Teens Love Their Parents and God

I'm planning a car trip with two of my teens from our home near Kansas City to Des Moines. After visiting a college campus for my high school senior I will cheer at a soccer tournament for my high school freshman.

So I'm encouraged by a poll on what makes teens happy. Their top answer was spending time with their family. Three quarters of the teens said that their relationship with their parents makes them happy.

The Associated Press and MTV polled 1,280 people aged 13 to 24 to find out what makes young people happy.

Religion also helps teens find happiness. Eighty percent of those who call religion or spirituality the most important thing in their lives say they're happy, while only 60 percent of those who say faith isn't important to them consider themselves happy.

Forty-four percent say religion and spirituality is at least very important to them, 21 percent responded it is somewhat important, 20 percent say it plays a small part in their lives and 14 percent say it doesn't play any role.

These teens combine their spirituality with tolerance. Sixty-eight percent agree with the statement, ``I follow my own religious and spiritual beliefs, but I think that other religious beliefs could be true as well.'' Thirty-one percent choose, ``I strongly believe that my religious beliefs are true and universal, and that other religious beliefs are not right.''

I was already looking forward to a weekend car trip with my kids. Now this poll supports my choice of how I spend my time.

Meth Use Begins Before Age 15

Most teens who try methamphetamine say they started when they were age 15 or younger. Nearly a quarter of teens say that it would be "very easy" or "somewhat easy" to obtain meth. One in three teens believes there is only a "slight risk" or "no risk" in trying meth once or twice.

These national results were published yesterday by the Meth Project, a nonprofit organization based in California. They received wide coverage in national news outlets yesterday and today.

However, even our local press failed to research usage statistics in our own community. Had they bothered to look, they would have found that the Kansas Methamphetamine Prevention Project reports meth use has declined slightly in recent years among 12th graders in Kansas. In 1999, 7.7 percent of Kansas 12th graders reported some use of meth in their lifetime. By 2006, that number dropped to 5.3 percent.

Bipolar Label Increases 40 Times

The number of children and youth labeled as bipolar increased 40 times from 1994 to 2003. The frequency of the diagnosis has increased even further since then.

The numbers come from a study just published in the Archives of General Psychiatry. Many believe the jump comes from more aggressive diagnosis. Because of the size of the increase, some question the validity of the diagnosis.

Bipolar teens and children experience massive mood swings. During their manic stages, they may feel surges of energy and confidence. They might make grandiose plans that never come to fruition. They might also make impulsive decisions that violate the law.

These manic stages are soon followed by debilitating depression. They fail school. They might self medicate using alcohol and illegal drugs. As in their manic stages, they may make poor choices which lead to trouble with the law.

Families with bipolar children often retain my firm for representation in juvenile justice proceedings and special education. These families often find that the juvenile justice system offers little help. In many cases, inappropriate responses from juvenile justice might actually obstruct the family's efforts.

Punishing teens for bipolar behavior won't cure their disorder. Fortunately, a combination of medical intervention with mental health therapy can help these children become productive.

However, the pace of the medical and legal interventions might contradict each other. The juvenile court demands immediate compliance with its orders and conditions of probation. Meanwhile, the psychiatrist might need time to experiment with different combinations of drugs. Some of the medicines might need several weeks to take effect. Concurrently, your family needs training and community resources. Your child may require talk therapy over several months.

At the same time, the school system should evaluate your child for eligibility for special education and related services. If the bipolar mood disorder interferes with school, your child might need an Individualized Education Plan (IEP) to receive a free, appropriate public education.

Our firm helps families with bipolar children in all these systems. We ensure that the juvenile justice system coordinates with the mental health system to keep your child safe and compliant. We advocate for the school to provide an appropriate education so your child can succeed and stay out of trouble. We refer your family to public and private resources to learn how to manage your child's behavior while interacting with larger social systems.

You can get more done for less effort by acting before disaster strikes. If your child may be experiencing symptoms of bipolar mood disorder, seek early professional help.

