Posts in month: May, 2010

Oh man, it’s too early for this!!

Max and I are trudging up a hill deep in the forest. But it is only 5 o’clock in the morning!

My son was several feet ahead of me and I wanted to sneak up behind him and grab him. My mind was willing but my legs came to a stop. They were struggling. Um, excuse me, I can usually dance up this hill, am I that tired? In a word, Yes!

So why are we out here this early in the morning?

Max often wakes up at 5 but sometimes like today, even earlier. The standard procedure calls for his mom to go in to be with him. Sometimes they both fall asleep again; other times he is up and ready to start the day. This was one of the latter.

There was a difference however. Today he called for dad instead of mom! Even though I was sound asleep at the time, it was music to my ears. And truth be told, my wife was happy too. It was good for her because she could sleep longer. And it was good for me because I generally feel a little left out that he has no interest in me early on.

I went into his room to find that he was a bundle of energy today. I knew that unless I did something quickly his mother would not get any sleep at all. I suggested we walk down to the park. I waited for his answer with bated breath, worried that he would say no. He generally likes to stick around the house this early in the morning.

As I feared he did say no but he followed that up with a request to climb the hill. Hey, even better!

Why am I excited about this? There are several reasons:

• I really enjoy being out in the woods and climbing the hill.

• It means I can get some exercise in early.

• I will be with my son.

The most important reason however is that intense exercise early in the morning has a calming effect on Max before his meds start working. Generally when he gets up this early he is wild and very quick to anger. As a result he will yell and use the most foul language.

When we get out in nature he settles down and is much happier. It doesn’t completely stop the anger. He had one outburst this morning before the bus came but it thankfully lasted only one minute.

So here we were climbing the hill. The sun was shining and even though it was cool I was wearing shorts. And yes, my legs struggled. Max slowed down to check on me a couple of times but then he would continue on ahead. Yeah, thanks kid!

When we reached the top we burst out of the trees onto a grassy sward with a stone bench at the top. We sat for a minute staring out at the skyline. It was a blue and perfect morning. I drank some water and Max, decadent boy, had a couple of swigs of chocolate milk.

I pointed off into the distance, “I think we are looking at New Hampshire out there.” I mentioned a couple of friends of ours that live there and I wondered what they were doing then.

Max responded that one was one his way to work and the other was probably just going to bed after working all night. We laughed and I suggested we head home so Max could finish his homework before he took off to work too. “Daddy, you mean school!”

And we headed down the hill while wishing we could spend more time just enjoying the day together exploring the forest.

Sunday looked like it was going to be a good day. After church my son Max and I put together a list of jobs we would do that day. These included raking grass cuttings; planting grass in an area where a tree once stood; and finally planting Max’s garden.

After we did the raking I realized Max hadn’t had lunch yet so I took him off to the fast food joint down the street. We wanted to make it quick so we could get back to work. We took the drive-thru lane and picked up a burger.

We were gone 5 minutes but as we pulled into the driveway my wife came running. Apparently Max’s buddy at the end of our street had stopped in looking for him. He had only left a minute ago.

Max didn’t waste a second; he was on his scooter and down the driveway before we even realized he was gone. Minutes later he dragged himself back to the house; his pal was not outside. He called him only to find that plans had changed. Within moments of getting home he started playing Monopoly with his parents.

Max began to cry. Very quickly he became inconsolable. This is not like him. He never cries. If he gets hurt he grits his teeth and moves on through the pain. My wife called to find out what was really happening. Yes they were playing but at 2 pm their son would be going to his baseball game. He would be home by 4. And, oh by the way, Max can come over and watch.

Watch? My son is an “action guy”. He cannot just sit and observe other people having fun! The crying continued. For the next 3 hours it was “is it 4 yet?”

“Not yet, we have 1 hour and 50 minutes left.” Wail!

Max’s friend did not get home at 4 which started more problems. My wife decided to take him for an ice cream but he wouldn’t go because he was afraid he would miss him. I promised that if the boy showed up I would keep him here until Max got back. This mollified him and he left.

His friend actually showed up at 6:30 but he only had a half an hour. When it was time to go home Max was upset yet again but at least he finally got a little time with him.

