A local parent of a mentally ill child says: “Change our mental health system now before more blood is shed.”
In response to Newtown, a local parent sent this letter about her struggles getting help for her mentally ill son. At the parent’s request, I am not using any names:
The Sandy Hook tragedy should be a clear indication that our mental health system needs a complete overhaul. My husband and I adopted a child six years ago. We expected joy and love from our adopted child, but instead we have faced years of mental illness filled with rages and violence.
We have turned to psychologists, psychiatrists, therapists and our local school for help to no avail. I will give you a few examples so you will understand our situation. This past spring we endured hours of extreme raging and violence every day to the point where my biological son and I would have to hide in a closet. We made the difficult decision to have our son committed to Peachford Hospital. Within a week, he was home and the raging began again within 24 hours.
When I called the doctor and asked him how he could send home our son when he was clearly not stable, the doctor said that our insurance company forced him to be released. Our insurance company has also refused to refill a prescription because we went through the pills too quickly. Even though I got a new prescription explaining that we had to increase the dosage, our insurance still would not refill the medication. So, I bought several pills at $30 apiece to keep my family safe.
Despite having a hefty file at the school full of behavior infractions, I am still jumping through hoops to get him enrolled at the GNETS program at our local elementary school. {The Georgia Network for Educational and Therapeutic Support (GNETS) is comprised of 24 programs which support the local school systems’ continuum of services for students with disabilities, ages 3-21. The programs provide comprehensive educational and therapeutic support services to students who might otherwise require residential or other more restrictive placements due to the severity of one or more of the characteristics of the disability category of emotional and behavioral disorders.}
The school psychologist said he will definitely get into the program because he is very severe. Well, if we have data collected on his behavior, along with multiple strategies previously tried, why should I jump through hoops?
I am trying to get him into a school that is equipped to handle him and shield mainstream students from his extreme outbursts. Now, I don’t know the background of the Sandy Hook shooter, but I can only assume his family is much like mine — trying our hardest to help our mentally disturbed child while protecting our family from his harmful actions and battling those that should be helping us.
We will not prevent future tragedies until we take a different look at mental illness.
Does the government really want a child released from a mental hospital against the doctor’s advice, have medication denied to them or keep them from a school that may be a chance to heal them? Therapy would be great, but surprise none is covered by insurance.
We have a responsibility to change our mental health system now before more blood is shed. Would we treat a cancer patient this way? Shouldn’t we support parents and families that are trying to do the responsible thing by doing everything in their power to prevent these tragedies? Families like mine need to support, not a back turned.
–From Maureen Downey, for the AJC Get Schooled blog
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98 comments Add your comment
Shades of Gray
December 18th, 2012
12:08 pm
Shouldn’t we be embracing these kids in our public schools with programs that meet the needs of kids that suffer with these issues? Seems to me that the ‘one size fits all’ public school model does not help the child you described and does not help several other shades of behavioral issues. I think public school is a good place to start the mental illness reforms.
I also think that the child described in the letter is lucky to have such a great Mom!
Beverly Fraud
December 18th, 2012
12:10 pm
Maureen you referenced another piece; in it the mother said she was told the only way to get the help for her son that she needed was to put him in the criminal justice system.
As much as we have children who are diagnosed with, as John Rosemond would say, a simple case of BAD (as opposed to ODD, ADHD or a variety of other ailments) we have children who simply need help.
Now imagine a child like this in a classroom and a teacher held “accountable” for his “behavior management.”
What’s telling is these administrators often can’t control the child in a one to one setting so why are we expecting teachers to do it in a 1-25 setting?
Sometimes children need help; and the political game we like to play called “fix the teacher” will not change that.
Neither will $2100 office chairs or “rock start” superintendents with personal drivers; but the money we spend on them might mitigate it.
Our entire educational system lacks integrity; are “we the people” willing to address that?
What's Best for Kids???
December 18th, 2012
12:22 pm
Unfortunately, we have many, many more parents who bury their heads in the sand and do not wish to acknowlege that their children are a detriment to the safety and security of the other 99% of the children in the school.
My heart breaks for this mom, but often times the school’s hands are tied, as the child was labled as BD or EBD or SEBD, and we are left to allow little Johnny to run around the school and threaten people, often times carrying through with those threats. The consequences? None. His rights trump the rights of the rest of the children, teachers, and other members of the school community.
Ron F.
December 18th, 2012
12:27 pm
Beverly: this article is about a mother’s battle with insurance, not school. The kid will get in GNETS, but it may not be immediate. There’s not a dearth of services out there just waiting for the applicants to show up. Paperwork and time are required to enroll in many programs, and that is to make sure there are no legal issues and that there is full compliance with federal law. Have you seen much of the paperwork in a special education student’s file? The problem is that our entire mental health system needs streamlining, and we have to work with insurers to help provide ongoing care, as this case seems to need.
And if Nancy Lanza was as worried about her son and working as hard to get him care as this mother seems to be, then she wouldn’t have likely left so many guns within his reach. We may never know for sure how he got them, but the fact that he did it without his mother seeming to notice concerns me.
indigo
December 18th, 2012
12:32 pm
Getting the comprehensive mental healthcare system we need will take a great deal of money. This will mean an increase in taxes and a much more honest group of politicians.
As we are seeing now, raising taxes, even a little bit, is like getting blood out of a turnip.
As for getting a better grade of politician, that will be about as easy as herding cats.
So, don’t look for any improvement in our mental healthcare system.
It just isn’t going to happen.
William Casey
December 18th, 2012
12:50 pm
I will vote for taxes to pay for mental health programs that put the safety of society at large as their first priority. This might seem expensive but, so are prisons.
Ernest
December 18th, 2012
1:00 pm
Well said, Beverly Fraud. Many of us probably know someone like Adam Lanza and perhaps that person is in class with one of our children. To think part of a teachers evaluation would be based upon ‘classroom management’ in this age of mainstreaming is hard to conceive. Also what impact will this have on the learning environment?
