March 9, 2012

Busy with my daily life the last couple of days, only today did I learn about the viral campaign KONY 2012. Despite the criticisms leveled at the video and the nonprofit “Invisible Children” since it was released, this video has obviously had a wide-ranging impact. It’s hard to argue with the goal of the protection of exploited children from a terrible villain. Some have claimed that the video is somewhat factually misleading, in part because Kony’s group has already moved out of Uganda while the goal appears to be to support the Ugandan government in hunting down and arresting Kony. Additionally, people view the Ugandan government itself as corrupt and guilty of exploitative practices; thus they see the move for the U.S. to give them support as problematic. The nonprofit “Invisible Children” has also been accused of problematic practices with respect to its fund allocation. What I find moving at first glance, however, is the apparent positive intention behind the creation of the video and the impressive marketing techniques used by the “Invisible Children” organization. Uploaded only 4 days ago, it has already been viewed over 58 million times on YouTube.

In the event you have not yet seen it, here is the link to the video: KONY 2012

March 5, 2012

A recent study out of Harvard University has provided more proof that childhood mistreatment causes damage to key parts of the brain. The study, conducted by Dr. Martin Teicher and colleagues, used MRI technology to show that the the hippocampi were reduced in volume in the brains of those who underwent adverse childhood experiences and childhood mistreatment. Such volume reductions particularly focused on the left side of the brain.

Damage to the hippocampus is associated with a number of psychiatric disorders including depression, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Bipolar Disorder, schizophrenia, and Dissociative Identity Disorder, among others. The hippocampus also controls memory and other essential brain functions.

Here is the academic citation for the article: Martin H. Teicher, Carl M. Anderson, and Ann Polcari, PNAS Plus: Childhood maltreatment is associated with reduced volume in the hippocampal subfields CA3, dentate gyrus, and subiculum, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) 2012 109 (9) E563-E563-E572; published ahead of print February 13, 2012.

A number of studies in recent years have been using modern technologies such as MRI and fMRI to scan brain structure and function and to demonstrate that childhood trauma leads to lasting brain abnormalities. I find it interesting that modern technology is helping in the fight against child abuse and maltreatment.

February 13, 2012

Women’s boxing is an Olympic event for the first time this year, and America’s strongest contender for a medal is Quanitta Underwood. Incidentally, Quanitta was just written up in the New York Times – a story about her traumatic childhood, specifically abuse at the hands of her father. Childhood abuse more common than people think.

I would like to post a link to this sad and horrible story, in the meanwhile reminding readers that child abuse hides in many insidious places, including in the lives of famous people. Think about the horror Quanitta and her sister lived through as little girls, their innocence taken from them far too early, her choice of career, perhaps in line with the pain she went through as a child.

The Living Nightmare. Quanitta Underwood: A Contender for Olympic Gold and a Survivor

December 27, 2011

It is well-documented that violence in the home as well as outside the home leads to emotional pain, stress, and physical suffering. A recent article in the December 2011/January 2012 Issue of the periodical Case in Point by Madeleine Gomez Ph.D. and Ernest Zambrano, M.B.A. documents calculations of the financial cost of violence to our medical system. In making the calculations, Gomez and Zambrano included both the direct and indirect costs of violence.

Here are their numbers for 2011:

• Domestic Violence Costs – $7,214,880,939
• Lost Productivity due to Domestic Violence – $3,167,509
• Gun-associated Violence – $36,356,369,206
• Indirect Costs of Mental Illness, including Disability – $226,794,493,617
• Total: $1,439,428,034,311

As explained by Gomez and Zambrano, these numbers only constitute an attempt to calculate medical costs associated with violence. Additional costs not incorporated in these calculations include law enforcement, legal, monitoring, court, incarceration, and special school costs, as well as collateral expenses associated with witnesses to the violence.

Gomez and Zambrano also list recommendations for what can be done to help reduce violence, including new parent education and home intervention programs.

For details describing the calculations and their bases, see the full text of this article at the following link: Healthcare’s Violent Struggle, Assessing the Economic Importance of Reducing Violence.

November 29, 2011

At least three known child deaths have been linked to the child discipline book “To Train Up a Child” written by Michael and Debi Pearl, a fundamentalist Christian minister and his wife.

Their book advocates corporal punishment for children from infancy using implements and even suggests withholding food and hosing children down for behavior lapses. As I’ve written previously, the Pearls’ writings have a wide following.

