Should Parents Lose Custody of Obese Kids?

Again we have experts advocating the micromanagement of families by recommending that obese children should be removed from their parents (see article)  for no other reason than the child is fat. Fox News [dot]com reports:

Should parents of extremely obese children lose custody for not controlling their kids' weight? A provocative commentary in one of the nation's most distinguished medical journals argues yes, and its authors are joining a quiet chorus of advocates who say the government should be allowed to intervene in extreme cases.

These experts actually believe that removing a child from his non-abusive parents is far less damaging to him than the child being obese. Talk about denial. 

State intervention "ideally will support not just the child but the whole family, with the goal of reuniting child and family as soon as possible. That may require instruction on parenting," said Ludwig, who wrote the article with Lindsey Murtagh, a lawyer and a researcher at Harvard's School of Public Health.

Ideally state intervention will support the whole family? Since when is any government agency operated according to the ideals? Ideally, in all child welfare cases, the families would be allowed more than one supervised visit a week or month, and case plan that is not onerous, irrelevant and punitive, and a caseworker who isn't overworked, underpaid and making her recommendations based on a quotas rather than the best interests of the child. Hoping for the ideal administration of a child welfare case is not reasonable or rational.

"Despite the discomfort posed by state intervention, it may sometimes be necessary to protect a child," Murtagh said.

Discomfort?!!!  Forced separation from each other is much more than mere discomfort, it is sheer terror for most. Such an intervention holds the very real risk that the child will be abused in foster care, not to mention the psychological trauma caused by being torn from his parents. Then, there is the very real potential that parental rights will be terminated, presumably if the child doesn't lose the weight. These consequences are considered benign by these experts? Hello-oo? Losing your child to the state forever is far from benign.

Their proposed solution? Stranger foster care. A parent-for-pay who gets money to feed the child, money that--oh, I don't know--his biological parents could use to buy the right kind of food for him.

Ludwig said he starting thinking about the issue after a 90-pound 3-year-old girl came to his obesity clinic several years ago. Her parents had physical disabilities, little money and difficulty controlling her weight. Last year, at age 12, she weighed 400 pounds and had developed diabetes, cholesterol problems, high blood pressure and sleep apnea.

"Out of medical concern, the state placed this girl in foster care, where she simply received three balanced meals a day and a snack or two and moderate physical activity," he said. After a year, she lost 130 pounds. Though she is still obese, her diabetes and apnea disappeared; she remains in foster care, he said.

A year in foster care?!!!  Because mommy and daddy were too poor to buy healthy food?

A year in foster care? Just to give a child three balanced meals and exercise? This is horrendously overreaching and intrusive, not to mention unnecessarily expensive to taxpayers.

See how easily the experts find it to redistribute other people's children willy nilly, just to forward their own personal agendas? They have no qualms about taking control where they don't belong.

These doctors want to shirk their own responsibility for their patients and pawn the problem off to the state as a feel-good solution, rather than put their money where their mouth is and provide a professional or community solution that would prevent the family from being put through the horror of state intervention.

It is obvious these experts have no concept of the hurdles faced by working poor and middle class families to provide the necessities of life, especially in this economy. Good, healthy food is expensive! Most families simply cannot afford good, healthy food. Fruit and nuts are far more expensive than chips and cookies and white bread, all of which are poor choices for anyone, much less anyone on a diet. Yet, if they spend the money on wholesome food, then there won't be nearly as much food in the house, which is often used to as grounds to remove a child from the family home. Now, even if there is enough food, if it's the wrong kind, snatch the kiddies and pay the foster care givers to feed them.

Many of the targeted families get food stamps, and cannot make ends meet without buying groceries that are heavy on the processed foods, pasta, cereals and high-fat, high-calorie, high-sugar ingredients--those oh-so-bad "fluffy white" foods that cause so many health problems. Lean meat, fresh fruits and veggies, whole grains and low-fat dairy are simply not as affordable.  And the schools aren't any better than those dastardly family homes with their Federally funded cheap, high-fat, high-starch, high sugar content menus they offer for school lunches. How can the parents be held accountable for what their child eats outside of the home?