Danny's IEP

A client sent this video to me. My client's son is autistic. The school district wants to move him away from his home school, where he attends with his twin sister. Instead, the district wants to educate him in a more restrictive setting in a distant school. We filed a special education due process request to keep him in the least restrictive environment.

In this video, a family in Maryland compellingly communicates to their son's IEP team how their son's autism affects his learning. They emphasize that their son can and does learn. He just learns differently than other children without autism.

The video provides an excellent primer on autism and special learning tools such as ABA. The video lasts about 9 minutes and 14 seconds.

Three Steps To Protect Your Children From Their Porn Addicted Parent

If you share custody of your children with a porn addict, you probably feel worried and scared for your children. You might become especially panicked if your children are the age and gender preferred by the porn addict.

Our clients in child custody litigation come to us feeling frustrated with family court. Fortunately, through their work with us they found that prompt action can help children avoid the harmful effects of pornography.

You should start by educating yourself about the addiction. Like drugs and alcohol, pornography delivers a consistent, effortless path to pleasure. These pleasurable sensations are immediate, but also illusory. They quickly prove to be temporary and harmful. They leave the abuser diminished in his capacity to love anyone, even himself and his children.

As with all addictions, pornography leads to a vicious cycle. The pleasure lasts only a few minutes. The user then finds his disease leaves him even worse than before. The same triggers that led to his first use still compel him, yet even stronger. He therefore requires repeated use. He discovers that he needs even greater stimulation to reach the same climax.

Each successive use perpetuates his dependency, until the disease overwhelms his humanity. Nearly all addicts pervert their priorities. They make bad choices regarding their values, which manifest in the improper use of their time and money. They become poor parents. Some even look for opportunities to carry out their fantasies in real life on real people.

If you find yourself in child custody litigation with a porn addict, your strategy should take three steps. First, you prove that your co-parent is addicted. Second, you convince the court to care about his dependency. Third, you propose specific action for the court to protect your children.

The first step requires you to prove that the addiction exists. Unlike drugs or alcohol, no chemical test can prove when someone uses pornography. However, you might be able to find evidence in credit card statements, computer records, and phone bills. When examining a computer, check not only the contents of the hard drive but also the internet browser history.

You may also ask the court to require him to submit to a psychological evaluation. A psychological evaluation relies almost entirely on self disclosure. He might be able to hide his compulsion from the evaluator. Hopefully, though, he will use the evaluation as an opportunity to seek help.

Once you prove that he is addicted, you proceed to the second step of convincing the court to care. Many families and their attorneys skip this critical step. However, you can't assume that your judge agrees with you that he is harmful your children.

Different states take different tacks on considering the moral fitness of parents in custody litigation. For example, Louisiana contains an explicit statute to require consideration of "the moral fitness of each party, insofar as it affects the welfare of the child." The Missouri Court of Appeals held that the father's viewing of pornography should be considered in deciding child custody, but that this factor alone is not determinative. A Florida court ruled that a home based pornography business operated by the mother's boyfriend had to affect her fitness to parent, even if the children themselves never saw his products.

Once you prove the addiction and convince the court to care, you begin step three: You tell the court specifically how to protect your children. If your children live primarily with the addicted parent, you could ask the court to transfer custody and residency to you. You might ask the court to require the other parent not to display inappropriate materials in the home when your children visit. You could even move the court to order that his parenting time be contingent on treatment. He could find a support group for sex addicts, modeled on Alcoholics Anonymous.

As with most issues involving child custody, you may best protect your children outside of court. Ideally, your attorney can use the court process to convince the other parent to seek help for his disease. If he loves your children as he claims, he should want to be the best parent possible for them.

Addiction to pornography grows worse with time. Act now before your children suffer irreparable harm. If you share custody with a porn addict, promptly contact a family law attorney with experience in these matters.

Foster Children Do Better At Home

Our clients hire us to rescue their children from the foster care system. We work to reunite children with their own parents, and also with grandparents, aunts and uncles, or even family friend. If you love a child in need of care, you should take note of a new study on the long term results of foster care.