Recent child deaths caused by beatings administered by parents pursuant to the Pearls’ instructions have received significant publicity.

The trial in the case involving Larry and Carri Williams of Sedro-Woolley, Washington, is set for May 7, 2012. Out on bail after being accused of beating their 13-year-old adopted daughter to death, the Williams now face life in prison on a homicide charge.

Their daughter was found face down, naked, and emaciated in her family’s backyard on May 12, 2011. Officials determined her death to have been caused by hypothermia and malnutrition. According to the sherriff’s affidavit, she had been beaten earlier in the day with 15-inch plastic piping. The use of this piping to “train” children is one of the primary recommendations in the Pearls’ book.

November 3, 2011

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wl9y3SIPt7o&feature=youtu.be&has_verified=1

23 year-old Hillary Adams of Texas, who secretly videotaped her father beating her angrily with a belt when she was 16 years-old for downloading internet materials, recently released the video on YouTube sparking a firestorm of response and controversy.

Her father, Juvenile and Family Law Judge William Adams, of Aransas County, Texas, has now acknowledged that he is the one shown in the video but also claimed that the incident was not as bad as it appears in the video.

According to Hillary and her mother, Hallie Adams, also shown in the video assisting the father in the beating, violence in the home was a regular occurrence, with the mother making a reference to addiction. The mother has since apologized to her daughter for her actions, acknowledging that she did what William Adams told her to do in the home. The mother and daughter now make reference to both physical and emotional abuse. In fact, according to Hillary, it was the continuing emotional abuse that was “the straw that broke the camel’s back” leading her to release the video.

The YouTube video has gone viral and led to a Facebook page titled “Don’t Re-Elect Judge William Adams”, which has attracted over 27,000 “Likes” as of this writing. Judge Adams has also been relieved of his work duties temporarily pending investigation. Aransas County police and the District Attorney’s Office are conducting an investigation, with the District Attorney evaluating the potential of filing charges. They are looking at the age of the child and the statute of limitations, among other factors. The Texas State Commission on Judicial Conduct has declined to comment on the situation apart from an acknowledgement of awareness.

Numerous major news outlets are presenting this story, including Anderson Cooper’s AC360, which will be airing an interview with Hillary Adams this evening.

Hillary’s YouTube posting is accompanied by the following language:

2004: Aransas County Court-At-Law Judge William Adams took a belt to his own teenage daughter as punishment for using the internet to acquire music and games that were unavailable for legal purchase at the time. She has had ataxic cerebral palsy from birth that led her to a passion for technology, which was strictly forbidden by her father’s backwards views. The judge’s wife was emotionally abused herself and was severely manipulated into assisting the beating and should not be blamed for any content in this video. The judge’s wife has since left the marriage due to the abuse, which continues to this day, and has sincerely apologized and repented for her part and for allowing such a thing, long before this video was even revealed to exist. Judge William Adams is not fit to be anywhere near the law system if he can’t even exercise fit judgement as a parent himself. Do not allow this man to ever be re-elected again. His “judgement” is a giant farce. Signed, Hillary Adams, his daughter.

November 2, 2011

Bill Montgomery, the District Attorney of Maricopa County in Arizona has a unique and perhaps revolutionary proposal to reform his county’s response to child abuse reports. Instead of initial Child Protective Services (“CPS”) involvement as is typical, Mongomery would create a two-tiered system in which a separate unit with trained investigators routes a case after intake to either the criminal unit or to CPS.

Cases in which the investigator believes felony-level criminal abuse occured would be immediately routed to the criminal unit, reported to the police, and taken out of the hands of CPS. Once the parents are charged, the children would be placed with foster parents specially trained to take care of children who have been criminally abused, while the parental case would move quickly toward severance of parental rights and adoption. The parents would then have the burden of demonstrating that they should be permitted to keep the child.

If, on the other hand, the initial investigator believes that social services involvement is appropriate and a level four felony has not occured, then the case would be routed to CPS, for the agency to conduct its process of the provision of social services and attempts at reunification.

Montgomery’s proposal was triggered in large part by his observation and review of reports of numerous cases in which CPS dealt ineffectively with child abuse by working at reunification at all costs, even when child abuse was serious. He is severely troubled by the numbers of child fatalities in cases where CPS returned children to parents determined to be abusive.