The law already has a better solution. If a child is obese and the state is considering removing the child, the agency must first provide the parents with services to prevent the child's removal, as mandated by reasonable efforts.

This means the agency must provide the family with the means to purchase the expensive low-fat, low calorie wholesome food.  They must provide a nutritionist to help the parents plan appropriate menus and a cook to teach those who don't know how to cook how to prepare the meals according to that menu. They must provide the child with an exercise program or participation in sports, and provide the transportation, access or equipment for the child to participate daily in the sports or exercise. And if they hope to succeed in slimming this child down, they must provide some sort of peer support group to help the child stay on a healthy diet and exercise program.

Only after the parents fail to insure the child eats right and exercises should the state consider removing the child, and then, only if the child is on the brink of death.

Advocating yet another reason to burden an already overburdened, underfunded, understaffed and incompetent agency with more child welfare cases is not only a heartless solution from the perspective of the child and family, it's poorly thought out, lazy and profoundly irresponsible.

Definitions of abuse or neglect change with the current social fads (satanic ritual abuse, shaken baby syndrome, child sex rings and other debunked past hysterias come to mind) and cannot be relied upon from one case to the next. This is just another fad. I entered foster care as a child of normal weight and height. When I left a year later, I had gained one hundred pounds. The foster care givers ate a high-fat, high-starch, high-sugar diet. They were very obese, even their children were fat.  This was deemed to be an appropriate placement at the time. Even today, foster care givers are fat, feed the foster kids cheap fluffy white food which is identical to what the child's parents fed him. Unless foster care givers are mandated to provide good, wholesome food to all foster children, this idea isn't even worthy of consideration.


Too fat, too thin, too smart, too stupid, breastfed or not breastfed, too affectionate (enmeshed) or not affectionate enough (emotionally distant), too involved in athletics or a couch potato . . . no matter what the issue, child welfare agencies can make it legal to take a child. That doctors advocate child removals  rather than providing competent medical care to help the child eat better and become more active in the family home is the height of hypocrisy.  Who better than the pediatrician to get his own patient on the right track to a healthy lifestyle?

Surprising Twist in CPS Case Involving Psychotropic Drugs

The online Family Rights groups are all abuzz with this story from Texas.

Surprising Twist in CPS Case Involving Psychotropic Drugs: MyFoxHOUSTON.com

The not-so-astute leaders are rallying the masses, calling this case a victory. They just don't get that it's not a victory.

The article reports that CPS was adamant about terminating the parental rights. This is obviously in error.

When this hapless child was seized, it is obvious her permanency plan was reunification, because the agency imposed a treatment plan upon the parents. It is also mandated by law that the permanency plan be reunification unless there are aggravating circumstances, such as sexual abuse or the serious injury or death of a child/sibling.  Regardless of how they administered this case or threatened the family, the permanency plan was--officially-reunification, and the agency had to go through the motions consistent with that goal.

So the child is returned to her parents at eleven months into the case, based on "the parents doing all CPS had asked them to dan and months of negative drug tests" indicating this case was treated exactly like all other cases.  Permanency is, by law, mandated to happen at twelve months. So if they could not make the case for termination of parental rights, they had no choice but to reunify. Trust me, the County Attorney saw the handwriting on the wall, and decided to posture graciously in his utter failure to permanently snatch this child from non-abusive parents for redistribution into a state-approved home.

In this case, taking eleven months to return a child that was never demonstrably harmed by her parents is unconscionable, and cannot credibly be claimed as a victory. The child that was finally returned to her parents is not the child that was taken. She has been harmed, grievously harmed.

This child was placed on a cocktail of chemical restraints to control her behavior while in foster care. Can you imagine what kind of foster care givers would get fed up at her crying and night terrors or whatever acting out she did because she was taken from her mommy and daddy who loved her and have the child drugged into a stupor? What kind of doctor would even prescribe this treatment without first exploring why the child was so traumatized and advocating to treat the cause rather than the symptom? This goes against all standards of medical and psychological professional practice, yet is normal procedure when foster children are involved.

She didn't see her parents for months, despite the fact that her isolation from them obviously caused her problems. Is it any wonder that aggrieved families judge CPS as being callous, heartless, abusive and in it for the money?

