General Chat

When we first moved here, (I had been divorced for 3 years) my youngest, aged 6 asked me where 'her' social worker was, because she wanted a holiday!

My reply - I don't know how to get a social worker.

A few years later, elder daughter (aged 10) lied when she had to give a reason for going on a 'camp' - which she realised only problem children - or those with social workers - went on.

I was dragged up before the head (I worked at the school) to explain what my daughter had alleged, and pointed out to the head that she had been hoisted by her own petard - my daughter realised she wasn't eligible (despite it apparently being open to all the children) as she was intelligent , well behaved I wasn't an abusive mother, and there was no need for a social worker - and my children had never had a holiday because of this. I was no more wealthy than these other mothers, but could bring up my children properly - and they missed out because of it.

My daughter went on the holiday.

Social services and the school were involved with this family - why didn't they realise how bad things were earlier?

The parents should have been sterilised after the first child.

it makes you wonder how much we take after our parents, could it be a genes thing or is it just living with it day in day out, that could make two boys turn out this way.

Lorraine, I worked for 4yrs as a night supervisor in a school for delinquent schoolgirls, aged 11 to 18. They would get in a state about some rule they did not want to obey, and would break up furniture and tear up clothing. Instead of letting them suffer the cosequences and be withou what was destroyed, everything would be replaced in days.
I have seen the fattest girl in the school squeezing through a 1ft square windoe in order to go out and get drink. We chased men away regularly at night, and the police were no support. I have hiked young men out from under the bed of one girl who was in the hostel where older girls who were in training for work were living separate from the rest. It was nothing to find that someone who had run out of money would run off and go to the nearest lorry park to earn some more and come back waving notes in her hand.

On one occasion the sergeant in the police station some 30 miles away rang up at night pleading for someone to go and fetch some girls who had absconded as they were wrecking his police station!
They were not all from broken or bad homes though most were.

I work for social services in a local childrens home, and see the children on a daily basis from these types of families

every possible type of support is offered to these parents but often they do not turn up for meetings or take up the offer, the ultimate aim is to support these parents and keep the child in a family enviroment, unfortantly the children with the most social problems are the ones that cant be fostered, and they end up in childrens units.

the cost of this £3000 per week per child

this includes the cost of their food, clothing, travel, and upkeep of the unit
the cost of staff to look after them ie keyworker, social workers, unit staff including cooks, cleaners,
the cost of proffesional staff , doctors, phycologist.

so each week in the uk it is costing that amount for each child in care

Liz

I understand how you feel on reading that. My son and I did not have any sort of a holiday for well over 10 years ... and I worked full time to pay the mortgage. Life was tough and thank the Lord I had an understanding bank manager!

I never could understand how single parents on benefits could afford to run a car ... but that's another issue!

Jill

I think I read that these boys were placed in foster care but with elderly foster parents who couldn't handle them, so there is some element of blame with social services and if they dragged their heels removing them from the parents too, then again social services failed.

There are far too many people who have children without considering the work involved in bringing them up and who continue to reproduce even when they aren't coping with the children they have, and sadly most of those children will go on to the same path as they get older.

I was rather angry to read an article in our local paper the other day. I will copy and paste it here but first will say that as an older Mum and single parent with a son who was planned for altho things went awry because I fell pregnant in the first week of trying..... long story.... I struggled but did the best I could, never got any help from anyone despite asking when he was young and I had post natal depression - undiagnosed but I realise now that's what I had - and the doctor I had at the time was useless.
We went without a lot of things so that I could take my son to see his dad and Nan in Malta and I didn't go out socially more than a couple of times a year till my son was around 9 or 10. I didn't smoke or drink and worked part time to make my way as best I could, I had my own house so was denied some benefits that someone in a rented property would get.
Now I read this report, and it seems unfair, but was always the way... had my son turned out bad he might have got more help and lots of treats.... it's still happening - reward the bad kids and ignore the triers.

Cash windfall to help deal with problem Norwich families
SHAUN LOWTHORPE

Last updated: 23/01/2010 10:30:00

Dozens of problem families in and around Norwich are to be given extra support to help turn their lives around as part of a £2.6m government initiative to improve parenting and cut yob behaviour.

Ministers handed the city council £30,000 for its family intervention project, which sees a team of 10 specialists offering targeted support to difficult families

But the final tally is set to be around double that after the council successfully secured other grants and funding to match the support it receives locally including from Norfolk County Council and Broadland and South Norfolk councils.

While Norfolk-based housing association Wherry Housing is also set to get £38,728 to support its family intervention team.

Often dubbed “super nannies” for the practical support they can offer, the teams spend intensive sessions, often for several times a week, with families living in council houses or housing association homes, whose poor behaviour can put them at risk of being evicted.

Since it was first set up three years ago, the scheme has helped around 120 families in and around Norwich and there are currently 10 support workers offering advice and support ranging from teaching families the importance of eating properly to getting basic financial advice.