In Montgomery’s view, it is most important that children be protected from criminal abuse above all, leaving less critical issues to the social services system to handle: “[W]e as a society will deliberately walk that child back into the arms of the person who criminally abused them and say we can make this good. Nonsense.”

He believes that this bifurcated approach could even lead to fewer children being removed from homes because the standard for removal could be higher in CPS cases where the system removes the fear of threat and severe harm to the child.

October 18, 2011

The Irish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children created a moving and brutal advertisement intended for television as its summer campaign, which features a small boy proclaiming his hopes for a future free from violence while being beaten by a man who is presumably his father.

After drawing some early criticism for being too traumatic for television, the video was ultimately banned in Ireland for an unrelated reason. Namely, the Irish advertising Standards Authority (“IASA”) received 13 complaints that the advertisement is sexist because a man is doing the beating rather than a woman. The IASA agreed, deciding that “in the absence of reliable statistics” on whether men or women are mostly at fault for violence against children, the ad is too sexist to stay on the air.

Some have speculated that the censorship has drawn more attention to the campaign with the You Tube video at 601,238 views as of this writing.

August 28, 2011

One of my readers forwarded me some information about a recent child death caused by parental abuse. It is always horrible to hear that a child was killed by his or her own parents, though I seem to hear of these incidents constantly. This instance, however, had a particularly intense emotional impact on me. I feel as if I am choking back tears as I write this now.

In 2010, a couple named Kevin and Elizabeth Schatz were charged with murder for killing their 7 year old adopted daughter during a “training” session in which they engaged based on advice given in a childrearing book by Michael and Debi Pearl called “To Train Up a Child”. The Pearls’ teachings have a significant following.

According to the Pearls’ website, Michael Pearl is a pastor, missionary, and evangelist with the couple’s ministry “No Greater Joy Ministries” (“NGJ”). One of the most widely promoted tenets of NGJ relates to childrearing. According to language on the Pearls’ website and in their literature, their childrearing methods lead to joyful, well-behaved and loving children. They promote corporal punishment that necessarily inflicts pain using implements and tools beginning from infancy to teach children to be well-behaved. They frequently repeat the biblical retort concerning sparing the rod as their justification.

One of the practices promoted by the Pearls on their website is the use of plastic plumbing tubing which according to them can be purchased at any hardware store and keeping it around the house in various locations. This is apparently the Pearls’ modern version of the biblical “rod”. Here is their description of it in one of their advice artcles on the NGJ Ministries’ website:

“The rod we speak of is a plumbing supply line that can be bought at any hardware store or large department store. It is a slim, flexible, plastic tubing that supplies water to sinks, and toilets. Ask for ‘1/4 inch supply line.’ They cost less than one dollar. I always give myself one swat before I swat the child to remind myself how much force to exert. It stings the skin without bruising or damaging tissue. It’s a real attention-getter. Michael demonstrates its use in our new Seminar videos.”

The Schatz’s were engaging in the use of the plastic tubing to “train” their 7 year old adopted daughter for several hours because she mispronounced a word in a children’s book. This training led to her death. The Shatz’s regularly engaged in this form of discipline with their children based at least in part on the Pearls’ advice in their popular book “To Train Up a Child”, though with more vigor applied to the teachings inflicted on their adopted children than on their biological children. In this instance, not only did the training kill their 7 year old Lydia, but it also gravely injured her older sister Zariah, whose injuries included kidney failure.

I looked up some reviews for “To Train Up a Child” and was deeply disturbed by the numbers of glowing pronouncements concerning the childrearing methods promoted by the Pearls and how well-behaved people felt their children were after having applied the Pearls’ biblical methods.

The following is a summary of the results of some recent research on the subject.

Corporal punishment leads to violence and aggressive behavior, as well as other social problems

In a study out of Duke University, researchers found that spanking (but not verbal punishment) at age 1 predicted child aggressive behavior problems at age 2. (Berlin, L. J., Ispa, J. M., Fine, M. A., Malone, P. S., Brooks-Gunn, J., Brady-Smith, C., Ayoub, C. and Bai, Y. (2009), Correlates and Consequences of Spanking and Verbal Punishment for Low-Income White, African American, and Mexican American Toddlers. Child Development, 80: 1403–1420.)