This was no victory, and any organization that sees it as a victory is incompetent and profoundly ignorant. This child is damaged for life.

Putting a child on cocktails of mind-altering drugs while the brain is forming it's critical connections and pathways is barbaric. Drugging her into a stupor so her foster care givers could manage her trauma according to their own convenience is not in the best interests of the child, it is in the best interests of the government. There could be no more graphic illustration of this perversion of the letter and intent of the child welfare law.

The real tragedy is that this injustice could have been truncated or aborted if the attorneys for the parents or the child did their jobs right.  But they often don't do their jobs right, the risk to their professional practice caused by vigorous advocacy is too much of a threat for most to overcome. The lawyers in these cases should be sanctioned, but, if past patterns hold true, they will undoubtedly earn a judgeship for their incompetence and fear.

This child has a viable cause of action against the state of Texas. Much more viable than the parents have. I hope they pursue it, because she's going to need all the help she can get for the rest of her life.

Kansas Attorney General Confirms Anatomy of Child Welfare Ill Will

I promised it in this post, when I asked, "Are these professionals [child welfare caseworkers] really that petty and vindictive?", and here it is. . . Kansas Attorney General's findings on a case involving the death of a child after multiple reports of child abuse. This kind of government admission is a rare circumstance, and very welcome since it supports my contentions about child welfare workers putting their own agenda over and above the best interests of the child.

I have interviewed many caseworkers in the past twenty years. They have been very forthcoming about certain issues that I find relevant to their practice. One is that they almost all profess to having been abused themselves as children. When I ask for details of their abuse, it seems that some were abused, and some have interpreted parental discipline or other parental prerogatives as being abuse. . .in other words, they didn't like having their parents holding them accountable for their wrongdoing or for forestalling their childhood rebellion. In either event, they cite this abuse as their reason for saving other children from the abuse they endured.

State child welfare workers are represented by a disproportionately large percentage of self-professed damaged people on a mission to protect children whether they need it or not. Human nature being what it is, their perspective is going to be skewed toward viewing parents as perpetrators.

I've also observed that many of them are arrogant, to the point of professing that they don't make mistakes. I believe the fact that they are statutorily immune for their conduct contributes to this delusion of infallibility.

Finally, these damaged, grandiose bureaucrats are given an inordinate degree of power over people. They have learned that no matter what lies they tell, what strings they pull, what abuses they perpetrate, what they say is gospel truth to judges.

This dynamic tends to go to their heads. This case investigated by Kansas AG illustrates exactly how caseworkers do act vindictively and unprofessionally when challenged by a mere layman. (Aside - do you ever wonder why respondent parent attorneys always advise their clients not to piss off the caseworker? This is why.)

The caseworker who was the subject of this investigation is Linda Gillen. She is described with glowing credential and years of experience. So she can't plead incompetence for her failure to protect a child from death given the fact she had been notified multiple times by mandated reporters who had concerns for this child's welfare.

Ms. Gillen didn't like the grandparents of the child, who were pushing for her to protect the child from the father's live-in, drug addicted girlfriend. She had known the drug-addicted girlfriend since she supervised her in foster care.

Multiple mandated reporters made reports that this little girl was being abused. Ms. Gillen refused to investigate, because she didn't like the grandparents. It's all in the report, but I was kept abreast of the events as they happened. The report is an accurate portrayal of Gillen's professional conduct.

This is not a unique case. It happens all the time, all over the country. A caseworker takes sides because she dislikes someone, or someone pissed her off, or she simply hates all men/women/grandparents, etc. She makes her recommendations, conducts her investigations and reports to the court based on her bias, with the intent to use her nearly unlimited power to show them who's boss. She is a control freak. She manipulates the case so that the parents look bad. Invariably, she will push the right button and the parent will pull a nutty, which was what she wanted, "See, your Honor, I told you so." Sometimes, though, she can't manipulate them, which causes her to escalate.

Then when something goes wrong, as in this case where the child died at the hands of an known abuser, she pleads immunity from civil liability.

