 50 minutes away from the town where we lived. As the youngest of my mother’s biological children, I was the only child who experienced childhood without my father being around.Continue reading.
After my mother’s partner’s children had left for college, she moved into our house in town. I lived with both of them for the brief time before my mother died at the age of 53. I was 19. In other words, I was the only child who experienced life under “gay parenting” as that term is understood today.
Quite simply, growing up with gay parents was very difficult, and not because of prejudice from neighbors. People in our community didn’t really know what was going on in the house. To most outside observers, I was a well-raised, high-achieving child, finishing high school with straight A’s.
Inside, however, I was confused. When your home life is so drastically different from everyone around you, in a fundamental way striking at basic physical relations, you grow up weird. I have no mental health disorders or biological conditions. I just grew up in a house so unusual that I was destined to exist as a social outcast.
My peers learned all the unwritten rules of decorum and body language in their homes; they understood what was appropriate to say in certain settings and what wasn’t; they learned both traditionally masculine and traditionally feminine social mechanisms.
Even if my peers’ parents were divorced, and many of them were, they still grew up seeing male and female social models. They learned, typically, how to be bold and unflinching from male figures and how to write thank-you cards and be sensitive from female figures. These are stereotypes, of course, but stereotypes come in handy when you inevitably leave the safety of your lesbian mom’s trailer and have to work and survive in a world where everybody thinks in stereotypical terms, even gays.
I had no male figure at all to follow, and my mother and her partner were both unlike traditional fathers or traditional mothers. As a result, I had very few recognizable social cues to offer potential male or female friends, since I was neither confident nor sensitive to others. Thus I befriended people rarely and alienated others easily. Gay people who grew up in straight parents’ households may have struggled with their sexual orientation; but when it came to the vast social universe of adaptations not dealing with sexuality—how to act, how to speak, how to behave—they had the advantage of learning at home. Many gays don’t realize what a blessing it was to be reared in a traditional home.
It is unfortunate that this man had been ill-served by his upbringing. I find myself discussing with same-sex marriage advocates about the issues of gender and how men and women are just not fungible. The advocates all fall back on that any differences between the sexes are “social constructs” nothing more. Even when I have brought up the fact that there have been widely different societies throughout history, but the male/female paradigm has remained constant (even if the numbers of partners within a marriage has not) … I actually got the jaw-dropping response that all that proved was “millennium of bigotry.”Well, you're not supposed to deviate from the accepted narrative.
Same-sex couples regardless of legal status, do commit and do have children. They will not do their off-spring any favors in buying into the myth that gender can be ignored.
False [about the racial disparities]. There is no difference between socioeconomic status or race and support. The only difference between parents is gumption. Are you willing to have a "teacher" look you in the eye and tell you they are the "expert" when you as the parent spend more time with your child on a daily basis? All the material for a sped [special ed.] parent to be "fully informed" is free, they may represent themselves in court for free, and every state has a parent center just to help due to IDEA [Individuals with Disabilities Education Act]. While it has always been the squeaky wheel that gets the oil in local education agency (LEA) terms from PTA to sped, the one factor that explains this disparity is parent literacy. Think about it. A layman (or translator) can do it but it takes concerted effort.
More importantly, however, is not what the (greedy) parents negotiate for but what works best. The aides, o/t, speech, etc. are all irrelevant if the parent is not focused on the student always having access to regular education material, and finding the proper reading methodology at an early age to become proficient by 3rd grade. Otherwise, it is all an academic catch-up game fighting the entrenched school system path of sped student tracking for behaviour modification warehousing to age out of the system.