Although often focusing on children, the teams can also pinpoint other problems facing parents, such as drinking, which can then be tackled.

Tina Garwood, the council's Families Unit (FIP) manager, said the cash would allow the unit to take on extra staff who will able to cover areas in the South Norfolk and Broadland area including Blofield, Lingwood, Brundall, Wymondham, Mulbarton, Long Stratton, and Hethersett.

And she said the scheme had life-changing effects for many families who may otherwise have hit the rails.

“We offer intensive support to families who risk losing their tenancies through anti-social behaviour and chaotic lifestyles,” she said. “Where it works it changes life patterns where there have been problems for generations.”

Speaking at the launch of the scheme in Stevenage, children and families minister Dawn Primarolo said the government was determined to make sure every child had the best start in life.

“Family Intervention Projects challenge, confront and support parents and children to help them change their behaviour for the benefit of the whole family and wider community,” she said. “Prevention is the best way to stop problems with families escalating and impacting on their neighbours.

From what I gathered from the tv report on this, there will be holidays and such for the families, lucky people, all for free!

Lizx

There is no such thing as a " problem child "Only children with problems.
I know its's been said a thousand times before but no child is born evil, they can perform evil and cruel acts but the answer does not lie in demonising the children themselves.

lets hope it's not too late for this pair (though I fear it probally is)

I dunno, Ms.G. I'm still left wondering what the explanation for such behaviours might be.

Of course you or I would not have gone on down the road she took. I can only speak for me, and I know I would never have started on it. Although, had I had an unintended and unwanted youthful pregnancy and been unable to terminate it, say, I know I could not have relinquished a child, and my life might have taken a rather unhappy turn, had I been a single mother with little schooling. Or I might have felt I had not choice but to relinquish, and been miserable about it ever after.

Imagining what one might do in someone else's shoes doesn't really mean putting someone else's shoes on but still being one's self. It means being that person. I know nothing more about her or what prompted her to make the choices she made. I just imagine that there must be some reason why people make choices that are so obviously going to turn out so badly.

Who would really choose to be the drug-addicted mother of seven living in a home where there was constant aggression and violence??

I quite agree that she probably couldn't cope from after, or before, the first child.

I had a neighbour about 25 years ago who had a young son about 7 who was not particularly well-behaved, an intellectually disabled daughter about 10, and an elderly and obviously declining father. She also had two dogs, which she allowed to run loose, and which constantly chased cars that came to a stop at the intersection directly in front of the duplex where I lived, and had my office (the very first months I was in law practice), on the second floor.

One day, in complete exasperation and incomprehension, and after numerous requests and complaints about the dogs, I asked her: How can *you* stand it??

Do you have kids? she asked.
Hm, I thought. Well, I'll play: No, I answered.
Well, she said, If you can put up with the kids, you can put up with the dogs.

And there you are, I thought. A philosophy to live by.

Unfortunately, it really is the philosophy that a lot of people live by. You just put up. And many of them are pretty much right: they just don't have the resources or the power to do anything about their circumstances.

Or I dunno, maybe all drug addicts and social assistance recipients and violent 10-yr-olds really were born evil, or lazy, or both ...

I think I was basing it more on personal experience Janey. I realised after having my son that I was not one of life's "natural" mothers. I love my son and we have a really good relationship and considering I was a single parent through much of his childhood/adolescence he has turned out to be someone I can be very proud of, but, if I had my chance to go back and change things - would I? I would have to give that serious thought.

I don't consider myself a bad mother, but, I used to look around at all the other mums who seemed so happy and contented and I'd think "But babies - they're sooo boring!" I still think babies are boring, but young children, teenagers, young adults are not - aggravating sometimes - but usually fun or at least interesting.

So, looking at my view on my life, in her shoes - I would have moved heaven and earth to not have more than the one child ... I would have done anything not to have had more than the one child. No way would I have had seven children! (I personally managed to stop at just the one)

So she had a rough deal, a poor upbringing ... maybe. But if she'd paid a smidgeon of attention at school, or from her mates, she would have learnt of birth control at least. And yes, it's not infallible, but it goes some way to stopping at least a few of those pregnancies.

And I still think that having 7 children and then saying "I can't cope" is a bit bizarre. She probably couldn't cope from the first child.

Jill

It might go a very small way to preventing children seeing films like Chucky, and many others, if we had any sort of censorship that prevented them being made in the first place. We used to have a film censor.......and we used to have the late Mary Whitehouse too.