Anyway, all of this trouble ruined the afternoon for all of us. The yard work was postponed and my wife was unable to get dinner started on time.

You see, Max has a lot of issues. He is a bipolar Aspie with adhd. Because of this he doesn’t make friends easily. Parents of “normal” kids are hesitant about letting them play with him. They aren’t sure how he is going to be with them. Quite often he ends up playing with other special needs children instead and though he likes them he really wants to be thought of as “normal”.

When an issue like this happens it is devastating for him. He takes it personally and believes that his friend really doesn’t care whether they play together or not. Which, in this case, is true. We have noticed that this boy only wants to play with Max if no one else is around. My son, on the other hand, would play with him every day if he could.

As my wife said she should not have mentioned that the boy had come over since Max and I already had plans and things were going so well. But you know even we didn’t think that this boy’s mind could have changed so quickly.

And yes, it is true, that children need to learn from disappointment but Max seems to get more than most. It would be nice if he could catch a break sometimes!

I generally don’t talk about me very much in these posts. I have been more interested in sharing information about other people in my life. These include my son Max and people that I support through my pca, yard work, and handyman work.

Today it is different. This was the day to mow my lawn. It is not a particularly warm day. It is in the 70s and may reach 80 F. But I have multiple sclerosis. Any overheating can make my symptoms worse. Generally, for me, I get very hot and lethargic.

For this reason my lawn can take 2 to 3 hours spread over 2 days to mow. And I always feel knocked out when I am done. It can even be difficult writing a post. My mind tends to feel like mush.

However, I am one of the “funny you don’t look sick” people. Others are surprised if I mention that I have MS. I look healthy and I generally have enough energy to take care of others. I just collapse when I get home.

Today I keep stopping and then continuing to write this post. I’ve taken a warm shower which helped cool me down but it’s a struggle. I have a lot more to do today including selling a client’s car, and moving a lot of suitcases for Suitcases4Kids.

I have a couple of clients who are much much more affected than I am. They are in wheelchairs and need the help of a pca 7 days a week mornings and evenings. One of them still works from home; she won’t give up. This is despite having to get help moving from her bed to chair to bathroom.

Even though the heat is terrible for her she still loves to get outside in the summer. She tools around town on her scooter checking up on longtime friends. And she works in her garden. She weeds, plants, feeds, and waters. It is fairly large and I must say each year it looks more beautiful than the last.

The heat bothers her immensely; perhaps more so than me. Because of that when she goes out she wears a Cooling Vest. She puts it on and then loads it up with ice packs that she keeps in the refrigerator freezer. In this way she can keep her temperature down. The result is very little overheating and some relief from her MS symptoms.

I have never used one of these vests but I’m starting to think that after seeing how successful she is with it that I may get one. I find that as I get older the heat affects me more and more. I want to continue to work and this looks like it can help me too.

This is an example of what a Cooling Vest looks like:

This vest is light weight, only 5 pounds. One size fits all and comes with 10 reusable cooling packs. The advertisement says that it can be worn under clothes however my client and others that I have met generally just wear it over their clothes allowing them to easily put it on or remove it.

The Cooling Vest link brings you to the Amazon website where you can find out more about it. If you like it and choose to buy it please note that I do get a small commission. However, other than that Amazon does not pay me to sell their products. I suggest them only to help bring some improvement into the lives of my readers and their loved ones.

My son Max is a happy kid….sometimes.

He is an angry kid….sometimes.

He can also be a depressed kid…sometimes.

And he will probably be all of these and others within 20 minutes.

How can this be?

“Childhood-Onset Bipolar Disorder is described as abnormally intense mood swings that alternate from periods of severe highs (mania) to severe lows (depression). Children experience rapid mood swings that can cycle many times within a day.”

This can be very rough on a child who doesn’t understand why these changes keep happening. If you ask Max why he does what he does he will say “I don’t know” very sadly. He doesn’t always have control over these mood swings.

The problem comes in when these happen around other people. Parents witness what is going on and become afraid to have him around their kids. They imagine that he will hurt them when he is going through an anger phase. Play dates can then be few and far between. And Max doesn’t understand why he isn’t seeing his friends very much.