We all know the saying, "Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely." To this I add, "Absolute immunity is absolute power." The practices I have observed over two decades graphically illustrate the effects of absolute power upon petty and vindictive mortals whose moral compass was not necessarily pointed at true north to begin with. We really should be putting our best and most compassionate into these positions, yet we are stuck with the bottom of the rotten apple barrel. Is it any wonder they run amok?

Child welfare agencies are enamored of psychological evaluations for parents and children, they rely on them heavily to make the case they need made. See my previous post on this subject. Why shouldn't caseworkers be required to have an annual psychological evaluation to determine their fitness to wield such power over parents, often using the children as pawns to control the parents upon pain of losing their children forever?

If these agencies and the courts trust in these evaluations so much, they shouldn't object to being required to prove their own fitness, don't you think? And these evaluations should be made available to the parents whose cases they are administering. What's good for the parent is good for the caseworker. . .and would tend to weed out those whose petty vindictiveness is more important to them than the best interests of the child.
Kansas Attorney General Report in case no. 6:10-cv-01017-MLB-KGG

Exclusive: Florida DCF approved daycare raided by police

This story has not even been picked up by news organizations yet. 

A daycare center approved by DCF and used by parents accused of child abuse/neglect has been exposed as the source of abuse and neglect of children. The only reason parents weren't accused was because one of the parents was a client of Family Rights Advocacy Institute, whose advocacy exposed this abusive daycare facility.

Reports of child abuse reported against a parent (whose identity is protected for confidentiality) reveals that the abuse suffered by the children was perpetrated by Mrs. Beasleys's Daycare in Lakeland, Florida. Their own website declares:

We are a fully licensed and accredited day care center providing a safe and nurturing environment where children thrive and flourish.

False advertising:
    Reports from children in that daycare indicate that they are not fed, and that they arrive at home in the evening filthy. According to one parent who move their children to another daycare, "My son's socks were white in the morning when he was delivered, and white in the evening when I picked him up.

A very young child reports having lunch set in front of him in the new daycare, and when he was encouraged to eat, he remarked, "You mean this food is for me?" In Mrs. Beasleys's daycare, he was not permitted to eat his lunch and he arrived at home in the evening starving.

This is notable because Mr. Beasleys daycare was licensed by Florida DCF as an approved daycare. Many parents placing their children in this daycare did so as a part of their case plans under DCF child welfare cases. DCF vouched for this daycare.

On Friday, law enforcement and DCF workers was observed raiding Mrs. Beasley's and shut it down. Reports include allegations of unsafe driving causing injury to children in the Mrs. Beasley's vehicle and reported sexual assault of children by other children.

Here we go again. . .DCF demonstrates the inability to judge who is qualified to care for children. . .and permits children to be place with inappropriate and abusive caregivers upon pain of termination of parental rights.

Way to go, Lakeland, Florida.

Couple charged with beating, starving 30-pound 6-year-old

"JEFFERSON COUNTY (Colorado) - A couple accused of beating and starving a 6-year-old adoptive son was formally charged on Thursday morning." See article.

This child was adopted through Jefferson County Social Services when he was two. At that time, the article describes he was of above average height and weight. Four years later, he had lost weight, suffered bruising all over his body and his brain was bloody and swelling.

Arnolds took custody of the boy on a foster-to-adopt program when he was two and a half years old. That adoption was completed in 2006, . . .

I have seen Jefferson County Social Services in action. In my experience, their decisions are not based on the best interests of the child. They are petty, abusive and incompetent. They take children from imperfect homes and give them to dangerous homes. Nice work, JeffCo.  They trained, supervised and licensed these superior parents. They approved of them. They preferred them over the child's real mommy and daddy. It seems their judgement was somewhat impaired. 

Nobody will be held accountable for this dreadful outcome. No caseworker will be investigated or sanctioned for her deplorable misuse of her discretion. The agency will not come under any scrutiny. As one caseworker stated the typical attitude with a shrug of her shoulders, "These things happen." Gee, it's a real shame some of us can't be so blase' about this kind of outcome.

