You only have the tip of a serious iceberg

Dear James

Thank you for the email. You only have the tip of a serious iceberg that
began to develop in 1986. To understand the development you have to look at
the training of children in the handling of emotions. You only learn to
handle and understand emotions by experiencing them. Many children are going
though the school system and becoming young adults without experiencing the
depth of emotion that many children experienced prior to 1986.

Look at how a young child handles unpleasant emotion. It handles it by
hitting out. Part of its education is to learn to inhibit the hitting out.
Many young adults now have no comprehension of what unpleasant emotion is and
they react very badly the first time they meet it. This has resulted in the
depths of teenagers from knives and guns.

Prior to circa 1986 a bullied child could get home from school safely by
running from one group of adults to another. Now that option is no longer
available. Many Adults avoid children and because of the present law cannot
exercise the duty of care that the law requires adults exercise towards
children. If an adult sees a child being bullied they walk in the opposite
direction. This has resulted in many children arming themselves with weapons
to protect themselves from other children. This weapons end up in being used.

Prior to 1986 Adults were around to offer help to children who were suffering
emotional problems. This in return protected children from some of the
emotional abuse that well meaning parents presented to children.

After 1986 more and more adults avoided children who suffering emotional
problems. This has resulted in children's deaths from suicide that would not
have existed prior to 1986.

The safeguarding children's policy was brought in with good intentions but now
has created a situation where parents who are running into difficulties and
thus badly need to obtain help are too scared to talk to anyone about their
lack of parenting skills in case they get hauled before the courts.

The fear people have of being branded something they are not if they talk to
children has resulted in a lack of detection of areas that would 20 years ago
generated concern and offers of help.

It has also resulted in counselors telling parents that they ought not be told
anything because they would have to report what they hear to the police which
would result in a worse situation than what already existed.

The Baby P situation is the result of its caretakers lacking skills in
handling a demanding child. If child P's caretakers reported their lack of
ability to the social worker they would have been taken to court. So they
keep quiet and hide their problems from the social worker. What is needed is
for child P's caretakers to be able to report their problems and for someone
to work with them to help them handle the difficulties that baby P presented
to them. Prior to 1986 this could have been done. Baby P may well been still
alive under the conditions that existed in 1986. Now it can only result in
death.

A social worker has a caseload of 50 or more cases. Each case generates
paperwork which has to done according to the necessary department rules which
takes time.

I leave you to do your own research into this serious subject.

John