Many foster families provide excellent care. Nonetheless, a new study concludes that children on the margins of needing intervention tend to have better outcomes when they remain at home, especially for older children. Children who are removed from their homes face higher delinquency rates, teen birth rates and lower earnings.

These results add credence to recent efforts to keep children in their own families. Even when their families are marginal, their children fare better in their own home instead of in foster homes.

Over 2 million children are investigated for abuse and neglect in the United States each year. About half of those are found to have been abused. Approximately 10 percent of the abused children are removed from their families.

Currently over 500,000 children reside in foster homes. About 60 percent of those return home; 15 percent are adopted; and the remainder age out of the system when they turn 18. The average amount of time spent in foster care is about two years.

Abused children are three times more likely to die in childhood, with about 1,400 child deaths each year attributed to child abuse. Children withdrawn from their families are more likely to commit crimes, drop out of school, join welfare, abuse drugs and alcohol, and become homeless.

Nearly 20 percent of young prison inmates and 28 percent of homeless individuals spent some of their youth in the foster system. Of children who turn 18 years old while in the system, two thirds of the boys and half of the girls had a history of delinquency.

Federal and state laws encourage preserving children in their own families. Before removing a child from a family home, the state must prove that reasonable efforts to prevent the removal were tried and failed. They also must prove that leaving the child in the family's home would be contrary to the child's welfare.

However, in practice many children are removed from their family homes anyway.

The research by MIT economics professor Joseph J. Doyle studied 15,000 children who had been reported for abuse and neglect. The study did not include children who were subject to drug use or severe physical or sexual abuse. Those children would have required removal from their families regardless of its trauma. For the remainder of the children, the ones who stayed in their own families did better in their adult lives than the children placed in foster care.

We help our clients recover their children from foster care by lobbying the social service agencies before we get to court. We have found that intense out of court advocacy succeeds better than courtroom tactics alone. Combining sophisticated advocacy both in and out of court helps children avoid the long term negatives associated with the child welfare system.

We have also found success in preventing foster care in the first place by using guardianship and other private actions. For example, in Kansas we can file a private child in need of care action to keep your child with your family.

If you need to rescue a child from foster care, you need to act promptly. Start now by using the free resources available at our web site, www.yourchild1st.com.

Insurers Deny Benefits for Mental Illness

I received this post from the Mental Health Association of the Heartland, along with a request to circulate it widely:

Kansas law adopted in 2001 requires health insurance companies to cover up to 45 in-patient days and 45 outpatient visits on an annual basis for treatment of biologically-based mental illnesses. However, recent data from the top 10 health insurance providers, as reported by the Kansas Insurance Department (KID), reveal that policyholders typically receive an average of six in-patient days or outpatient visits regardless of diagnosis.

The 2006 Mental Health Parity Task Force of the Governor’s Mental Health Services Planning Council suggested that there must be a significant number of health insurance policy holders who have had one or more of the following experiences which have resulted in the denial of adequate, appropriate or timely treatment since the 2001 Mental Health Parity legislation:

• Denial of claims for treatment of mental illness
  
  
• Excessive co-pays or deductibles for mental health treatment
  
  
• Refusal to authorize an adequate number of in-patient days and/or outpatient visits
  
  
• Inability to obtain or understand the standards and rationale used to deny authorization of treatment by an insurer
  
  
• Insurers recommending that “difficult” cases be referred to law enforcement or public mental health services
  
  
• Other problems with authorization of treatment of a mental disorder

We want to hear from individual policy holders, group health care administrators and mental health providers who have experienced any of these problems. Please share with us your personal written and/or oral accounts of your experiences.


We will listen to your experiences and help you, as appropriate, to file a formal complaint with the Kansas Insurance Department. To initiate a complaint with the KID, you may click on the following link to their website: http://www.ksinsurance.org/consumers/complaint.htm.

You may also put your concerns in writing and address them to the KID using the following contact information:

Kansas Insurance Department
Attn: Consumer Assistance
420 SW 9th Street
Topeka, Kansas 66612-1678
Phone: (785) 296-3071
Toll-Free: 1-800-432-2484
TTY/TDD: 1-877-235-3151
www.ksinsurance.org

Please let us hear from you if decide to file a complaint with the KID. We are collecting this information to better understand how to help Kansans get the care and treatment they need.

