Sorry if this has shown up elsewhere, but I was wondering about everybodies views on child protection services in America.

As a teacher and an individual, I've encountered a lot of situations like the ones listed below:

1. A sixteen year old who had 50 pounds on his single mother and a short fuse. He would blow up for something (i.e. not understanding his math), and do things like punch holes in the wall, grab her by the neck, or smash TVs. If she called the police, they would show up, he would run off, and they would tell her there was nothing they could do. No paperwork was filed and no checking back was done. The kid would wait until the police left, after maybe 10 minutes, and would come home to continue.

2. A violent, angry 12 year old who punched people in the school hallways, made references to smoking and drinking in the drawings he would do on my desks, never once turned in any work, and would literally do things like get up and attempt to leave the building without a word to anybody. He was adopted, and his social worker always came to discuss with him how he could call certain numbers if he was ever treated unfairly. With this tool, he was almost literally unpunishable. His foster mom would lock his video games in the car for his behavior at school, he would smash open the trunk, and when she told him he'd be working off the damages he simply said "fuck you, I won't." The one time she did try to be more stern, the state took him away for a week to determine if there was any abuse going on. There wasn't...

3. Dozens of almost completely unsupervised, undisciplined young adults who do nothing and are by the time I see them about two grade levels behind their peers intellectually and, often enough, end up disrupting the education process for everybody.

At the same time, there are enough horror stories out there to fill up the most terrifying edition of Tales to Tell in the Dark ever. So if the system is not always successfully protecting its wards, but is so very often preventing unruly children from any real sort of consequence, how does one fix both these problems at once?

I am a trained family counselor. I've been given skills and resources to deal with all types of parent/child issues.

And I'm a teacher who has been given skills and resources to deal with all types of education-related efforts, but that doesn't mean the education system is running 100% successfully.

Maybe I'm the only one here who's been witness to any situations like these. That makes me feel better...maybe it's just a fluke.

you're not the only one. my experiences were with infants and school age children.

it was heartbreaking to watch such small children be so maltreated. i was a teacher in a state subsidized day care: I would bathe one of my babies every day because her mother was not doing it at home.

the baby was court ordered to be at the day care, even though her junkie mother did not work. it was the only way the system could ensure that this tiny baby was attended to, cared for, bathed, and fed...if only for 8 hours each week day.

i wish i knew what happened to that little girl...but maybe i am better off not knowing.

It can be a sad, sad world sometimes

Parents should keep a gun in the home to protect themselves.