In addition, researchers have found a link between parents who use severe physical discipline and children who become overly aggressive.(Lehigh Researchers Examine Link Between Abusive Child-Rearing, Overly Aggressive Behavior; ScienceDaily (Feb. 6, 2001) ([http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2001/02/010202073032.htm])

In another study, two researchers named Eric P. Slade and Lawrence S. Wissow followed a group of 1,966 children younger than two years old to test the hypothesis that the frequency of spanking before age two is directly correlated with the probability of having significant behavior problems four years later. (Slade E., Wissow L. Spanking in Early Childhood and Later Behavior Problems: A Prospective Study of Infants and Young Toddlers, Pediatrics, vol. 113, no. 5, May 2004).

The researchers collected data about 1,966 children and their mothers who participated in the National Longitudinal Survey of Mother-Child Sample, a large-scale national study of youth ages fourteen to twenty-one. Some of these young people were mothers with children. Data were collected on the mother-children groups when the children were under two years of age. Four years later, after the children had entered elementary school, the researchers interviewed the mothers to explore their hypothesis. Mothers were asked if they spanked their child the previous week and how frequently they spanked their children. They were also questioned about the child’s temperament, mother-child interactions, and whether they had ever met with the child’s teacher due to behavioral problems.

Slade and Wissow found that, compared with children who were never spanked, children who were frequently spanked (five times a week) before age two were four times more likely to have behavioral problems by the time they started school. (Slade E., Wissow L. Spanking in Early Childhood and Later Behavior Problems: A Prospective Study of Infants and Young Toddlers, Pediatrics, vol. 113, no. 5, May 2004).

In a different study, one of a series of studies of physically abused schoolchildren, Salzinger and colleagues looked at 87 children aged 8 to 12, finding that children who had been subject to severe corporal punishment exhibited problematic social behaviors, including lower peer status, less positive reciprocity with peers chosen as friends, ratings by peers as more aggressive and less cooperative, by parents as more disturbed, and participation in social networks with more insularity, negativity and atypicality. (Salzinger, S., Social Relationships of Physically Abused Schoolchildren (1993-1997), including The Effects of Physical Abuse on Children’s Social Relationships, Salzinger, Suzanne; Feldman, Richard S.; Hammer, Muriel; Rosario, Margaret, Child Dev, 1993, 64, 1, 169-187, Blackwell Publishing on behalf of the Society for Research in Child Development.)

Corporal Punishment Leads to Lower Intelligence Levels

In one study, University of New Hampshire professor Murray Straus led a study which he presented on September 25, 2009 at the 14th International Conference on Violence, Abuse and Trauma, in San Diego, California, in which he and his colleagues made finding concerning IQ and spanking both in the United States and worldwide. (Straus, Murray A. and Mallie J. Paschall. Corporal Punishment by Mothers and Development of Children’s Cognitive Ability: A Longitudinal Study of Two Nationally Representative Age Cohorts. Journal of Aggression Maltreatment & Trauma, 2009; 18 (5): 459 DOI: 10.1080/10926770903035168.)

In the United States, Professor Straus and Mallie Paschall, senior research scientist at the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation, studied nationally representative samples of 806 children ages 2 to 4, and 704 children ages 5 to 9.

Four years later, they retested both groups. They found that the IQs of children ages 2 to 4 who were not spanked were 5 points higher four years later than the IQs of those who were spanked. The IQs of children ages 5 to 9 years old who were not spanked were 2.8 points higher four years later than the IQs of children the same age who were spanked.

Further, the frequency of spanking made a difference in cognitive development and ability. The more a child was spanked, the slower was the development of the child’s mental ability.

Professor Straus and his colleagues also studied the effects of corporal punishment worldwide. In 32 nations, Straus and his colleagues used data on corporal punishment experienced by 17,404 university students when they were children, and found a lower national average IQ in nations in which spanking was more prevalent.

According to Straus, the link could be caused by the intense stress experienced by children subjected to corporal punishment, particularly continuing corporal punishment, including Post Traumatic Stress Disorder symptoms, which are associated with decreased IQ’s.

Another study at Duke University found that (among other consequences) children who were spanked as one year olds did not perform as well as other children on a test measuring thinking skills at age 3 (the Bayley mental development test). (Berlin, L. J., Malone, P. S., Ayoub, C. A, Ispa, J., Fine, M., Brooks-Gunn, J., Brady-Smith, C., & Bai, Y. Correlates and Consequences of Spanking and Verbal Punishment for Low Income White, African American, and Mexican American Toddlers. Child Development. 2009.)