But I’m not convinced that with Max it is all just uncontrollable rapid cycling of emotions. I am with him a lot so I get to observe what he is doing. It appears to me that in some cases he doesn’t like feeling an emotion for a long period of time.

He can be happy and doing something he really enjoys. But then the happiness goes on too long so he does something inappropriate. He angrily battles the resulting timeout but finally takes it. Later he is unhappy and contrite; apologizing profusely for what he has done wrong.

Once this is cleared up he is happy again and ready to play.

Our parenting counselor recently commented that bipolar kids have to learn to live with the adrenaline in their bodies. They aren’t used to being calm and happy for long periods of time.

She suggested that the adrenaline rush they get as their emotions quickly change is similar to waiting until the last day before getting a term paper done or completing and postmarking tax returns minutes before the deadline.

This I can understand. I don’t recall ever starting a paper until very late. I am then very tense and anxious until I have completed it. And you know what? I never start my tax returns until the last couple of days. Don’t get me wrong I’ve thought about both months before they were due and have had some kind of a plan swirling around my head. But I can never put pen to paper or fingers to keyboard until very late.

This is Max’s normal behavior but he can also have one bad week a month. This is where nothing seems to go right for him. The simplest thing can set him off. No one and nothing is right and he is angry with the world. The following week he tends to be very sweet with very little trouble.

With a child like this if parents can understand what bipolar disorder is all about they can learn how to treat it properly. Parenting support groups are available. Encouraging your child to talk to outsiders such as mentors can help immensely.

As I write this Max is out playing with his mentor. She comes for two hours each week and he looks forward to her visits even when he is in a bad mood.

I can never say it enough:  Don’t do it alone.

It takes more than one person to get through bipolar and the chaos that can result.

As a PCA (Personal Care Assistant) I work with many different people. I don’t have a specific set schedule but I fill in for regular pcas when they can’t make one of their scheduled days. In the process I come in contact with people that have a lot of physical and mental issues. Sometimes they have problems coming to terms with what is happening to them.

I am not a psychologist. I can only listen to them and perhaps offer an opinion if they ask. For example, I have one client who seems to have been hit with a lot of things at once. Instead of being able to work on one problem at a time he is overwhelmed with trying to come up with solutions for all of them.

• These are some of his current issues:Just this past Christmas he needed an operation on his lower back because his spinal cord was being constricted by cartilage. Ever since he has been wheelchair bound. He is able to move himself around his apartment but if he goes outside he needs someone else to push him. This is very different from when, as a carpenter, he would be up and down ladders all day building houses.

• His brother died last year. This was the last of his siblings. Something like this can really emphasize your mortality.

• He and his wife have spent the last of their money. Now they are living on her social security check. This means that they have had to move from a decent 2 room apartment to a smaller 2 room subsidized apartment. This has the affect of making him feel like a failure at taking care of his wife.

• More and more medicine has been prescribed for him lately. Now he is suffering from side effects. For example, some of them can cause short term memory loss. And now we find that he will repeat a question over and over again because he has forgotten that he has asked it already. Now certainly this can be the start of Alzheimer’s but when several meds suggest this as a side effect, it is something to look at. But for him it is just another sign of losing his independence. He has to rely on people to take care of him.

• He still owns a car but since the fall he has not been able to drive it. It just sits in the driveway. His pcas all do his shopping for him now. If his wife needs to go on an errand she will call their neighbor. They are also paying too much in car insurance. His decision after a lot of soul searching and talking to his wife is to sell the car. She told me that when they discussed it she cried and perhaps he did too. The man has been driving since he was 10 years old on his father’s farm. That’s 75 years. Yet another sign of lost independence.

• And most recently he complained about pain and swelling in his knee. It appears that he has “water on the knee”. He doesn’t remember falling or bruising it so the cause is a mystery. I was contracted to take him to a doctor. It wasn’t as bad as everyone had thought and the decision was to put him on physical therapy for a couple of weeks. This was more evidence of him getting old and his body failing.