Everything I’ve read about his mother suggests she did everything she could. What about those parents who either aren’t equipped to provide the necessary resources or shift the burden entirely to the schools? I’m sure no one could have predicted what unfortunately happened but then again, who can?
There is an interesting article on the Huffington Post by Liza Long on her perspective of mental health. If interested, it can be found at:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/16/i-am-adam-lanzas-mother-mental-illness-conversation_n_2311009.html?utm_hp_ref=mostpopular
We also need a national conversation on mental health in addition to gun control, specifically on semi-automatic weapons.
Beverly Fraud
December 18th, 2012
1:07 pm
“Have you seen much of the paperwork in a special education student’s file? The problem is that our entire mental health system needs streamlining, and we have to work with insurers to help provide ongoing care, as this case seems to need.”
@Ron F maybe our definition needs to change from “least restrictive environment” to “most appropriate environment.” Barring that we need to be willing to ask the question “At what point does asking the regular classroom teacher to tolerate all kinds of outbursts in fact start to become restrictive to the child who engages in socially appropriate behavior?
Maybe we need to do something really radical like require every administrator to teach on a regular basis, so they can experience first hand what the regular classroom teacher goes through.
mystery poster
December 18th, 2012
1:15 pm
There was a similar situation in Douglas County a year or so ago. The grandmother and great grandmother had tried to get the young man help, but they had no private insurance. The police had been at the house numerous times, but for some reason the young man was not arrested. One day, he had a particularly bad outburst and came at the grandmother and great grandmother with a sword. The grandmother was hospitalized and the great grandmother was killed. Tragic failure of the mental health system in this country.
Ga Tech Rules
December 18th, 2012
1:28 pm
In America, it is all about getting someone else to pay for your expenses. Mommy could have kept her child in the mental hospital just by paying the bill herself, but no, the big bad insurance company refused to pay more, so neither would mommy! Where pray tell is daddy? When I see these type articles, I always wonder why the father is not mentioned, you know, father, aka “my baby’s daddy.”
paulo977
December 18th, 2012
1:34 pm
Indigo…”As for getting a better grade of politician, that will be about as easy as herding cats.”
______________________________________________________
Unfortunately you are correct ….They are all within the same system that holds that if we don’t pay for health care and expect the govt to provide it we are MOOCHERS!! Any politician who even attempts to influence the nation otherwise is demonized and described as a Socialist , Marxist , Fascist etc etc ,,,,,re : what happened when Obama tried to make things right for ALL citizens !!
Even his watered down Health Care Bill is being challenged by many segments of the society !!
We are the ONLY country in the industrialized nations without Universal Health Care !!!
It is going to take a l…….o…..n…g time , if at all ……before we become ‘ conscientized’,,Check Paulo Freire
Ga Tech Rules
December 18th, 2012
1:41 pm
paulo977 – Let me guess, you are one of the 49% who pay no federal income tax, yet you are very free with your demands on how to spend other people’s tax dollar! I do not take seriously the demands of any one in the 49% club.
mystery poster
December 18th, 2012
1:46 pm
@GA Tech
I tried to find out how much mental health treatment costs, it was not an easy thing to locate on the Internet. Finally found this blurb at the Fox News website:
…The use of inpatient psychiatry units as healing environments in which more sophisticated assessments of psychiatric patients are performed is now mostly relegated to rare hospitals that can cost as much as $20,000 or $40,000 or $80,000 a month, which people must pay for themselves, since insurance companies will not.
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2012/12/17/why-cant-america-care-for-mentally-ill/#ixzz2FQlNgxOj
Grasshopper
December 18th, 2012
1:56 pm
Change the failing mental health system? Probably so.
Look at our gun control laws? Maybe – maybe not.
But the main thing that the sad tragedy at Newtown teaches us is that you can’t legislate outright stupidity. And the more we learn about this case, the clearer it becomes that stupidity, on the part of the mother, is the main culprit of this carnage.
She had an obviously mentally ill child which she was trying to get help for so what does she do? Teach him how to shoot guns, of course! And to top it off she leaves these weapons where her psychotic child can get to them somehow.
The sheer stupidity boggles the mind sometimes.
AlreadySheared
December 18th, 2012
2:02 pm
I have been avoiding, as best as possible, all coverage of this incident. Not because I am indifferent, but because of the mathematical certainty that all manner of folk would rush to figuratively stand atop the bodies of these innocent victims to gain a hearing for whichever cause, worthy or not, said folks lobby for.
My 0.2 worth
December 18th, 2012
2:03 pm
The solution to the issue of mental illness is this… Take some of the tractors sitting around and put them to work digging holes…. Lots of holes.. in a remote location.. Take said MI people out to hole. You can figure out the rest… It’s the cheapest long term solution we have… If I was in a position to make it happen then I’d be in 100 percent. It the parents want to keep their MI children then they are 100 percent responsible for the money it takes to maintain the MI and for the saftey of others… If they can’t control them and something happens then the parents would be jailed and the child or adult depending on age either way would go to the hole…. The government should not be involved in caring for MI patients!
Thank you
December 18th, 2012
2:07 pm
Thank you for getting help for your child while attempting to shield other children from his outbursts. I wish more parents felt this way. My son is in the third grade at a local school. There’s a severely disturbed child who has punched and kicked teachers, caused fights on the playground, and just last week was disturbing all the classes on the third grade hallway by screaming. The four – yes, you read that correctly – teaching aides assigned to him can’t control him and won’t take him to another part of the building. When I asked the principal, he noted that the parents want the child in the mainstream. Oh, the parents are lawyers… Forgot to mention that.
So thank you – I wish you the best for your child and your family.
STHU&STHD
December 18th, 2012
2:15 pm
@Ga Tech Rules didn’t get your meds?
Prof
December 18th, 2012
2:20 pm
Our mental health system HAS been changed with the passage of President Obama’s Affordable Care Act in 2010, for mental health services are among the services provided under this new health care law to a much greater extent than before. Much discussion of this is going on right now; and one at the Boston Globe may be found at:
http://www.boston.com/lifestyle/health/health_stew/2012/12/mental_health_and_the_aca.html
STHU&STHD
December 18th, 2012
2:30 pm
@ GA Tech take your meds and then re-read the 1st paragraph see My husband and I adopted a child six years ago. Please take the bitterness from your political loss to a different audience.