In an earlier study, Straus at the University of New Hampshire and colleagues released evidence which showed that the more often a child is spanked, the lower the child scores in IQ tests four years later. Their paper was described by Straus at the World Congress of Sociology on August 1, 1998 in Montreal, Quebec. They examined 960 American children who were between one and four years old between 1986 and 1990. (“Corporal Punishment by Mothers and Child’s Cognitive Development: A Longitudinal Study” (Family Research Laboratory, University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH; a paper presented at the 14th World Congress of Sociology, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, 1998.)

Thirteen percent of the parents studied reported spanking their children seven or more times a week. The average was 3.6 spankings per week. Twenty-seven percent reported using no physical punishment. Those children who were spanked frequently averaged 98 on their IQ tests — a below average score. Those who were rarely or never spanked scored 102 — an above-average score. The four point average decline in IQ among the spanked students is sufficient to have a negative functional effect on those children. (Corporal Punishment by Mothers and Child’s Cognitive Development: A Longitudinal Study, Family Research Laboratory, University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH; a paper presented at the 14th World Congress of Sociology, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, 1998.)

Additionally, repeated corporal punishment can lead to the development of PTSD or other stress disorders, the process of which interferes with optimal cognitive development. (Carrion VG, Weems CF, Watson C, Eliez S, Menon V, Reiss AL. Converging evidence for abnormalities of the prefrontal cortex and evaluation of midsagittal structures in pediatric posttraumatic stress disorder: an MRI study. Psychiatry Res. 2009; 172 (3): 226-34. Carrion VG, Weems CF, Richert K, Hoffman BC, Reiss AL. Decreased prefrontal cortical volume associated with increased bedtime cortisol in traumatized youth. Biol Psychiatry. 2010; 68 (5): 491-3.)

Researchers have also found a link between post traumatic stress symptoms in children subjected to interpersonal violence and lowered verbal IQ. This indicates that children who may develop PTSD based on continuing and/or severe corporal punishment may develop lower verbal IQ scores. (Saltzman KM, Weems CF, Carrion VG. IQ and posttraumatic stress symptoms in children exposed to interpersonal violence. Child Psychiatry Hum Dev.2006 Spring;36(3):261-72.)

While I do not want to pronounce my own judgments on any religion and recognize that people of all religions have used religious rhetoric to justify child abuse, I have to say that it appears particularly pernicious to me to use God and love as precepts to justify our own infliction of cruelty and violence on the innocent and helpless children we have been charged with protecting. In addition, I want to point out that it is violence and cruelty by a child’s own parents inflicted when the child’s brain is just developing that imprints in that child’s brain architecture that very same cruelty and violence which the parents claim to be preventing.

The following link leads to recent video interview with the Pearls conducted through Anderson Cooper and CNN: http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/bestoftv/2011/08/16/exp.ac.tuchman.ungodlypt2.cnn?iref=allsearch

August 25, 2011

The National Association of Pediatric Nurse Practitioners (“NAPNAP”) has issued an official position statement calling for widespread education about the harmful effects of corporal punishment. In the statement, issued on June 25, 2011, the Association takes a direct stance in opposition to corporal punishment in the home as well as in schools and instead asserts support for “alternative, non-violent, age-appropriate discipline strategies.”

Defining corporal punishment as “the use of physical force with the intention of causing a child to experience pain but not injury, for the purposes of correction or control of the child’s behavior”, the Association states that spanking can often be a first step toward escalating violence and cycles of abuse, potentially leading to beating with fists, switches, belts, cords, or other objects.

Pediatric Nurse Practitioners are in fact in a strategic position of direct contact with children and families such as to observe and advocate concerning effective versus harmful parenting methods.

Acknowledging that recent studies indicate that the majority of American parents use corporal punishment, the NAPNAP indicates that education is critical to ensure parents understand that what may be effective at stopping a particular behavior in the immediate present can be harmful to that child in the long term. The statement cites studies which have directly linked corporal punishment to higher levels of violence by the individual throughout the life span including increased violent behavior in adulthood.

You can read the full text of the NAPNAP’s official position statement at this link: NAPNAP Position Statement on Corporal Punishment.