With everything hitting him at once like this he has become very unhappy. I can’t say that he is suffering from depression. That will be something that a doctor would have to determine but I know he dreads ending up in a nursing home. If that happens, he says, he will get into bed, turn his face to the wall, and wait for the end.

I have heard a lot of people say things like:

“Come on, he is in his 80’s now. He should expect these things to be happening.”

“He is lucky to even be alive at this age.”

“He should just slow down and accept any help that is offered.”

“You know if I was his age I’d love to be going into assisted living.”

But I’ll tell you a secret. These people will say this now but when they actually get that age they will be resistant to the change as well. Why? Because they will find that they are losing their independence. They won’t have any control anymore over the things that they do or how they spend their money. Or worst of all, keeping their bodies from falling apart.

This is where my client is at. He has gone from being a strong robust independent man to an invalid. His wife is also in her 80s and she has been declining so she cannot help him very much. This means that he has to rely on strangers to take care of him. He has been having a very difficult time coming to terms with all of this.

When I am with him we get to laugh a lot. To him I am “the kid” even though I’m in my 50s. I do as much as I have to to get him where he needs to be but otherwise I let him do as much as he can himself. And I listen to his stories. He’s got a lot of them.

When I am his age I hope I have lots of stories to tell my son who is 9 now. Max has been trying to make sure I stay healthy.

He gets me working out constantly: “Max, how many times do you think I can run around the track??”

He is after me to lose weight: “Come on Max, I’m not that heavy!!”

But you know what, I can see myself in 30 years being in the same place my client is. I see it as part of my job to help him transition from unhappiness to acceptance and perhaps be able to take a more active interest in life again.

“Where’s Mommy?’ the boy yelled when he came into the room.

“She’s sleeping.”

“What?? That F@#$%$% B#$*(!”

He dashed out of the room. The next sound is the crashing of the bedroom door.

“)*(&)&* )(*)(*&)&* #$%$% ()&)&!!”

His Mom struggles bleary eyed downstairs.

What happens now? Of course timeouts and loss of privileges result from his actions. In fact, some parents will also spank their children. Eventually these kids learn several things from incidences like this:

• Swearing is not allowed

• Smashing doors and running are not allowed

• Screaming is not allowed

• Patience

These are the “regular” kids. But what about children that have Bipolar Disorder, PDD, Asperger’s, or some other neurological disorder?

There is an area in our brains that is known as the “frontal lobe”. This is where the executive functions live. These coordinate “higher functioning processes” such as speech, problem solving, self control, and attention. Every human being accesses them constantly as they resolve problems that arise.

When a child is born and through their early years their executive functions are taught how to work by their parents, teachers, and other adults. This is where a child learns not to swear or have tantrums and to learn patience. But in a child that has a disorder some of these processes may be damaged or even missing. As a result they cannot go through the normal learning procedure.

These kids may not be able to control their language. They may not have empathy for others because they cannot read the cues in people’s body language. They may not be capable of learning patience or self control. The timeouts, loss of privileges, and spanking won’t be enough because they cannot learn from these actions.

So what do we do? One of the fall back methods is to commit them to a psychiatric hospital. Another is to keep them medicated so that there will be little or no violence, screaming, or tantrums.

But aren’t we selling our kids short when we do this? Isn’t there some other way to help our children through these rough areas?

Dr. Paul Schottland, a cognitive psychologist quoted in “The Bipolar Child Newsletter“, suggests that parents look at this as a computer problem. Usually the software is included in the package; that is, the child is born with it. But if it isn’t then parents need to “install the software that isn’t there on the hard drive” by hand or reinstall it if it is damaged and then train it to act properly.

He goes on to talk about “cognitive mediators”. These are thoughts that can be used to replace the rigid unpleasant thoughts that these kids have in their heads. Tools such as these can help our children overcome their cognitive weaknesses.

Do these take the place of medicine? Any parent that is raising a child like this knows that using some meds to help calm their child’s mind goes along way in introducing and working with these tools.

The bottom line is we can just give up and put our kids into hospitals. We can drug them to keep them docile. Or we can “install the software” our children will need to survive in life.

