I believe that Social Services intervenes in many families’ lives when they were not needed. I believe that Social Services are ruining our children, some emotionally, some behaviorally. I believe the system meant to protect our children is broken. Parents are afraid of CPS, either from personal experience, or some just from hearing what may happen to their children. Child Protective Services (UNKNOWN) (CPS) is the name of a governmental agency in many states of the United States that responds to reports of child abuse or neglect. CPS does not always look or even care about the truth. A simple error in someone else’s judgment can cost your/our children the future they deserve... Here to Keep Families Intact? What a Joke.
Chip (Forrester), a worker for CPS in North Dakota says, “that they are here to keep families intact.” I say they are wrong. I believe the same as Brenda Scott (UNKNOWN), who wrote a book criticizing Social Services and CPS. She is quoted as saying, “At the core of the problem is the antifamily mindset of CPS." Meet Mike and Liz. Mike and Liz were a couple with two children. During their marriage there was a lot of arguing between themselves and rivalry between the children which resulted in CPS being involved. The first step they took was to get the Mike and Liz involved in couple’s counseling with separate counselors whom CPS had chosen. Mike decided not to go to his own, saying that, “it was between him and his wife, and not the government’s business (M. Augustine).” This quote led to Liz’s counselor telling her she ‘needed a divorce’. Our couple had never been violent towards each other or the children, just verbal disagreements which probably could have been solved between just the two of them. Very soon at the insistence of Liz’s (L. Augustine) counselor, a divorce was filed. Liz won custody of the two children. But, the children still had arguments, and again CPS was involved. Their decision was to separate the children. One at one parent’s home: and one at the other parent’s home. Later as the daughter turned into a teenager, CPS again stepped in and their first course of action was to send her into a group home, and then a foster home. I notice that a counselor was never encouraged in the instances of the children. I also notice that the couple was not told they could select their own. By all appearances, CPS wanted to break apart this family. They succeeded. As adults, the children hardly speak to each other as communication was never encouraged, complete separation was. These children as adults bear the emotional scars given to them by the destruction of their family. Had CPS not intervened, this family may have been able to seek out their own counselors that did not report to CPS, or even resolve the issues on their own.
Good Parents Lose Children for Unfounded Reasons
Chip (Forrester), a worker for CPS, also told me that, “We here at CPS do not want to remove children from the home; we do everything in our power to not have to do that.” Brenda Scott1, is also quoted as saying, “Removal is the first resort, not the last.” Parents have their children taken away all the time for trying to do the RIGHT things. One family lost their children after realizing their child might have eaten something poisonus. (Hemmat) This family called poison control and did everything right in order to ensure their child’s health and future. But Social Services wrongfully removed the child because they “suspected” abuse. So based on the actions of Social Services, a person can infer that calling poison control was the wrong thing to do? Let’s take the case of Tonya Follingstad (Follingstad), wife and mother of four beautiful children, and my neighbor. According to Tonya, she had a very serious illness and was unable to take care of her children, so her mother took the children in for a month and would return the children upon Tonya’s health improving. Tonya’s mother only lived a couple of blocks away, so they would still be close, could still go to school regularly, and would be with family. Within a couple of weeks, Child Protective Services had removed the children from Tonya’s mother’s home, and kept the children in their care for the following 4 months. What was their reasoning? They had decided Tonya was guilty of Child Neglect and Abandonment. Neglect (Definitions of Child Abuse and Neglect: Summary of State Laws, 2009) is defined as “the failure of a parent or other person with responsibility for the child to provide needed food, clothing, shelter, medical care, or supervision such that the child's health, safety, and well-being are threatened with harm.” Were the children in danger of any of these? No, Tonya had made sure they were provided for. Abandonment (Definitions of Child Abuse and Neglect: Summary of State Laws, 2009) is defined as “when the parent's identity or whereabouts are unknown, the child has been left by the parent in circumstances in which the child suffers serious harm, or the parent has failed to maintain contact with the child or to provide reasonable support for a specified period of time.” This was not the case either. Her whereabouts were very well known, the kids were safe, and she contacted her children daily. She missed them, but though she was doing the best thing she could until she was healthy again. Is it fair to say she neglected and abandoned her children? No. I firmly believe that placing her children with their Grandmother was the best thing for them. That these definitions in absolutely no way describe what happened to those children by being placed with their Grandmother. Yet, Social Services chose to label Tonya (Follingstad) as an unfit parent, seemingly with no regard to their own definitions! In yet another instance for poor Tonya, while cleaning one day, her vacuum bag exploded which filled the room with dirt; even her clean clothes laid out on the couch to be put away (which was the children’s chore) were covered. Just as she was trying to figure out how to clean up the mess, her doorbell rang. Surprise! CPS had decided to give her an inspection with no notice. So her house is a mess, and they threaten to again take the children for her neglecting them. I think just about every mother out there has had this or some similar situation happen, minus the CPS inspection. I don’t think it makes us bad parents. Now let’s talk about my personal (A. Sather) experience. My daughter doesn’t like time-outs. My daughter doesn’t like to be told to clean her room on a weekly basis. My daughter treats my wife like she is in charge. Beyond what might be considered normal behavior for a seven year old. She is telling my wife and I how to do everything daily, nagging my wife about things that didn’t get done (like that load of laundry she forgot while making our daughter lunch), she screams at my wife nearly all day and every conversation between them winds up in a screaming match as my wife (and sometimes myself too) try to maintain the fact that we are in charge. Our daughter, she doesn’t like being told, “you are a child, worry about being a child, let us be the grownups. WE are in charge, not you.” So in order to get even she tells us one day she doesn’t want to live with us anymore. We think nothing of it. She’s seven, what does she know? Apparently she knows to tell a teacher or a counselor that her parents are “mean” and that’s all they need to hear. Soon, CPS is knocking on our door and telling us we need counseling or we can lose our children. I bet you didn’t know that telling your children to do chores or that disrespecting adults was wrong is also considered abuse did you? We didn’t. It took 90 days of counseling and 3 court dates to resolve our situation. And yet even as a dismissed case, it’s recorded permanently that we were once ‘charged’ with child abuse. This will follow us around forever. With absolutely no evidence, they could take our children.
