Saturday, November 07, 2009

One of the Ill-Considered Consequences

...of the proposals to invade home educators' homes to make judgements on their parenting and educational provision, and then to share information about them liberally about the care system is that people who need professional help will not seek it.

Plenty of people are already turning to friends and relatives with relevant skills rather than going to A&E depts where they know they'll be quizzed and possibly found wanting when they either don't know what caused their child's injury, or they know too much about it, or their child is either:

"hyper-vigilant yet unresponsive, regarding all adults with a look of frozen watchfulness (awaiting the next blow). On the other hand, (s)he may act in an indiscriminate or impulsive way with grown ups. The child could be aggressive, unusually eager to please or may want to take care of adults. The child could simply present as being annoying, constantly irritable or apparently taking no pleasure in play."

(Are you completely sure your children won't react in one of these ways?)

This home educator sought help, and ended up being screened for Munchausen's. How long will parents keep asking for the assistance they actually need when they realise the possible consequences of such a high degree of suspicion?

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I have to say that when I felt my dd needed to go to the doctor, I didn't take her because she had walked into a post and had what looked like a black eye! The last thing a parent wants is to be on an at risk register for no good reason. And she wouldn't even have exhibited any of the apparent symptoms, but there is a general feeling that authorities can no longer be trusted. If I, a normally non-anxious parent who is happy to use public services and experts feels like that, there can't be many left who don't feel that the government has established a big brother environment. People will be forced to avoid so called 'experts' and not every one knows some one. Their attitude puts many children more at risk.

d

Anonymous said...

Every so often I try and kid myself there is nothing to be afraid of... but then I find something else that bursts that tentitive bubble.

I have practically lived at the Children's Hospt thanks to my 4yr old and now my oldest has type 1 diabetes. I am still concerned about my 4 yr old but becoming increasingly afraid of taking her back to the doctors.

It's getting ridiculous.

Alternicity said...

Hope you don't mind but I reposted a bit of this on another site with a link - there is somebodies attention I want to catch with it
:)

Anonymous said...

On the reverse side, we insisted on planning a home birth despite 'professional advice' amd we stopped seeing our health visitor because her 'professional methods' were completely incompatible with our 'do no harm' approach to our children.

I know that these incidents have been recorded negatively and that our refusal to follow advice blindly is considered a risk in itself.

Seems like whichever way we go is wrong. Seek help - we're paranoid and attention seeking. Don't seek help - we're paranoid and secretive.

Carlotta said...

No probs Alternicity.