I took my son Max to a baseball game at Fenway Park on Wednesday. It was the Red Sox against the Blue Jays. It was a big surprise my wife and I planned for him. He had never even seen the park let alone gone to a professional game there.

I hadn’t planned on going but someone offered me tickets and I knew it was something that Max had always wanted to do. And besides I hadn’t been to a game in 20 years.

We didn’t tell him about it until the morning of the game. His ADHD and anxiety gets him overexcited and he will spend days asking how soon we are going and then throw a tantrum when it doesn’t happen immediately. When we finally told him, he was screaming and yelling in excitement. But when it was time for school he went without a fuss and just talked about it when he got there without any problems.

I picked him up at school at 11 a.m. and then collected his cousin who went with us. For an added bonus we took the subway in which they loved enormously. On the way they did some train surfing. That is, they stood in the aisle facing the windows and took surfing stances without holding on to anything.

When they both saw the park their eyes nearly popped out of their heads. Neither one had ever seen it except on television and now they were here and about to see their team!

But then Max saw the vendors. I’ve talked about his buying addiction but you’ve got to understand, he saw hats, t-shirts, tiny baseball bats, $100 baseballs, and giant fingers. Every time he discovered something it was:

“Buy it Daddy”

“No”

“Oh – whine!!”

“Follow your cousin and let’s find our seats.”

In the end of each inning it was the same thing:

“Buy it Daddy”

“No”

“Oh – whine!!”

You’d think that it would be enough to see Fenway Park, the Red Sox, and his idols David Ortiz, Dustin Pedroia, Tim Wakefield, and Mike Lowell. But he couldn’t concentrate on them he had seen “golden stuff”.

It has gotten so bad my wife and I have declared a buying moratorium for 30 days. We will buy healthy food but not junk. And we won’t buy toys or anything else. Somehow we have to curb his addiction.

One of the slogans for keeping kids off drugs is “Just Say No!”. In this case “No” is not enough. And the sad thing is buying doesn’t satisfy him. He will be glad for 2 minutes that he got “his heart’s desire” but then something else always shows up.

Psychology Today has, what they call, “3 Proven Strategies for Stopping Overshopping“:

1. Identify your triggering emotions.

2. Discover your authentic needs.

3. Instead of shopping, tailor-make alternatives.

Great advice. I think Max could make good use of this as an adult. As a child with ADHD, Bipolar Disorder, Asperger’s Syndrome, and a lot of anxiety it might still work though it will be difficult to keep him focused. I have yet to find anything that is dedicated to helping a child. He has had a difficult time identifying reasons for his anger.

He thinks his authentic needs are the baseball, or t-shirt, or baseball cap.

And he is very good at making what he wants but this doesn’t take away the thrill of picking up an object in a store; then taking it to a cash register and handing over some money; and after that leaving with his “shiny new thing”.

Have other parents had any success with this?

I like to talk about my son the inventor. Max is 9 years old and for years has always been putting things together to help him get around, across, and through obstacles. My wife and I are waiting for him to up with that one brilliant idea that will let us retire.

We joke about this a lot but we never thought it really could happen. You see, with all of his disorders we didn’t think he would be able to accomplish all the great things we know he is really intelligent enough to do. He has been diagnosed with ADHD, Bipolar Disorder, Asperger’s (sometimes PDD instead), ODD, OCD, and anxiety among other things.

With all of the medication he is on we have been afraid that it would stunt his mental growth. Michael Moore, the creator of many movies including “Roger and Me”, once said if his parents had put him on medication for his ADHD he doesn’t think he would have accomplished what he has.

We have a parenting counselor who meets with us each week. She helps us work through Max’s issues. We told her how he wants to go to MIT and become an inventor. When we mentioned that we didn’t think he would succeed she told us not to bet on that. He’s smart, has the capabilities, and will probably pleasantly surprise us. She has spent a lot of time at MIT and she told us that most, if not all, of the students had similar issues and had worked through them to accomplish great things.

And he keeps inventing. Just the other day he built a rainforest in the backyard. He didn’t start out doing it. All he wanted to do was fill a barrel from the hose. His plan was to put on his bathing suit and climb into it; relaxing as if it were a hot tub. Only thing was it was a cold day and the water was icy.