Aquagirl
December 18th, 2012
2:35 pm
Where pray tell is daddy? When I see these type articles, I always wonder why the father is not mentioned, you know, father, aka “my baby’s daddy.”
What part of “my husband and I adopted a child six years ago” was unclear? It was in the second sentence. If you went off the rails before that point consider evaluation and appropriate medication, your anger at imaginary “babydaddies” under every rock should be addressed pronto.
bookman parrot
December 18th, 2012
2:43 pm
aquagirl, why are you so angry?
Aquagirl
December 18th, 2012
2:48 pm
why are you so angry?
It’s not anger, it’s concern that folks like Tech Rules may have access to guns.
indigo
December 18th, 2012
2:53 pm
Aquagirl – 2:48
And, the intelligence level of Tech Rules suggests he/she has never set foot at Tech and probably is a high school dropout.
Aquagirl
December 18th, 2012
3:03 pm
Oh great…..angry at babydaddies, angry at education failures…what could go wrong in this picture?
Mother of Mental Ill Child
December 18th, 2012
3:07 pm
Ga Tech Rules – The father is in the picture, but like many is working to support his family. Most of our son’s rages happened when my husband was at work. By the time he got home early evening our son was wiped out from the rage and calm at that point. We are a tax paying, rule following family. Not the slackers you mention. As for the hospital bills, we paid thousands for the short period he was there including $50 a day for a week for outpatient therapy until our insurance release him from outpatient therapy. Don’t pass judgement until you have all of the facts. All told, we are up to about $60,000 from the adoption to the therapy and mental health costs. How much have you spent helping a child?
George
December 18th, 2012
3:17 pm
In the Public School system some parents will not even let their kids be tested at all and they know that it is a problem.It money is put into it it needs to have a mandate.
Archie
December 18th, 2012
3:28 pm
There are children in public schools that are a demonstrated menace to themselves and others and pretending that it isn’t there will not make it go away. (Ignoring the problem doesn’t work either!) Unfortunately, special ed teachers and other professionals have become “customer service representatives” and “the customer (parents) is always right!” A teacher can’t even suggest a student see a mental health professional, far less intimate a student may need to be on psychotrophic medication. If the parent will not sign for Special Ed. services, the regular teacher is forced to “grin and bear it” while said student turns the classroom upside down and the regular students suffer because the teacher must take up THEIR time with this “high maintainance” student. For a student with severe behavior disorders, a special school (even residential) may well be the “Least Restrictive Envioronment!”
BehindEnemyLines
December 18th, 2012
3:37 pm
Once again, I see that the call for using other people’s money is quite popular here.
Pride and Joy
December 18th, 2012
3:46 pm
BULL-oney! GUNS caused the deaths, not mental illness. I know more than one kid and an adult on the autism spectrum and NONE are violent.
The issue here is GUNS, not mental illness.
Ronald Reagan certainly did a number on our society when he shut down the mental health benefits and institutions back in the 80s and we need to change that but to blame the gunman’s murders on his mental illness is to hide our heads in the sand.
If Adam Lanza only had a knife, he couldn’t have shot through the security door because knives don’t shoot. He would have banged on the locked door and the principal would have called the police to arrest Adam Lanza.
GUNS killed these 27 people!
Get rid of the guns!
mark
December 18th, 2012
3:53 pm
A charter school seems to be the best fit. They wont mind the $80K a year student.
Prof
December 18th, 2012
3:54 pm
@ BehindEnemyLines. So what exactly do you propose should be done if a person can’t afford treatment and present insurance companies refuse to cover treatment of their clients’ mental illnesses? We’ve already seen some possible consequences in Newtown.
beteachin
December 18th, 2012
4:00 pm
I’m not usually one to advocate the use of drugs; however, wouldn’t drug therapy be the cheapest and easiest and kindest way to help these angry children become more docile? Couldn’t the right drugs be used (sedation even in extreme cases?) to allow them to remain in the LRE at school and at home without being a danger to others? Parents could still care for and love their children without being afraid of them or putting them away or waiting for them to hurt someone or kill themselves or be put in jail? I’m not a medical person, but I know these drugs exist. If a child’s mind is raging, this might be the kindest thing we could do as a society to help–them AND the rest of us.
Not PC and a HS teacher
December 18th, 2012
4:17 pm
The public school system is not the place to dump this staggering problem of dealing with the serious mental health issues of severely troubled children. This would be just as successful as expecting the schools to deal with teaching the un-ethical students ethical behavior, provide after-school cut-rate childcare, provide sex-education to the promiscuous, provide drug prevention to the those surrounded by the drug culture found in urban chaos, engage in the character development of those with no moral center, and the many other important issues that have nothing to do with the original intent for providing a person’s education.
While our society needs more from public schools than the 3 R’s, some of these programs have no place in the organization that is designed to provide academic instruction. Teachers are not prepared by their training for this challenge, administrators do not have the training, and the school districts do not have resources or facilities suited for the purpose of helping severely mentally disturbed adolescents.
The challenge was laid down that the US “will have to change”, this includes the liberal, no-fault, attitude that politcal leaders can just point a finger at an existing public institution and expect this problem to be resolved. The old approach of a cheap solution will not save one life nor prevent one troubled person from becoming a threat to others.
Properly administer laws, do not give people with obvious mental problems the multiple chances with no intervention that so many troubled people have experienced before others are hurt.
The funding of the public mental health system should be adequate so that such people with serious problems get the important help that their behavior requires. The purpose should be to make them safe to be around and to live their life without being a danger to others. And do it because it is the right thing, not because it is the opportunity to stack up political capital.
Mom of Deaf Adult
December 18th, 2012
4:27 pm
Everyday I fear he will be next! The State of GA’s mental health program ignored the deaf people for years! There are lawsuits! We won, but we are waiting for the money to be used for the services! I believe the government is not serious about the deaf services!