Senate Bill 380 was introduced during the 2007 session of the Kansas Legislature to provide health insurance coverage for the treatment of mental illnesses that is equivalent to coverage for other illnesses. Equal coverage is known as parity. We are hopeful that the bill will be considered in the 2008 session.

The lack of parity in coverage for the treatment of mental illnesses is a major factor in the perpetuation of the stigma associated with mental illness and a clear barrier to accessing treatment and moving toward recovery.

Thank you for your assistance with this effort.

Rick Cagan
For the Kansas Mental Health Coalition

Rick Cagan, Executive Director
National Alliance on Mental Illness - NAMI Kansas
112 SW 6th Avenue
PO Box 675
Topeka, Kansas 66601
785-233-0755
785-233-4804 FAX
800-539-2660
rcagan@nami.org
www.namikansas.org

Mentally Ill Juvenile Sentenced To 50 Years In Prison

A Johnson County, Kansas court yesterday sentenced Andrew Ellmaker to life in prison for the murder of his mental health worker, Terri Zenner. He won’t be eligible for parole for 50 years.

The defendant was 17 years old when he killed the victim. Because he was a juvenile at the time of the incident he was not eligible for the death penalty.

Sue Ellmaker, the defendant’s mother, pleaded for mercy because of her son’s mental illness. The victim’s husband, Matt Zenner, would have nothing of it.

“I’m sick and tired of hearing about mental illness,” he said at the sentencing hearing. “Stand up and be a man. You sit there and stare at the floor.... It’s beyond my comprehension that you were able to do this.”

As the husband of the victim, Matt Zenner is entitled to his feelings of loss, anger and bereavement. The family of Terri Zenner deserves all our compassion.

However, as a society we must overcome our prejudice that mental illness is both incomprehensible and inexcusable. Otherwise, we could face even more tragedies like Teri Zenner's.

More than seventy percent of youth in the juvenile justice system suffer from at least one mental health disorder, according to the National Center for Mental Health and Juvenile Justice. For many of their families, juvenile justice provides their first and only access to mental health services.

Families raising a child with mental illness feel frustrated, overwhelmed and exhausted. In my law practice, we help these families by coordinating special education, juvenile justice and mental health services.

Andrew Ellmaker deserves to spend the rest of his life in prison. The rest of us must work even harder to prevent future tragedies from happening.

Scott Wasserman is a graduate of Harvard Law School. He practices special education, juvenile law and child custody litigation in Kansas and Missouri. His web site is www.yourchild1st.com .

Web Software Helps Coordinate Joint Custody

Parents in separate households with joint custody of their children face a daunting task to coordinate schedules. It's hard enough tracking who gets the children on which day. When activities for the children or the parents cause adjustments, the communication and cooperating gets even harder.

Several companies have created software to help parents communicate and coordinate their joint custody and parenting time. Some of the software installs on your own computer, but I recommend the software that runs over the web. With web software, both parents can access the data and hopefully avoid conflicts.

Here are a few links. If you have any experience with these or can suggest any others, please post a comment to this post.

• Jointparents.com Raising a child after a divorce or separation is challenging for parents. JointParents.com provides the tools to keep parents well organized and communicating effectively.
  
  
• Parentingtime.net (Optimal) OPTIMAL is an online custody calendar that allows you to easily schedule and track parenting time as well as monitor compliance with your custody arrangement. OPTIMAL reduces conflict between you and your child's other parent by providing a shared tool for scheduling parenting time, and by providing an unbiased, easily accessed record of scheduled time versus actual time.
  
  
• Google calendar Though not specifically targeted to managing joint custody, Google's on line calendar hosts enough tools to make it useful for any situation. Best of all, it's free.
  
  
• Custody Toolbox Custody Toolbox features a calendar, a journal, a child information database, an address book, and a to-do list.
  