It wasn’t long before his mind spawned the idea of a rainforest. He took the hose and attached a smaller one to it that has a sprayer on one end and a shut off valve on the other. He then climbed up a tree high enough to hide the sprayer in the branches but also low enough to reach the valve.

When he tested his invention he was standing under the tree in his bathing suit. He flipped the switch and a fine mist began to spray downwards. The water dripped off the branches and formed puddles in the dirt.

Max declared it a rousing success but too cold. He disappeared into the house. A few minutes later he returned still in his bathing suit but he had added a yellow rain slicker and yellow rubber boots. After a retest he was elated that it was working so well.

Once all his testing was completed he began rounding up the neighborhood kids to show them what he had made. Several children stood in the back yard and watched him dance in and around the misty rain. He tried to convince them to join him but not only was it too cold and wet, none were dressed appropriately. But all liked what he had accomplished.

My wife and I are now rethinking our opinion of what Max will be able to accomplish when he grows up. We don’t want to sell him short. I actually know an inventor who graduated from MIT. I’m going to ask him if he would spend some time mentoring my son.

Who knows, as our counselor says, Max will probably surprise us!

Recently I wrote a post about a Georgia kindergarten teacher who has been brought up on child abuse charges. The jury is being sequestered today to come up with a verdict. But no matter what the results are who is going to win?

The Children?

It doesn’t matter whether the defendant is innocent or guilty; these kids are adversely affected. If the abuse actually occurred they have to live with what has been done to them. If they are experiencing false memories introduced by the parents or investigators they will be affected just as severely.

The trial has done them no good either. They had to testify and were questioned mercilessly. These experiences are a form of child abuse too.

It can be even worse if they care about their teacher.

A lot of times even though these kids are the victims they will blame themselves for what happened. And if their teacher is innocent how will they feel then if she goes to jail?

And what about long term? They will continue to think about and be affected by all of this for years. If the teacher is found guilty maybe it will lessen the kids’ pain a little bit but it will still be there. One woman I used to work with thinks she was molested by her uncle when she was 12. It was only one incident that she remembers. No other child has ever complained about being abused by him. But 40 years later she still hasn’t spoken to him and believes all of her problems are a result of what he may have done.

The Parents?

If the teacher is found guilty the parents will be mollified a bit. The will be glad that justice has been served…even if she is really innocent. But there will still be the problem of helping their children through the aftermath of the abuse, the trial, and the news.

They will also have to work through their anger and remorse. In a lot of cases they will blame themselves for putting their child in a harmful situation even though they didn’t know about it to begin with.

The Community?

This community has been torn apart. Some of the people side with the children. The others don’t believe that the teacher could do anything like this and have supported her all the way. Whichever way the verdict goes one side will be victorious; the other will believe that the justice system didn’t work.

Somehow these people will have to work to become a community again. It is a very small town and they won’t have a choice.

The Jurors?

Reportedly they have sat through very graphic evidence and testimony from both the children and the defendant. These people are shell shocked. They have heard both sides now and still don’t know what they believe happened.

They will be suffering from all the information they have been deluged with for some time. Did they win?

The Teacher?

Whether she is innocent or guilty she has already lost her job, her child, her family, and her friends. If guilty she will be spending a lot of her life in prison. If innocent she will probably have to move away. She may never be able to teach again. And who knows if she will get her child back. Can she win?

No matter what the verdict is in any case like this no one will come out as a winner. I am not saying that we should not protect our children from predators. We have to be careful about how we go about prosecuting these cases. We have to be really sure about the facts before going ahead with a trial. Witch hunts won’t help anyone, especially not our children.

And we have to take care of the children going through this as much as possible. We need to be sure that not only are the long term damages from the actual abuse addressed but also the effects of the trials. These cannot be taken lightly and the community has to be careful of the abuse that will be added on through investigations, adult badgering, and court appearances.

I don’t think there will be any “winners” in this case and I don’t think there are any clear winners in others like this. But I suppose we as a country have to muddle through and do our best just to get it right and protect our children.

Have you been reading about the Georgia kindergarten teacher that has been brought up on charges of child sex abuse?

