Pencil Twirling leads to near loss of Parental Rights

[Simon_Jester]

I think the problem is that once you report the incident (say, a disciplinary writeup in which you refer the kid for the fact that he kept tapping and twirling and being a distraction after you repeatedly asked him to stop) in terms that trigger the OHMIGOD ZERO TOLERANCE reflex (which might even occur by accident)...

The system loses control. Basically, you only have one step of the process at which people are allowed any discretion, which is "am I even going to report this, y/n." And while the risk of losing your job for making the wrong call and not reporting things can be miniscule, it's still nonzero, especially in districts where there's any chance of some parent being an overprotective freak.

What's lost is the ability to fine-tune the response. It becomes very binary: either 'nothing happened,' or something terrible happened.

[Alyrium Denryle]

There is another reason for this bullshit going on, and it's an unsurprisingly sinister one.

Holy Fucking Shitballs. Really? Fucking Really? I dont even know where to start, so I will start with this:

I know a family. Old family friends, as in "i knew them the day I was born". You know what they do? They save the lives of children. They have 4 of their own kids, and over the past few decades have raised half a dozen more, adopting three formally. Why do they do this? Because in Alaska, people have a tendency to go a little bit crazy. There are a lot of drunks, drug abusers, and psychotic hermits who do terrible terrible things to children. These people have their parental "rights" (a misnomer if ever I fucking heard one) severely curtailed or severed by the state. Social workers in the state of Alaska also kept me from living in an actual hell. Why? Because during divorce proceedings, Daddy Dearest made false sexual abuse allegations against my older brother with the help of a "christian therapist" who lied on the stand. These allegations got investigated by the state. Conclusion? Bitch needed to lose her license to practice and get charged with perjury.

CPS/DCS/DCFS/DCF (whatever they are called goes state by state) are chronically underfunded and understaffed. They have HUGE caseloads, and statutory burdens that make the occassional fuckup--both in proceeding against good families and missing the bad ones--inevitable. They have the highest burnout rate of any civil service agency because the social workers who are employed by them literally see the worst humanity has to offer. Children locked in cages covered in their own filth and maggots, little girls being impregnated by their stepfathers at the age of 12, starvation and malnutrition. The ones who last in the department are the ones who are sustained by hatred and rage rather than compassion--because the compassionate ones cannot handle the stress for more than a few years without breaking.

It is OK to get pissed off when they screw up. Hell, maybe enough public outcry will get them better funding. If we are lucky. But as far as I can tell, the people who call these departments legal kidnappers are the ones who do the abuse. Christian dominionists who keep their kids isolated and start beating at the age of six months chief among them.

So you can eat shit and die.

[Replicant]

I am at a loss here to understand the logical process that says kid that is twirling a pencil (which to me looks more like someone wants to join the cheerleading team that does the same or be a drummer) is threatening someone and that the logical extension of that process is to DEMAND a psych evaluation and full drug screening.

Then I read that Child Services got involved and this was happening in New Jersey, which still makes it an impossible thought process to follow, but at least makes a little more sense. New Jersey isn't tied with Illinois for the number 1 state people want to move out of for no reason, and Child Services (in just about every state) has a habit of playing the "better safe than sorry" mantra to a level that is beyond absurd.

The first thing you do if one of these people steps on your door is to hire a lawyer well versed in dealing with them and do not tell the Services people a single thing that is not vetted through said lawyer.