Another comment
December 18th, 2012
4:33 pm
@ Ga tech, so I am suppose to stay with a lazy abusive sociopath who is verbally, mentally abusive not only to me in front of the kids, But I find out he has molested his own daughter and physically and verbally abused his step daughter. No way, I am out of there! My kids are better off in a Single parent home.
Lots of men are verbally, mentally and physically abusive to wives and children. The only thing is now that women out number men in college we don’t have to put up with the bull. No man will ever treat my children and I like crap. Ga tech I would never date you or hire you. Don’t forget some of us single mothers are the hiring officials now. I don’t hire pig engineers, like you. I do have an Engineering degree. Not from a narrow minded school that produces male pigs.
Fenton Hardy
December 18th, 2012
4:45 pm
It’s not about WIIFM, it’s about what kind of society do we want to have. There are obviously some selfish jackasses out today. They may money, but, no compassion. Someday they’ll meet their Maker like the rest of us and He/She will probably ask “What good did you do for mankind” and their answer will be I hoarded money and things while castigating people trying to do the best for their children.
Mother of Mental Ill Child
December 18th, 2012
4:52 pm
beteachin – the would be wonderful if it worked. We have tried many medications and still can’t find one or the right combination that stops his rages. Plus, it is not cheap. The drug companies charge a ton for this type of medication. I paid $30 a pill one time because our insurance refused to refill a prescription. We are still working with a top notch psychiatrist to find the right combination of drugs and I am crossing my fingers they will work one day.
Ga Tech Rules
December 18th, 2012
4:53 pm
Another comment – For you to have ever been involved with a “a lazy abusive sociopath” brings your judgement into question, your lack of self control tells me you are not a hiring official, and frankly you could not but a date with me, you do not have enough money!
Aquagirl
December 18th, 2012
5:13 pm
I paid $30 a pill one time because our insurance refused to refill a prescription.
Holy [redacted]. Our system is broken.
ReaderRick
December 18th, 2012
5:17 pm
William Casey – If we had a tax for mental health, the government would spend it on something else.
Warrior Woman
December 18th, 2012
5:20 pm
@ Beverly Fraud – Amen to the idea of changing “least restrictive environment” to “most appropriate environment.” Mainstreaming has been a disaster for classroom management and for students that are not identified as some type of SPED. I am tired of my children having their learning environment destroyed because of mainstreaming; tired of having my children being REQUIRED to spend time during the school day “helping” LD, BD, SPED, etc., because some idiot thinks that type of inclusion is better for the disabled child and who cares about the rest of the classroom; tired of paying for an education that we don’t receive because school administrators are either unable or unwilling to remove disruptive students from the classroom; and tired of hearing that my child’s right under the Georgia Constitution to a free and appropriate education is trumped by the needs of disabled children despite the disruption of the classroom.
Just A Teacher
December 18th, 2012
5:21 pm
You’ve got to be kidding me! Now we are supposed to feel sorry for people raising psychotic mass murderers? This guy killed 20 little kids and 8 educators, and you people want to wring your hands and say that it is the system’s fault. Those children are dead! They didn’t go to school that day asking about the rights of the mentally ill. They didn’t care whether people need guns which hold 30 bullets. They went to school to learn and to prepare themselves to be productive members of society. Now they are DEAD! I don’t feel any sympathy for people who can’t rear their children properly and teach them that committing mass murder is wrong. If your kid is sick, take him to a doctor. If the doctor can’t cure him, take him to the authorities and tell them that you are incapable of taking care of him. For God’s sake keep him away from other people whom he might kill. Don’t give him an assault weapon and train him not to miss when he is shooting at little children. And speaking of guns, who the heck needs a gun that can fire 30 times without reloading anyhow? I hunt, and if I needed 30 shots to hit something, I’d never go hunting again. This whole discussion is crap! The victims had rights too, and some maniac killed them, taking away all their rights! Adam Lanza and people like him are scum. If you can’t control your own child, do us all a favor and dump him on the steps of the police department. Let them put him in a cell but don’t enroll him in my class!
Dontavius
December 18th, 2012
5:24 pm
So then, it’s not the gun, it’s the gunner? I’m confused. I thought guns were the problem. Someone needs to clear this up.
ReaderRick
December 18th, 2012
5:25 pm
No one said it is the system’s fault. It is a society issue.
Don’t get defensive.
Warrior Woman
December 18th, 2012
5:28 pm
@ Pride and Joy – Guns did not cause Newtown. Guns are inanimate objects. They did not walk themselves to the school and start shooting. A mentally ill person broke into the school and murdered the innocents there. If not a gun, he could have used a bomb, a knife, or any number of other objects to kill and maim. Some of these would have been even more deadly than the guns.
Just A Teacher
December 18th, 2012
5:37 pm
@Rick . . . It’s not a society issue. It’s a parenting issue. I raised 3 kids and 1 of them was difficult and occasionally violent. After she spent some time in lock up, she learned not to be violent. My child was diagnosed with all kinds of things, too, but I diagnosed her as needing to be punished when she misbehaved. Turns out I was right. She has gotten her act together and is doing pretty well.
Pete
December 18th, 2012
5:44 pm
To Ga Tech Rules: you fail to understand how health insurance works. Just have the parents pay for the treatment out of pocket? A few could, no doubt, but most of us, and I suspect you are included in this group, cannot afford the extreme cost of treatment for a catastrophic illness, and mental illness can certainly qualify as catastrophic. To put it in simpler terms, if you were to get cancer, could you personally afford the $500K or more that your treatment would cost? No, so you purchase health insurance. The folks who pay their premiums and DON’T get sick cover the costs for those who do get sick.
Pete
December 18th, 2012
5:58 pm
Wow! Some lack of critical thinking! Just a Teacher says “. . . Adam Lanza and people like him are scum. If you can’t control your own child, do us all a favor and dump him on the steps of the police department. Let them put him in a cell but don’t enroll him in my class!” Most of the comments here are from folks who have tried to deal with a mentally ill child. They do not “blame it on society.” If you “dump him on the steps of the police department,” how long do you think they will keep him there? They’ll call you to come and get him. Will the exposure to incarceration cure him? Maybe. Maybe not. Only when someone has committed an unthinkable act such as in Newtown will the system “take him off the streets.”