Apparently this well-loved teacher has been having her way with the kids. She has since lost her job and her reputation while proclaiming her innocence. However, the only evidence that this happened is the testimony of the children themselves.

The problem that comes up for me here is that the 3 kids in question were 4 and 5 years old when this happened. Four years later they are being asked to tell their stories. After all of this time how much of this actually happened; how much has been added over the years; and how much has been instilled in them by well-meaning adults resulting in “false” memories.

If I was on the jury in this woman’s trial I would have questions that would need to be answered before I could come to a decision on her guilt or innocence. Two questions that come to mind are:

1. During the investigation what questions were the children asked?

These questions and how they are asked can make all the difference in the answers that young children give.  They want to give the “right” answers.  Often they will tell you what they think you want to hear.

Several years ago when my son Max was 4 years old he developed a very large blister on the top of his right foot. It was very painful causing him to cry uncontrollably. My wife and I knew how to take care of small ones but we had never seen one this large and it worried us. We took him to the emergency room at the local hospital.

After we had been reported for burning our son the result was a visit by a social worker. She sat with Max privately and asked him several questions:

“Have you ever been burned?”

“Yes.”

“How did it happen?”

“I was cooking on the stove.”

“Where were your parents at the time?”

“In the kitchen.”

“Were they helping you?”

“No.”

If she had completed her questioning here it didn’t look good for us. We were in the kitchen while he was playing with the stove and we didn’t do anything about it?

She asked one more question: “Can you show me what you were doing?”

Instead of going to the kitchen stove Max brought her down into the basement where he had a toy plastic one and began playing. She laughed.

Without that all important question we could have been cited for, at the very least, negligence.

In the teacher’s case:

• Were the right questions asked?

• Were enough questions asked?

• How were the questions asked?

If these questions are not asked correctly they can prompt false memories. These are the memories that have either been distorted or are of events that have never happened. Some “false memories are believed to be the result of the prodding, leading, and suggestions of therapists and counselors.”

The ex-wife of a friend of mine accused him of molesting their young daughter. When asked, the child denied that anything had ever happened with her father. Her mother refused to believe her and began taking her to see different psychiatrists. The first 14 found no evidence that dad had ever sexually abused the little girl. It took 5 years but mom finally found a psychiatrist who, after several months of prodding, was able to jog what he called was the child’s “suppressed” memories.

It took several court cases, expert witnesses, and eventually even the daughter herself to clear my friend of any wrongdoing.

2. Has it been determined who may have a grudge against the teacher?

In the last example the wife was determined to punish her husband for whatever crimes he may or may not have committed so she produced this story of child sexual abuse. Is there someone who dislikes this teacher enough to want to ruin her life?

A few years ago I read about a woman who was running a child care center out of her home. The state she lived in mandated that daycare must be available to children on welfare. In return the state paid the childcare fees for these kids. It sounded like a good deal however the state was always either late on payments or losing the monthly paperwork that these centers were required to submit.

To combat this the woman tried to form a union.

One day two children were dropped off at her house. They stayed almost two hours. Several days later charges were brought against her for sexually abusing both of them. The other childrens’ parents rushed to her defense. They had been with her for years and knew that she would never do anything like this. No matter, she was found guilty.

It later turned out that the state employee in charge of stopping the union had dropped her two grandchildren off at the woman’s house for safekeeping one day. They were there for only two hours. How was it they were the only kids ever abused?

After years of court cases the state agreed to drop all charges if she stopped doing childcare and left the state.

I am not suggesting that the children themselves have any motives. However, the adults around them do:

• Their parents are trying to protect them and are angry about what may have happened.

• Other adults may not like the teacher for some reason.

• The rest are well intentioned and are looking to right a wrong or a perceived wrong.

And there is a lot of child abuse. Approximately 5.8 million children are abused in the United States alone every year.  And it is projected that perhaps billions more worldwide suffer from it. Through my work with Suitcases 4 Kids I have personally met many kids who have been abused. People that do this should be brought to justice.

It is difficult not to jump to conclusions when it appears that children have not been protected. But we have to stop, ask the right questions, and do the research before determining guilt or innocence.