The child's biological parents will never know what happened to the child that Jefferson County found or manufactured some reason not to reunify with his parents. Perhaps their case plan wasn't really designed to correct the issues that brought this family under their scrutiny. Perhaps they didn't provide the proper services, or timely services. Perhaps the parents never had a chance. Who knows? It's all water under the bridge. But what if we could know? What if Jefferson County was just too eager to remove this marketable child rather than provide appropriate, compassionate in-home services to keep him with his mommy and daddy? Wouldn't that make this tragedy more deplorable?

We'll never know what happened to cause this child to be declared a legal orphan and redistributed to better parents by the infallible state. All we do know is that this child abuse statistic will be reported as physical abuse by a parent. Not adoptive parent. Parent. The state will not distinguish abuse committed by biological parents as opposed to artificial parents-for-pay. It's all one and the same to the government. If the child dies, his biological parents will never be told where his grave is. 

We'll never know if adoptive homes are safer for children than imperfect biological homes as long as the reports do not distinguish between biological parents and adoptive parents. The only indication we have are these news articles that keep popping up in every community, showing that too many children are abused or killed by these state-approved parents.

When CPS Claim Parents are "Enmeshed" With Their Children. . .and it's Bad

. . .they are wrong.

I know, it sounds strange. . .CPS tells the court mom is "enmeshed" with her child. She dotes on him, pays too much attention to him, praises him, smothers him. They express concerns that the child is not permitted to be his own person. This is unhealthy, they say. The child must be protected from this sick parent. They ask the court to limit the parents's contact with this poor, unfortunate child so that the close bonds between the parent and child may be weakened, or broken. It is, after all, in the best interests of the child to disrupt this relationship.

According to a recent Health.com article, it is not bad for mothers to be affectionate or attentive to the kiddies. It seems there was a study done, following children from eight months to thirty years old. Researchers observed the mothers interacting with the kiddies and followed the effects of the various parenting style into adulthood. According to the article,

The psychologists rated the mother's affection and attention level on a five-point scale ranging from "negative" to "extravagant." The vast majority of the interactions (85 percent) were considered "warm," or normal.

In what is sure to be an ugly shocker to those know-it-all, micromanaging caseworkers--and the pompous judges who rely on them--researchers found that children whose mother's affection and attention were "extravagant" turned out to be the most well-adjusted adults:

The adults whose mothers had displayed "extravagant" or "caressing" affection (the two top ratings) were much less likely than their less-doted-on peers to be anxious. They were also less likely to report hostility, distressing social interactions, and psychosomatic symptoms.

Evidently, it is NEVER in the best interests of the child to interfere with the parent-child relationship simply because they are enmeshed. It seems a degree of enmeshment is healthy and beneficial for a child, and creates "a more stable mental health picture, a more stable individual."

So, if the child welfare agencies are really concerned about outcomes, leave the unharmed kiddies with their loving parents, even if you find that kind of attachment too disgusting. You should be more concerned about the disastrous outcomes associated with placing children in foster care.

Failure to File Paperwork Constitutes Child Endangerment

timesunion.com reports "Richard Cressy, 47, and Margie Cressy, 41, were charged with four misdemeanor counts of endangering the welfare of a child. . ."


And what was their alleged crime? How did they endanger their children? " The couple is accused of violating a state law that requires parents who are home schooling their children to register their curriculum with the local school district." Endanger in the welfare of a child is described in section 260.10 as


1. He knowingly acts in a manner likely to be injurious to the physical, mental or moral welfare of a child less than seventeen years old or directs or authorizes such child to engage in an occupation involving a substantial risk of danger to his life or health. 


So, now we want to take kiddies and jail parents who don't file paperwork with the bureaucracy? How does that help protect kids? New York ACS or the local sheriff don't have jurisdiction over homeshool issues. The board of education does. This is ACS's way of assuming jurisdiction where none legally exists.


It is quite a reach to allege that not filing paperwork constitutes endangering the welfare of a child. Can you spell R-E-T-A-L-I-A-T-I-O-N? This is the exact kind of reach child savers like to make in their efforts to control parental prerogatives when it comes to making child-rearing decisions, especially if mommy and daddy don't dot every i and cross every t. After all, parents are expected to be perfect as a condition of keeping their kiddies. 


Home School Legal Defense Association has agreed to take this case.