Beverly Fraud
December 18th, 2012
5:59 pm
“tired of hearing that my child’s right under the Georgia Constitution to a free and appropriate education is trumped by the needs of disabled children despite the disruption of the classroom.”
Well as long as the Georgia Supreme Court was willing to wade in on charter schools; the above is a case begging to be tried in a court of law. Class action lawsuit, perhaps?
bu2
December 18th, 2012
6:03 pm
Strong opinions today. And lots of intolerance. If the answers were easy someone would have done something. The people in Washington do have some good intentions (even if that seems hard to believe at times).
The Mom needs to threaten to get a lawyer involved. School districts are bureacracies that move slowly until someone lights a fire under them.
The government needs to do more about mental illness. The government needs to make 30 round clips a little less accessible. And we need to figure out why Americans are more likely to do this sort of thing than many other societies.
Ga Tech Rules
December 18th, 2012
6:09 pm
Just out of curiosity, was the child who is the subject of today’s blog, the one who was adopted, by any chance adopted from an East European country? I have seen reports on tv of the extreme violence some of these kids commit, I believe one woman even tried to return her adopted child to Russia.
bootney farnsworth
December 18th, 2012
6:11 pm
@ P&J
-what did OJ use to kill Nichole?
-what did Ted Bundy use?
-the Manson family?
-Tim McVeigh
the most restrictive gun laws in this nation are found in the cities with the highest violent crime rate.
Just A Teacher
December 18th, 2012
6:15 pm
and Pete says “they’ll call you to come get him.” Don’t go get him. Let him know that you won’t allow his misbehavior in your home. What will they do? Threaten to take you to court? Tell them to go ahead. Then go into the courtroom and tell them exactly why you did it. Show them pictures of the 20 dead babies in Newtown or the high school kids in Littleton and tell the jury that you are trying to avoid having your kid do this. Ask them if they want to take your darling psychotic home with them.
I’m just sick of all this talk about victims of society. There were 28 victims of the Lanza family that day and none of them were related to Adam and his mom.
bootney farnsworth
December 18th, 2012
6:20 pm
@ bu2
thoughts:
-in Asia and Africa, as well as much of the middle east they go on wholesale slaughter binges. we are actually safer than most of the rest of the world.
-exactly what should the gov’t do about the mentally ill? involuntary institutionism? geld them? kill them? and what is to be done with those individuals who refuse to take their meds?
I understand the desire to see something done, but rarely does anything get done well when the govt gets involved. it just becomes more muddled. simple reality is the more we press gov’t to solve our issues, the worse the issues become.
and I am really reluctant to give more powers to the gov’t which could someday be used against the citizenry. and violate our basic laws/freedoms.
so again, what exactly could the gov’t do? IMO this is a social problem, not a legislative one
bootney farnsworth
December 18th, 2012
6:22 pm
what on earth could the origin of the child in question have to do with the issue in question?
Pride and Joy
December 18th, 2012
6:35 pm
Warrior Woman, your idiotic response is predicatable. Anyone with a monniker like “warrior woman” has to be delirious.
If Adam Lanza couldn’t get a gun, he couldn’t have killed those kids.
He couldn’t have “Knived” his way through a locked door and stabbed hundreds of times in a cuople of minutes.
Warrior Woman, let me guess, you own guns and lots of them.
It’s people like YOU who need to be locked up.
bootney farnsworth
December 18th, 2012
6:38 pm
perhaps an idea for the authors situation would be to have an option to declare the child insane (documented, not just their word) and become a ward of the state. this would compel the state to do something.
Just A Teacher
December 18th, 2012
6:42 pm
Thank you, bootney. That is a logical suggestion. If you can’t control your child in your home, for the child’s sake and everyone who comes in contact with him, put him in a different environment. No matter what it takes.
Private Citizen
December 18th, 2012
6:47 pm
Kind of getting the feeling that everything in the USA has to be rigged for the corporate exploit.
Private Citizen
December 18th, 2012
6:50 pm
some countries have a backbone of public services, including universities, where the facilities are public owner, people there work at moderate / reasonable salary, and services are managed for delivery and efficiency. these type systems do not practice “executive compensation” for public workers. hey, welcome to the rest of the (modern) world.
Old South
December 18th, 2012
7:02 pm
It’s not just children who suffer but it’s anyone in entire ’system’.
Do not be surprised if you, as the parent, are punished for trying to help your kid. The courts, police and legal system will not be on your side as he grows up. In fact they will prefer you to be punished as that is how the system is setup. Many families across the country are going through this, and its part of the reason so many homeless kids and young adults roam the street. The courts want it this way.
As I said before, our nation is the most advanced, rotting, nation ever to exist.
Jack ®
December 18th, 2012
7:07 pm
Some experts will tell you that when all else fails, a lobotomy might be recommended.
abacus2
December 18th, 2012
7:20 pm
The reason “out of control” special education students are allowed to remain in regular classes is because the special education parents’ lobby is much larger than that of general education parents. IDEA has ruined education for well-behaved students who want to learn. I know of a school system that spent over $100,000 a year “educating” a child with an IQ of 40. This child had a full-time teacher and 2 full-time aides. This amount does not include the workers’ comp time the staff used to recover from being attacked. Thank you, IDEA.
Timmy
December 18th, 2012
7:34 pm
Is it the government’s responsibility to provide all mental health services?
Kathi H
December 18th, 2012
7:35 pm
0.2 – Someone else had the solution of exterminating people with mental illness; he also exterminated people with developmental disabilities and Jews. Think about the company you put yourself in.