  
• Shared Ground Unlike the web calendars, this software runs on your own computer. So, you can use it to keep yourself organized, but not to coordinate with your co-parent.
  
  
• Kidmate Another program that runs on your own computer instead of the web. Helps you visually display parenting schedules and calculate percentages.
  

Children See, Children Do

I found this one and a half minute video by NAPCAN, Australia's National Association for the Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect. Let your influence on children be positive.

Are Our Children Better Than Last Year?

I work with a team of lawyers who try hard every day to improve the lives of children. Through legal representation of families who care about children, we hope to help those specific children while also effecting systemic change.

The government today released its biannual full report on the status of children and families in the United States. I'll mine the data over the next few weeks in this blog. Here are some initial highlights of indicators which increased over the past year:

• the percentage of children served by community water systems that did not meet all applicable standards for healthy drinking water;
  
  
• the percentage of children living in physically inadequate or crowded housing or housing that cost more than 30 percent of household income;
  
  
• the percentage of low birth weight infants;
  
  
• the percentage of births to unmarried women;
  
  
• the rate at which youth were perpetrators of serious violent crime;
  
  
• the number of young people finishing high school;
  
  
• the number of little children being read to.
  
  

The report was released by the Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics, a consortium of federal agencies that includes the National Institute of Child Heath and Human Development, the Census Bureau and the Administration for Children and Families.

Audit Urges Coordination Of Programs For Young Children

In my law practice I see the delayed results of problems which could have been prevented by early intervention in a child's first years. Early childhood intervention could prevent later issues involving special education, school discipline, and juvenile delinquency.

A Kansas audit released yesterday found that state agencies could better coordinate programs for such young children. The study found multiple agencies offered similar programs for the same population. However, the auditors found no indications of wasted tax dollars or failed programs.

The programs serve 40 percent of Kansas children under the age of 5. The 23 programs provide immunizations, therapy for special-needs toddlers, abuse prevention efforts, parenting training and assistance to poor mothers. The services cost $310 million last year.

Legislation passed in Kansas this year will create an Office of Early Childhood Education by 2009. The new agency could have a role in coordinating services; however, the specific authority of that agency has not yet been clarified.

I support any effort to ensure services reach the children who need them. At the same time, Kansans should feel assured from this audit that these essential services already work mostly as intended.

Your Child or Your Grandchild?

An ever increasing phenomenon that I have come across in my law practice is grandparents wanting to provide for their grandchildren. Grandparents come to me frustrated, confused, and broken because their grandchildren are in state custody and they are being forced to choose between their grandchild and their own child.

Unfortunately, many grandparents that I have encountered in my practice have faced resistance from state agencies when they have tried to take on the responsibility of raising their grandchildren because of a parents inability to do so. The reality is grandparents are often forced to choose between supporting their own child or caring for their grandchild. A choice that is far too often minimized by professionals in the child in need of care system.

If grandparents choose to support their own child they are accused of enabling. Grandparents are very often faulted for their own child's poor choices. Faced with these obstacles despite Kansas state law and family service policy and procedure manuals requiring state agencies and their contractors to turn to family first, grandparents wishing to be considered as a resource option are far too often snubbed. Social workers tend to rationalize that a grandparents alleged enabling behavior will continue in their rearing of their grandchild and the "mistakes" the grandparents made in raising their own child will be made again this time around.

If grandparents decide to support their own child in hopes of helping him/her recover from his/her own current plight and get him/her into a position where he/she is able to raise his/her own child, grandparents are often condemned. The best chance that these parents have at recovery is when they turn to their support network for help, their family. Social workers assigned to these parents are often overworked and underpaid and do not have the time, energy, or commitment to offer these parents the support they need to fully recover. But if grandparents offer their child support and that parent subsequently fails and does not successfully recover or does not recover quick enough and the court system finds the parent to be "unfit" the grandparents loose their grandchild to the state.

If a grandparent cuts their own child off they are heartless, and they risk losing him or her. If they support their child they are "unfit" to raise their own grandchild. This phenomenon that grandparents face is far too often minimized and most be more thoughtfully considered by social workers when making placement decisions.