Also, this is not a matter of more funding. Sure, the teachers union is pleased to build the agenda for more money and staff, and there are, sorry to say, numerous parents happy to delegate their parental rights to self professed "experts" but it is the exact opposite of what any sped student needs to make their time matter just as a typical student's education block time would and graduate, irregardless of diploma or certificate of completion, to independent living. Lofty goal you might say but if that is not the desired path for every typical AND sped student, then someone, at some point in that student's academic career, denied them of the opportunity to further try and achieve learning milestones. (Granted, some students with mental impairment will plateau, but as a parent, don't you want to be in on that decision?) You must ask yourself, is this task a functional life skill? Reading, writing, basic math, following directions, etc. all apply within a curriculum discipline. (Tragically, many a parent and student find this out too late, hence the academic catch-up game, tracking, and excessive dropout rates.)
The one thing that could make all the difference right this moment: parental rights. We all know they don't end at the schoolhouse gate but if schools opened up and allowed parents to be their child's aide it would diminish school retaliation and an informed decision can be met for the academic/behavioural path choice that will have to be faced (with no regrets) for every student. Sadly, teachers are loath to agree to have someone around their classroom who will hold them accountable. After all, the expensive seminars and training the teachers get that the school districts pay for to accommodate sped students can then be their calling card to extra cash on the side for their home based sped "expert" business during the summer months and holiday closures. No double dipping money to be made off parent experts.
Bottom line, if you have an ASD child, homeschool. Focus on proficient reading and giving them the background knowledge to jump into the system in 6th or 7th grade, or even 4th if they are reading proficient by 3rd grade. Homeschooling will eliminate the distraction that socializing brings until they mature. Homeschooling is easy, inexpensive, and fun. I promise. However, if you can not, then I can not stress this enough: You simply MUST shadow your child for the day. You should be able to show up and do it but if the school insists on your making an appointment to do so, then by all means accommodate them, we don't want to start off antagonizing too much above and beyond the initial request, but do insist it be within three days or so. One day the MOTHER, and a separate day the FATHER, must shadow the student for the entire school day. Speak not and take notes. Volunteer to be an aide. Enter the rabbit hole then visit WrightsLaw.com
P.S. Once you have your PhD in IEPs, and you'll know, then volunteer to become an IEP advocate for foster kids. It is not very time consuming, and can make all the difference in smoothing a kids home groove if any problems or concerns with school/sped are able to be delegated with continuity until everyone is up to speed.
P.P.S. Regarding the article, what is to be learned specifically is that the tragedies are of the parents own making. Gissell's parents speak no English but expect their autistic daughter to after being placed in a special education classroom, tracked for behaviour modification with no access to regular education material for 8 years? Her mom doesn't work but never incorporated supplemental homework let alone homeschooled. (If the school is teaching her only Spanish, I would consider it abuse to raise a disabled child in America who speaks no English.)
Jese's mother was content to have him suffer in silence for six years before an ambulance chaser found her through a group of non-English speaking parents with ASD children. (Six years in LA and his mom can't speak English?) Must the school district and PTA do everything in duplicate or triplicate or more to accommodate other languages other than the one in which they do business, English?
I bet the oft noted 30 minutes a week during school of speech therapy for each student are two 15 minute group sessions a week. Useless. This is the IEP standard operating procedure across the nation for sped. Period. Furthermore, there have been studies showing institutionalized behaviour is learned, and some of the remediated students can make considerable progress. We haven't even touched on restraints. That we allow civil servants this power is shameful.
However, I think you missed the real reason this gem of "racial inequality" was brought forth, Mr. Douglas. The "wealthier parents" are the evil 1%. So much of this article's emphasis is on the fact the white parents are using, and paying for, lawyers to secure services despite the fact (and never mentioned) the IDEA law allows parents to represent themselves at all levels; IEP, hearing officer, mediation, administrative law judge, appeal, etc. For parents, there are no special legal points or advantage in procedure or law background to having a costly education attorney as legal representation. So why do they do it?
Parents rarely win vs. school administration. Look at the DOE stats across the nation and it is systemic bias. In some districts parents never win. Go to the mattresses. Parents have had to bring in the law community heavy hitters to give any grievance oxygen, and then network to force procedural change on civil servants to bring them into compliance with federal law. These white parents are paving the way and literally paying extra for it too boot. The Latinos, blacks, and illegal aliens will now have easier access to sped services upfront, but would it kill anyone to appreciate the financial drain and time sacrificed by the evil wealthier white, English speaking parents?