Ga Tech Rules
December 18th, 2012
7:37 pm
bootney farnsworth – There is a history of violent children coming out of Russia, a woman in Tennessee created an international incident a couple years ago when she put her adopted Russian child on a airliner with a one way ticket to Russia. Russia banned adoptions by Americans for a while. Here is a link: http://articles.cnn.com/2010-04-09/us/us.russian.adoption.return_1_russian-officials-adopted-orphanage?_s=PM:US
Sam
December 18th, 2012
7:37 pm
Quite a story here but I am not sure it’s what was going on with this Lanza kid. If he had a history like that would his mother have had semi-automatic assault rifles in the house. And if he did have a form of autism as they say, this does not constitute mental illness an would be treated much different than a violent, raging kid. I do agree that our mental health treatment needs fixing. How do we do that?
Pride and Joy
December 18th, 2012
7:42 pm
ANOTHER SMALL KID WITH A GUN IN SCHOOL TODAY….
And in Utah today a small kid brought a gun to school to protect himself from any shooters — complete with ammo in his back pack.
Yes! satisfied now gun lovers? This kid got the guy from his parent’s home.
There are NO responsible gun owners. Just idiots wanting to compensate for their shortcomings.
NO GUNS! Not now not ever!
Pride and Joy
December 18th, 2012
7:43 pm
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2012/12/18/utah-boy-gun-to-school/1778463/
The story of the boy who brought a gun with ammo to school today — !
Pride and Joy
December 18th, 2012
7:45 pm
abacus 2, I am calling you a liar. I don’t believe a school system hired THREE full time people to care for only one child. PROVE IT.
Another Math Teacher
December 18th, 2012
7:49 pm
Ms. Downey: I thought you were getting the Good Mother troll under control. (If you are unaware, Pride and Joy is the new name of the board troll. ‘She’ had to change ‘her’ name because so many people knew ’she’ was trolling constantly.)
Others: You let Ga Tech Rules troll you beyond belief.
The Deal
December 18th, 2012
7:52 pm
Isn’t there a big difference between ‘traditional’ special ed students and mentally ill/raging/serious issue students? Why is it the school system’s job to deal with what are truly serious mental health issues? No kid who has ever “raged” should be in a traditional public school setting. If a non-ill student rages, he or she is suspended or expelled. Why does having a mental illness that includes rages make it okay to mainstream these kids into classes where they could target other kids and teachers, even years later? Special ed should be reserved for learning disabilities, mild Down’s Syndrome, non-violent autism disorders, hearing-impaired. It is NOT for dangerous behavioral problems.
Sam
December 18th, 2012
7:52 pm
99 percent of gun owners are responsible, it’s the that 1 we have to worry about. If we have to ban assault weapons and piss off the 99 so be it. If it prevents one massacre like this it will be well worth it. Problem is the guns that are already out there.
GoldenMom
December 18th, 2012
8:03 pm
Not sure this topic has been mentioned in regards to this family’s issues and more: babies adopted from crack or drug addicted moms are now growing up with mental illnesses & behavior issues. That said – NOT all children with behavior or mental health issues fit into that catagory!!! I started looking into adoption 12 years ago and quickly realized that the chances for me to adopt a healthy child born to US citizens were very slim. The only way for me to safely find a ‘healthy baby’ was to approach a teen mother-to-be thru my own personal & church network. One teen chose to raise their child and the other put their healthy baby up for adoption out of state. I knew I didn’t have it in me to go thru what this parent is and choose not to adopt because of the high risk of falling in love with a special needs baby. Facing the fact that I failed as a human to reproduce and would never be a parent in the traditional sense is still difficult but my husband and I found other ways to share parental love (mentoring/coaching). Fast forward to today – those ‘crack’ babies are now growing up so the issue may get worse before it gets better. So keep in mind – that work needs to be done before a child is born: A) prenatal drugs use and B) pressure from society for childbearing age women to become moms and C) researching the unknown WHY as to why my friends who are healthy/clean parents bore a child with Autism and now go thru the same daily trama that this family does. As for paying for a child’s care once they are born: Will the government ( ie – me as a 49%-er) need to step in? Maybe – but then again – in the case of some – I already have invested some since welfare & medicaid was paying for some babies adopted out in the beginning. So please count your blessing IF you are one of the lucky one with a healthy child or an adult who is OK with not becoming a parent.
jsmom
December 18th, 2012
8:03 pm
@Just a teacher 6:15: Yeah, they’d haul you to court in a second. Probably with a charge of child neglect or endangerment. If you have/want a job working with children, how long do you think you’d get to keep working with children with that popping up on a background check? Turn them over to the state? In some states, (California, I believe) this ALSO gets you charged with abuse/neglect/or abandonment. And other states, you still have the burden of the cost of the child until they are fostered or adopted… and we all know how well that goes.
Sorry, I’ve seen kids with discipline issues and I’ve seen kids with diagnosable issues. There is a difference. I’ve seen the mom and dad who are at a total loss because their child simply does not understand his or her rage or even worse, doesn’t even remember going into the rage. But I’m sure that a schizophrenic or bipolar teen would respond in a heartbeat to your plan.
Tired
December 18th, 2012
8:09 pm
A few people have mentioned psychiatric drugs, and I think there’s a misunderstanding about those. First, they’re a crapshoot. There is no blood test that says the patient needs X amount of serotonin and Y amount of something else. It is, for the most part, guesswork within the category.
Second, many of them do not take effect immediately. It’s six weeks on, to see if they work – and if not, tapering off over another six weeks. Which means 12 weeks of unabated behaviors per drug.
Oh, and something that worked for a while can stop working in puberty or for no reason at all. It’s not in any way an easy fix.
Just A Teacher
December 18th, 2012
8:16 pm
I apologize for the anger with which I posted earlier on this blog. Please try to understand that this is a very emotional issue for me. Those 8 educators who died in that school were my siblings and those 20 students were my kids. All those teachers did to deserve to have their lives cut short was to take on one of the most difficult and important jobs in the world. It is very hard for me to feel sympathy for violent sociopaths this soon after this incident. I am usually a fairly calm person, but these tragedies have taken too many of my brothers and sisters and too many of the children they serve. I was teaching when Columbine happened . . . and Paducah, and Blacksburg. I am tired. Tired of watching my brothers and sisters’ faces splashed across television screens and having people remember them fondly. I am tired of watching schools turned into killing fields. It is obvious that I am too close to this issue to offer valid insight, but I cannot muster any sympathy for the mentally ill right now. They have destroyed too many lives.