Concrete Angel Brings Awareness to Child Abuse

This video uses photos, music, posters and poems to bring attention to the reality of child abuse. Warning: Some of the photos show disturbing images of children with injuries.

Do Vaccines Cause Autism In Children?

On Monday the U.S. Court of Federal Claims began hearing the first of nine test cases to determine if vaccines cause autism in children. The test cases could ultimately determine the outcome of 5,000 similar claims.

In the first test case, the parents of a 12 year old contend that their duaghter's vaccines contained a preservative called thimerosal. This preservative, they allege, weakened their daughter's immune system. Consequently, their daughter now suffers from severe autism.

Grandchildren Don't Wear Out Grandparents

New research shows caring for grandchildren generally does not have dramatic and widespread negative impacts on grandparents' health. Instead, some grandparents are already ill before they begin caring for grandchildren and others don't experience a health change.

The study involved over 13,000 grandparents between the ages of 50 and 80. The research contradicts a common belief that the stress associated with caring for grandchildren exceeds the capacity of aging grandparents. However, scholars involved in the current study found that even in cases where grandparents provide primary care for their grandchildren, their health is generally not undermined by the responsibility.

Who Are Juvenile Sex Offenders?

Maybe you saw the Associated Press story yesterday about an alleged increase in the number of juvenile sex offenders. The reporter, Kim Curtis, noted that the number of juvenile sex offenses has increased-- 40 percent over two decades. Moreover, the offenders are getting younger and more violent.

Some attribute the increase to a society saturated with sex and violence. Others attribute the supposed increase to more awareness, better reporting and general hysteria over sex offenders.

I have represented several juvenile sex offenders. Once you meet these kids, you'll understand that the headlines don't show the whole person.

For example, I represented a 14 year old girl who had been terribly, sexually abused since a young age. At age 14, she was at a "party" with about four high school students. One of them, a 15 year old boy, invited her to engage in sex with him. My client looked for guidance from the older girl who had brought her to the party. The older girl smiled, which my client took as approval. So, she went upstairs and had sex with the boy. By the time they came to my office, both the boy and the girl were convicted of statutory rape.

In another case, I represented a boy who served as the lookout for his friend. His friend had persuaded a girl to give him oral sex under the stairs at school. She later claimed she had been coerced, even though she had walked with the perpetrator in front of the school office and past the security personnel. My client was convicted as an accomplice and listed on the sexual offender registry, even though he never engaged in the sexual activity itself.

These are just two examples of the many ways young people find themselves branded for life as sexual offenders. Perhaps somewhere some teens truly engage in predatory, violent sexual acts. However, my clients have been kids who get caught up in a system that wasn't designed for their situation. Eventually, they become a statistic in the alleged growth of sexual offenses.

Disabled Students Deserve Education in the Least Restrictive Environment

Students with disabilities must receive a free, appropriate public education in the least restrictive environment. Federal law requires schools to educate children with disabilities in the same classes as children who are not disabled "to the maximum extent appropriate."

A child with a disability can be removed from the regular education environment only when the "nature or severity of the disability of a child is such that education in the regular classes with the use of supplementary aids and services cannot be achieved satisfactorily."

Courts interpret these requirements in different ways. Some federal courts, including Kansas, use a two part test:

• First, the court determines whether education in a regular classroom, with the use of supplementary aids and services, can be achieved satisfactorily.
  
  
• Second, if the court determines that the education in the regular classroom is not satisfactory, then the court determines if the school district has mainstreamed the child to the maximum extent appropriate.

Other jurisdictions, including Missouri, hold that a disabled student should be separated from her peers only if the services that make segregated placement superior cannot feasibly be provided in a non-segregated setting. For example, a child may be removed from the mainstream setting when:

• the handicapped child would not benefit from mainstreaming;
  
  
• any marginal benefits received from mainstreaming are far outweighed by the benefits gained from services which could not feasibly be provided in the non-segregated setting; or
  
  
• the handicapped child is a disruptive force in the non-segregated setting.
  