Children Control the Parents
Chip Forrester (Redacted) with CPS says, “Children are sweet and innocent. They don’t know anything about blackmail. Out of the mouths of babes, will always come the truth.” This one makes me laugh. Children lie, we all know it, and we all did it. It’s just a fact of life. But what happens if they lie to CPS, what really, can we do about it? After all, a teenager makes a better liar then a 7 year old. They now know to get a bruise. Teenagers like power, and what better way than to blackmail your parents with threats to call the police and CPS? There is no system of checks and balances within CPS, and time and time again- parents lose their children with little or absolutely no evidence. My wife, Amber, talks about how she manipulated the system easily when she was only 13. “My parents always put me in the middle of their divorce. Checking up on each other through me. I wanted out. So one night, I snuck out of the house. My mom called the police, and they found me hanging out at a friend’s. They took me to the Juvenile Detention Center with a court date in the morning for a charge of,’ insubordination’. When I got to court I begged them not to send me home with my mom, claimed she was physically abusive. During my parent’s divorce she filed paperwork that said my Dad was emotionally abusive, so that part was done for me. They sent me back to the Detention Center for a couple more weeks, the next court date I still refused to go home, so I went to a group home, another court date, a foster home, etc. etc. etc. After a few years I was 17 and they had no programs run by the state left. So I was sent back to my parent just shy of my 18th birthday. I was a lucky one, I wound up in nice places, some kids don’t. But if you don’t want to be at home, it’s easy enough not to be. Any smart teen could do it.” (Sather)
Parents everywhere are not spanking their children. Most for fear of being considered an abuser, either by themselves, their children, or in the eyes of CPS. I asked my daughter’s counselor what she would suggest since spankings are not recommended by her or by CPS. She (Mendel) said that, “rather than spank them, you should reason with them.” Have you ever tried to reason with a 3 year old who is clinging to a park swing refusing to leave? It doesn’t matter what you say- this child is NOT going to listen. You have a very important meeting in 10 minutes? You had better reschedule, because you need at least an hour to try to explain to this 3 year old that you understand how they feel, but you have to leave the park now. This 3 year old who has a death grip on a steel pole swing set leg, this three year old who is screaming. In the eyes of CPS it would be abuse to un-wrap their arms and carry them to the car. So in the end, by throwing their tantrum, they won. This child got to stay at the park. When I asked The Pastor (Nielson)at my church what he thought about this reasoning with a child method, he gave me only one sentence. He told me, “God says, ‘spare the rod, spoil the child.’” Apparently even God knows that occasionally a child needs a love tap on the bottom. Here’s another example, when we were kids if we threw a tantrum in the store we were at risk get taken to the car and spanked. We are no worse for the sore bottoms. Today if someone should see you, they might very well call CPS, and you lose your child for teaching them that a public tantrum wasn’t ok. So parents today are choosing instead to do nothing, which resolves….nothing. {In 2007, only 7% of reports of child abuse were reported anonymously. (Vincent Iannelli)} Very young children are taught to report child abuse. I think they are taught at too young of an age. They are taught to tell a teacher, tell someone. {In 2007, 57% of reports of child abuse came from teachers, lawyers, police, and social workers. (Vincent Iannelli)} Unfortunately, they are not also told just what abuse is nor are they old enough to understand the differences between discipline and a beating. This leads to many children being removed from the home, because a child cannot understand the difference between a spanking and a beating. A child cannot grasp the concept that not getting their way isn’t necessarily child abuse. That they are not the only child told to clean their room or has chores. And since CPS believes the child’s needs come first, and don’t ask the parents what’s going on, (because after all, only adults lie right?) children can manipulate the system with ease. These children are going to grow up with no boundaries, knowing they can manipulate their way out. These children are behaviorally damaged by the over-involvement of CPS.
We go back here to Brenda Scott (UNKNOWN) again who also said, “with insufficient checks and balances, the system that was designed to protect children has become the greatest perpetrator of harm.” The system designed to take children from the true abusers, takes children from good parents. The system designed to keep families together and provide help to parents who need it, tears them apart. The system that should want the truth or to search for proof; doesn’t always look for it. Our children are suffering, and so is our future. I believe that parents live in fear of how to raise their children in a world that uses CPS. I believe that Social Services and CPS are ruining our children, some emotionally, some behaviorally. The system is broken.