Maureen Downey
December 18th, 2012
8:17 pm
Another, I am aware of the reincarnation. (There are a few multiple personality posters.)
I have blocked several comments in this discussion, but felt the posters did a fine job responding to some of the bizarros without my help.
Maureen
Anonmom
December 18th, 2012
8:45 pm
I’m reposting from another area but also want to comment that I think that some of these issues may really be related to our tolerance of “crack” babies etc. I’m not a doctor — but medical treatment today allows babies born with “conditions” to survive in ways they couldn’t many years ago — I wonder if some of what we see in the form of mental health issues isn’t related to this — compounded by the costs of getting them there from the outset (I’m sorry if this sounds so very politically incorrect…..). I so also see a lot of these issues (of the mass shootings) as “Generation Y” problem, although I’m not convinced that statistically there are more happening now than there were in other generations (there were shoot outs in the wild west and there was the Unibomber and others….not to mention things like gas chambers during WWII…). Also, I think that statistically, there is some correlation between few deaths in areas where guns are allowed vs. where guns are not allowed and I think I read somewhere that in Aurura, the guy looked for a movie theater that banned concealed weapons where people were less likely to shoot back. So, rambling on, I this as a “boy” problem. I have 3 sons — here are some things I’ve observed as a parent of boys over 21 years — I1) Aurura Newtown; Gabby Giffords — the shooters are all in their 20s. They all appear to lack coping skills for life; (2) when my boys were young, they played on way too many sports teams where you couldn’t keep score — there couldn’t be losers — everyone had to win. Everyone got trophys. I thought this was awful — learning how to win gracefully is an important life skill — parents can control a lot when kids are small but not when they’re big. I couldn’t make the travel baseball team take my son; I couldn’t make Wharton take my child (well, the parents with the millions could but not me); I can’t make the girl say yes to the prom; I can’t make the employer hire my child; the parent can’t make the committee approve the PhD at a certain point — at some point the kid reaches some level and there is going to be a ‘fail” and the kid needs coping skills and if they haven’t experienced some loss (for our family, the biggest was a dog run over by a car… I don’t recommend it) — they don’t have anything internally to help them cope with the present glitch. It can become suicidal — it can become homicidal. (3) We, as a society, have tried much too hard to turn our boys into girls — we want our boys acting like girls in school — when the boys don’t sit still and read and write quietly — the teachers turn them in for medicine for ADD & ADHD — it’s much easier this way (I know, some kids really do need these meds) — we are at a point where over 70% of the male children in our population are medicated — but once they get to age 18 the adults in their lives (parents, or teachers or coaches) no longer have the right to medicate them — so off to college they go — their bodies are used to the drugs — they are used to their parents being in charge of the dosing — they aren’t used to being responsible themselves — they sometimes just forget — sometimes they deliberately forget — the colleges, because of HIPPA, aren’t allowed to communicate with the parents — theire’s a “disconnect” and things go wrong — at Emory a few years back it wound up in a dead swimmer practicing for varsity swimming… perhaps one of these cases we’re talking about wouldn’t have happened if the meds had been property dosed (I’m guessing here) — but I do think I know that when I was a child not so many boys were on these meds at alll– they had to learn actual coping skills so they had to control themselves… maybe that would have prevented some of this too… I don’t know, I’m guessing at this too but it seems to me that there is probably a correlation here between the high numbers of boys on such meds and the increase in this generation of these incidents; (4) what about those mental institiutions that Reagan took down? Can’t we put them back up? Many of those in jail; many of hte homeless and many of these people really need to be housed in places like that and we need to be more realistic as a society about “mainstreaming” or not. Some random thoughts. So sad. Heartbreaking and we don’t even know why he entered the school……
bu2
December 18th, 2012
9:13 pm
@bootney
There aren’t many places where mass murder is more common. There are a number with higher murder rates, but few of them 1st world. Probably none of them first world. Canada, an sister Anglo-Saxon country, right across the border is dramatically lower. Mexico is probably higher, but again, that’s not a 1st world country. There’s something in American society that contributes to it (and its not gun laws).
Government can’t just ignore issues like mental illness. Look what happened in Newton. Its not just the mentally ill who can suffer. Look at all the vets who are homeless and living on the streets. The government has failed them. I don’t know the answer, but what we are doing isn’t working.
bu2
December 18th, 2012
9:18 pm
@Ga Tech Rules
Maybe you are just trying to make GT look bad, but….
The woman who stuck that child on the plane back to Russia should have been put in jail. Adoption is a committment, like parenthood. You don’t just stick a child on a plane because it got difficult. I commend the Mom in the post who is trying her best to deal with an extremely difficult situation.
bu2
December 18th, 2012
9:22 pm
@abucus2
If kids are inappropriately mainstreamed, its because we have idiots running schools systems. It goes back to that whole aversion in current school thinking to stratifying students by ability. As for incompetence, see Maureen’s other posts on Dekalb County. Most school systems do their best to avoid helping special needs kids at all. Lawyers often have to get involved.
Ann
December 18th, 2012
10:47 pm
@ Bootney – Your four examples proved the other posters’ point – a knife is not the weapon of choice when someone wants to kill a lot of people at once. Aside from Tim McVeigh, in all of your examples, a much smaller number of people were killed by these assailants on any one day.
Anniehall
December 18th, 2012
11:30 pm
Pride and joy, please be aware that the deinstitionalization of the mentally ill is not something that can simply be pinned on Ronald Reagan. In the early 60s there was quite considerable support or perhaps even pressure from the ACLU on behalf of the mentally ill that quite effectively complemented the fiscal concerns of conservatives. Together the impulses from both the right and the left sides of the political spectrum caused the drastic reduction in services for the mentally I’ll.