Connecticut Restores Juvenile Status to 16 and 17 Year Olds

The Connecticut state senate voted last week to restore juvenile status to 16 and 17 year old offenders. Currently, teens in this age group are charged in criminal court as adults.

If the Connecticut House passes the law, only New York and North Carolina will automatically charge 16 and 17 year olds as adults. Other states provide mechanisms to waive juveniles to adult status.

Kansas allows children as young as ten to be charged as adults. Teens over thirteen are presumed to be tried as adults for serious offenses. Missouri may prosecute children as young as twelve in adult court for felonies.

The Connecticut bill reflects recent research proving that juvenile brains remain physiologically underdeveloped. During their teen years, children are still developing the capacity to think ahead and make sound judgments. Additionally, they lack the wisdom gained from experience.

Juvenile offenders placed in adult jails are more likely to reoffend, according to data released last month by the American Journal of Preventive Medicine. Nearly two thirds of juveniles tried as adults are dealing with personal trauma, such as rape, assault, death of a loved one, or suicidal tendencies.

Mental Health for Children and Adolescents

May is Mental Health Awareness Month. This video provides instruction about mental health issues in children and adolescents. Although the production quality is not great, it contains some information that might help a child and a family. It addresses:

• Understanding Of Mental Health
  
  
• Causes
  
  
• Families Assisting
  
  
• What To Look For
  

High Quality Child Care Prevents Depression

Impoverished children who experienced high quality child care incurred less depression as young adults than their peers. These findings were reported in the May/June 2007 issue of the journal Child Development by researchers from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the University of Washington at Seattle.

Research shows a connection between childhood poverty and later mental health issues. Providing impoverished children with high quality child care protects them when they become teens and adults.

U.S. Supreme Court Upholds Rights of Parents of Students with Disabilities

The United States Supreme Court on Monday issued a unanimous ruling upholding the rights of parents of students with disabilities. The case, known as Winkleman v. Parma City School District, held that parents have independent, enforceable rights under special education law. Those rights go beyond procedural and reimbursement related matters to encompass also the entitlement to a free, appropriate education for their child.

The dispute in this case arose when the parents of a child with autism spectrum disorder filed a lawsuit against their school district. Normally, only attorneys can represent other people in court. The school district successfully dismissed the lawsuit because, they said, the parents had no right to represent their child in court.

On appeal, the Supreme Court reversed that decision. The court said that the parents represent real parties in interest in special education cases. Therefore, they may appear in court to represent themselves, even if they would not be authorized to represent their children.

This ruling represents a victory for parents in many ways. The court reiterated many of the rights parents enjoy under special education law. According to the Supreme Court, parents play a "significant role" in the process of determining the special education for their children. Some of their rights include:

• They must be included in the IEP team.
  
  
• The concerns parents have for enhancing the education of their children must be considered by the team.
  
  
• The IEP team must revise the IEP when appropriate to address certain information provided by the parents.
  
  
• The education must be provided at no cost to the parents.
  
  
• The parents must participate in the decision making process regarding the provision of a free appropriate education to their child.
  
  
• They might be reimbursed for their attorney fees if they prevail in a due process hearing against the school.
  

Foster Children Receive Inadequate Health Care

Even though foster children incur a higher risk for mental and physical illness, they are less likely to receive proper care, according to an expert panel speaking at the U.S. Congress yesterday.

The problem arises from inadequate funding for Medicaid. Moreover, children who grow out of foster care at age 18 face young adulthood without medical insurance.

Two federal laws, one enacted and the other still pending, might help. The Chafee Independence Act of 1999 gives states the option of extending medical coverage to foster children who become too old for the system at age 18. The "Medicaid Foster Care Coverage Act of 2007," introduced in the U.S. Senate in March, would make Medicaid coverage of foster care children mandatory through age 21.

Read and Talk With Young Children

Reading and talking every day with young children helps them develop socially, emotionally and intellectually. British Columbia Interior Health offers these suggestions:

• Book time each day to read and talk, and sing songs with your child.

• Talk about what you and your child are doing during everyday activities.