Maybe we are all supposed to have 'moved on' and be adult enough to not need someone telling us that some things are just not nice.........but, it seems not. It has been said that films/magazines/tv programmes with sex and violence in them do not influence people because people know that they are not real,...are just stories...........if this is so, why is an enormous amount of money spent by companies on advertising their products......surely they would not bother if no-one believed in them or bought them.....if people are influenced by advertising, then they are influenced by other things that they see too.......why have they stopped the advertising of cigarettes..........because cigarettes are bad for people of course.........how much more so then are images of extreme violence and sex.........One hopes that a good proportion of adults can tell that a particular brand of toothpaste or hair product is not actually going to change their lives, but what about the less intelligent adult.........and what about the children of that adult. If advertising makes people buy into a particular brand or culture, then so will advertising crime/violence/porn etc..it is all advertising in the end.

Eileen
birth name

Ms. G -- a bit odd ... so how do you explain it?

Are some people just born evil, causing them to become drug addicts and have 7 children and raise them in violence and chaos?

Or born "silly", causing them to do it?


I can't imagine doing any of those things. I was born *lucky*: my parents weren't drunks, my father had a job, I didn't live in a slum, I was instilled with enough feelings of self-worth to believe abusive men were not worthy of me, I was exposed to the ideas of women making our own choices and controlling our own fertility (and was not taught that contraception was a mortal sin) ...

Somehow I doubt that the woman in question had much of that luck.

I'm sorry but to have seven children and then complain that you can't cope seems a bit odd.

Surely you would realise sooner - after one or two children - and then do everything in your power - and I mean everything - not to have more.

Silly woman.

Jill

Ah, the Daily Mail and its fans ...


http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/jan/25/edlington-torture-doncaster-council-investigation

A serious case review into the brothers' dealings with a range of agencies concluded the incident was preventable. The council's children's services were already under fire following a series of deaths of youngsters known to the authority.

Today the Audit Commission announced it will carry out a corporate governance inspection of the council. These inspections are undertaken only rarely, when a council is deemed to be failing, or when its performance has been so persistently poor that public confidence or safety is at risk.

Last week, the two brothers, who were 10 and 11 at the time of the attack on the boys, aged nine and 11, were jailed indefinitely by a judge at Sheffield crown court who told them they must serve at least five years in custody.

The case provoked widespread criticism of agencies involved with the family in Doncaster and the executive summary of the serious case review revealed that the attack could have been prevented.

It included 18 recommendations for improving practice, with a catalogue of criticism of authorities' conduct in failing to protect the victims.

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10 and 11 years old. Yes, let's lock them up for life. Or maybe bring back hanging.

As I read it, the mother said she would sue IF she is prosecuted.

There really does have to be a basis for suing -- some damages for which one seeks compensation. If she isn't prosecuted, I don't see any. If she is, she has an arguable case.

There is universal agreement it seems -- the authorities **could have prevented** the crimes if they had done their job.


What solutions does anyone here have to offer, to problems like these kids?

Take away children at birth if we don't like the cut of the parents' jib?

Take away all children whose parents use drugs or alcohol to excess?

Will there be any children left in their own homes at the end of it?

And will all the hand-wringers be happily paying the taxes to keep the children in foster homes or institutions? Or maybe fostering them, themselves ...


Children suffer the consequences of many social problems. These kids certainly did. What must a child's life have been like for it to commit such acts?

"It emerged during the court case that the elder attacker watched ultra-violent movies as part of a home life of 'routine aggression, violence and chaos'. He also watched the gruesome Saw movies when he was as young as 10, and was familiar with the Chucky films, as well as pornography DVDs."

These children SHOULD have been removed. They weren't. Whose fault? Theirs?


I'm sure the parents themselves had model parents, and were reared in atmospheres of love and affection and wanted for nothing ...

I agree with everything that has been said, and I like the idea of sentencing the parents too. But, on some occasions it is genuinely not the parents fault. Children from good homes go bad too.

Hello All,

Why not let this woman exercise her ''human rights' and sue whoever she likes!! If she does, this would be heard in 'open court' and therefore she will be both named and shamed. In general these claims go before a jury, and what sensible body of "twelve good men and true" would ever award her any kind of compensation??
ALL the facts would have to come out, she wouldn't be able to hide behind anonymity, the world would then know exactly how she "brought up" her children.
I feel so terribly sad for the innocent children who were abused by these two, and even more sad for their parents who will be left wondering what they should have done to protect them.
Siouxie

As always, the parents get away with being useless role models, she will probably go on to have more kids, she should be sterilised and the father too.

Lizx

The parents are ultimatley to blame for there childrens actions, its unfair of them to pass the buck which unfortuanlty too many parents of vile children do, these kids aren't born bad they just reflect their homelife, violence breeds violence.

These kids must have had one hell of an upbringing to be as sadistic as they are.


The parents can blame social services all day long and yes they do make mistakes but the care and nurtering of those children was the parents responsibilty not social services.

Parents should serve the same sentence as the children, I know that is not the law, but to me makes sense.

gail

She is trying to pass the buck ,and make some too !! for her bad parenting. she was part of the awful way these children were brought up .or rather they way they brought themselves up in the terrible "home! life they survived in