Roxy
December 18th, 2012
11:46 pm
As long as it is politically correct to assume those with debilitating disabilities can be “cured” through the Americans With Disabilities Act, it will be impossible to secure real, legitimate help for those that endanger themselves and their classmates and their communities. When we stop tiptoeing around the reality that traditional schools are not the place for certain individuals, things may change.
jw
December 19th, 2012
2:22 am
Mental Health Parity is not quite working the way legislators that passed it thought it would. The insurance companies just find ways around it. Not surprising.
Another comment
December 19th, 2012
2:45 am
After my one of my cousins sons was stabbed to death by his multiple personality girl friend 18 years ago in upstate NY, she desided to become a foster parent. NY sent her a 14 to 15 yr old Native American boy. Even though she was told that he had been to multiple foster homes all for short periods she felt she could handle him. She had raised 3 boys past that point and had a younger daughter. They also had 15 acres horses, her husband’s passion and a 4 bedroom house.
The 2 nd day she had the foster son he started beating her up, luckily her 18 year old son came home and threw him off her and smacked him back. My cousin did not call foster care to come and beget him, because she figured this had been his pattern foster home to foster home. She tried for over two years, but she could not help him. He was stealing from her, from local businesses. She finally gave him back. She finally found out that he had been so physically and sexually abused prior to the state taking him away that he was too damaged.
long time educator
December 19th, 2012
6:40 am
Timmy,
It is not the job of government to provide all mental health services, but it is the job of government to protect the general society from violent individuals. We jointly pay for prisons for violent crimimals and I think most folks would be glad to pay to hospitalize the violent, mentally ill. Maybe we need to quit paying to lock up non-violent criminals so that we can free up money to house the other violent individuals in our society.
long time educator
December 19th, 2012
6:57 am
As far as mainstreaming goes, I think any child who rages or who has behaved violently in school should be separated from the general population and should not return to school until they are manageable and capable of benefiting from an education. Schools should not be seen as mental health warehouses and expected to manage behavior problems that doctors and hospitals would manage with medication and therapy. Educators are not health professionals and should have refused to become medical care providers. We don’t have the expertize and should not pretend to. Schools should focus on their main mission, educating, and children who have medical issues or behavior issues that prevent them from benefiting from regular schooling should not be in a regular school. I know this is not politically correct, but parents have tried to make the public schools become mental health or medical facilities because they cannot afford or find the environment their child needs. I am not talking about regular Special Ed students who are non-violent and capable of learning. Once a child has become violent and restraint is being discussed, the child needs to be transferred to another facility, for their sake and the sake of the other non-violent students. Violent behavior should be what separates them from regular society, young or old.
Ga Tech Rules
December 19th, 2012
8:08 am
For all you proponents of expanded mental health (at someone else’s expense) please note that fox news and drudge are reporting Adam Lanza was being threatened with commitment to a mental hospital by his mother, and this is thought to be the reason for his rampage. Note the cause was not a lack of mental health care, mom was very well off, but the threat of involuntary commitment!
Private Citizen
December 19th, 2012
10:29 am
(In the USA) It is not the job of government to provide all mental health services,
Sure wish some of you folks would travel to a modern civilised country and see how it’s done. There’s no lack of them, either.
Private Citizen
December 19th, 2012
10:35 am
It is really odd, this USA conviction / arrogance thing that goes with not wanting efficient coordinated government services. The government services I saw this morning were police doing speed trap and harassing people going to work, with – of course – unnaturally low speed-trap speed limits on roads. 4 line divided road speed limit 35 mph, out there ticketing people on the way to work. Guy at a store today told me the only place he had seen anything like it is (communist) East Germany. This is him talking now me. He got pulled over on the street he lives on because he “looked suspicious.” So this is the public mind here and that the public accepts harassment and repels coordinated efficient services. It’s a weird public mind, that’s for sure. This is, like, the only country where you pay taxes and do not get services / medical / university in return. And a trillion in school loan debt? That’s current, not projected. And everybody acts like they’re on vacation or counting toothpicks when it comes to how your country is managed.
Woody
December 19th, 2012
10:43 am
I hadn’t heard of GNETS, so I am glad that there is such a program in Georgia. As a liberal Democrat, I often think of our Republican-controlled legislature in cartoon figures, but occasionally I realize that despite all the bluster about taxes and entitlements, there are enough wise folks running things to ensure that good programs quietly survive. Not a LOT of wise folks in that crowd, but enough. I imagine that it must be tough for them, living a double life, backslapping and hawhawing loudly about gutting social programs like GNETS, but quietly working to keep them afloat, out of sight and hearing. They are our modern day angels, here in Georgia.
hssped
December 19th, 2012
12:04 pm
the multiple private parapros at tax- payer cost PROVE IT comment…
It’s true. In Fayette we have a “million dollar baby” that has a private teacher and paras. She is pretty violent. I know one of the paras and she told me this year it has gotten worse. If people only knew of all the money spent on sped, not to mention the settlements for perceived violations. It’s crazy.
Warrior Woman
December 19th, 2012
12:17 pm
@Pride – As far as I can see, you take pride in being poorly informed and unable to think logically. Perhaps you should be locked up before you hurt yourself or someone else.
You don’t think a bomb would have permitted entry into the school if Lanza didn’t have a gun? You don’t think locks can ever be picked? Do you live on a planet where the rules of physics don’t apply?
As far as my moniker, you have no idea of it’s source. I think anyone reading the history of comments on this blog from both of us would have a pretty good idea which one of us is nuts, and it wouldn’t be me.
Ann
December 20th, 2012
1:54 am
The deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill that occurred under Reagan was in large part due to the horrendous conditions in those facilities. The idea was that various community supports would provide the services needed, allowing those persons to remain at home with their families; but, in practice those have been lacking. Some of these crimes occur without much warning; however, in the theatre mass shooting, he had some discussions with a psychologist or psychiatrist who was concerned. There should be avenues for immediate inpatient incarceration for evaluation in those instances.
Teacher2
December 20th, 2012
7:08 pm
@ Warrior Woman at 12:17 pm
Good one!
I dont believe Lanza was getting help that he needed. I appears that his n mother was in denial like so many parents regarding their children.