As a nation, we our $15 trillion in debt. It's not personal. It's business. Let's have the conversation regarding personal responsibility, parental rights, and lack of minority intellectual curiosity.
The final straw for Carolyn Alves came last fall when she tried to help her daughter Cecelia dress for kindergarten.Continue reading.
The volatile 6-year-old had worked herself into a frenzy as she tried on outfit after outfit, rejecting each as unacceptable. The tantrum at full bore, she scooped up a pile of clothes and hurled them at the front door of the family's Spanish-style bungalow in Glendale.
The clock ticked past the school's 8 a.m. bell. Alves pulled her wailing child into her arms and held her on the couch. After several minutes, Cecelia stopped, took a breath and announced that she was ready to go to school.
"It was like watching someone who was having a mental breakdown," Alves said. Then "a switch went off and she went back to being normal."
Alves and her husband, Marcos, have consulted five doctors and therapists in the last four years. Cecelia has been diagnosed with a smorgasbord of psychiatric disorders — including the controversial diagnosis of child bipolar disorder — in addition to being called a normal kid.
Experts in pediatric mental health readily acknowledge that their failure to pinpoint the problem with children like Cecelia makes a difficult situation worse. And some of them are pressing for an unconventional solution: a new diagnostic category called disruptive mood dysregulation disorder, or DMDD.
Creating a diagnosis is considered a radical step in mental health circles, and the proposal has sparked much debate. The controversy underscores the fact that therapists simply don't know what to make of the estimated 3% of children in the U.S. who suffer from severe irritability and emotional outbursts.
"Everyone wishes we could have a genetic test or a blood test" to determine which disorder a child has, said Erik Parens, senior research scholar at the Hastings Center, a bioethics think tank in Garrison, N.Y. "Unfortunately, nature doesn't work the way we wish."
As a result, parents may be told their children have conduct disorder, oppositional defiant disorder, attention deficit hyperactive disorder, depression or bipolar disorder — if they get a diagnosis at all.
Suddenly, an Orthodox Jewish community that had blanketed streets and subway stations with missing-child posters, that had promised a six-figure reward, had to face the devastating reality: Leiby was dead, and the suspect was also Jewish, living not far away. His death also forced parents, not just in Borough Park but across the city, to wonder, to speculate, to second-guess themselves: Was it one of those headline-grabbing tragedies that could have been avoided? When is a child ready to go it alone, anyway?My wife and I agree that our youngest son, who's almost 10, is nowhere near ready to "go it alone," so to speak. And my wife worries about our high-schooler, who walks by himself to and from school. We live in the Irvine Unified School District, and it's safe here. But no need to get a false sense of security. No one can predict when a crime might take place, and when one does people ask, "How could this have happened"? Well, yeah. How? But it's too late by then. The Wall Street Journal had something on this yesterday, "After Leiby Kletzky Murder, Urging Parents to Keep Calm." It's an interview with Hara Estroff Marano of Psychology Today. I can't imagine how this is reassuring:
The Wall Street Journal: Most parents’ first reaction to a story like this is to reassess–and in many cases, ratchet back–the independence they give their kids. What should be guiding their thinking right now?Keep reading.
Hara Estroff Marano: The very fact that this is such a rare event should get some consideration in their mind. One reason people are talking about it is because it’s so strikingly unusual. It’s within a particular community… this is a very insolated incident. I don’t know there are really lessons for outsiders here at all, because we don’t yet know all the details. So any reassessment should focus on the rarity of the event. This is just not something that’s likely to happen very often.
The first reaction is ‘oh my god I can’t let my kid walk down the street.’ No, look at the situation. Instead of saying ‘no you can’t cross the street,’ you say, ‘here, I’ll watch you cross the street’ and watch them a few times, then let them do it alone.