• Talk slowly, clearly, and with both facial and verbal expression.

• With young children, use single words, phrases, or simple sentences.

• Once your child starts to copy you, try saying things like “Look what I found!” – and then pause – to encourage your child to respond and be a conversation partner.

Early detection of communication difficulties is key. Parents and caregivers are often the first to note signs such as:

• your child is not talking at the level you expect for his/her age; or,

• you need to routinely interpret to others what your child has said.

If you suspect that your child has difficulty communicating, contact your nearest school. Your child might be eligible for educational services even before kindergarten.

Senator Obama Tells Fathers To "Act Like Daddies"

Presidential candidate Senator Barak Obama talks about the importance of fathers in the lives of their children. He also discusses the problems that arise when a father is absent.

Father's rights groups suppose he meant to criticize fathers who choose not to support their children. That is certainly a part of his message. However, in this video his words could just as well advocate for courts to allow fathers to fulfill meaningful roles in lives of their children.

Who Gets the Kids?

The father wants to share equal parenting time. The mother wants primary residential custody. She wants their children to live with her but spend every other weekend with their father.

Both parents believe they are being fair, rational, and good to their kids. If they can't reach an agreement among themselves, a court will decide for them.

So who gets the kids? We have argued this scenario from both sides, both for fathers and for mothers. We litigate from the specific facts in each family's situation.

Mothers often can show that they have been the primary care giver for the entire life of the children. This argument can be especially persuasive if the mother has stayed home with the children. Sometimes we put a spin on this argument by showing that the mother is the "detailed" parent or the "structured" parent. While the father's contributions are also important, the children can take advantage of both parents' strengths by living with their mother during the week and with their father every other weekend.

Fathers are appalled by this suggestion. When we represent fathers, we argue that children need a real father, not a visitor. The sundry details of every day life cannot be replaced: feeding, bathing, homework, and getting the children ready for bed. Even if this was not the father's primary responsibility during the marriage, many things will change after the marriage. Moreover, it is unfair to require the father to support the mother through spousal maintenance (alimony) and child support so that she can retain primary custody of the children.

In the end, we hope that parents can work out an arrangement among themselves without resorting to court. A judge has biases and prejudices like any other human. A court would make its decision based on a limited amount of evidence. It is impossible to guess in advance what little detail will trigger a response from the judge. Parents leaving family court often consider the results irrational and unfair.

No one loves your children as the parents do. We hope the parents can keep control over their own children without turning them over to the stranger in the black robe.

Children's Mental Health: The Elephant In the Courtroom

Many of our cases involve mental health issues. However, the cases appears under the guise of child custody disputes, juvenile law and special education.

The real issue remains the failure to diagnose or treat mental illness. Since no one recognizes the mental health issue, though, courts try to resolve these cases under traditional concepts of child custody or juvenile law. Sometimes it seems like mental illness is the elephant in the courtroom that everyone pretends to ignore.

Last Wednesday was National Children's Mental Health Awareness Day. To mark the occasion, Katie Couric from CBS news posted this one minute video about ignoring mental health issues in children. She cites that two thirds of children with mental health issues do not get treatment. She uses the perspective of the tragedy of Virgina Tech to show the importance of addressing the mental health needs of children and adolescents.

Copycats Threaten Schools

These past three weeks I received numerous calls from parents of kids who have made threats at their schools. The number of cases seems to have increased since the tragedy at Virginia Tech. The threats usually involve fantasies of mass killings or threats against specific individuals. In no case were the threats anything close to actual plans, but they alarm nonetheless.

• In one of my cases, a student wrote a threat on the bathroom wall about a mass shooting. I filed his appeal to the school's manifestation determination to try to prevent him from being expelled from school.
  
  
• In another case the teen posted threatening comments against a teacher on his MySpace. He also brought knives to school. He is charged in juvenile court with criminal threat and possession of illegal weapons.
  
  
• At a teen meeting last week, some of the students told me their school had been placed on lock down after a student threatened his ex girlfriend and brought a gun to school.
  

My Kansas juvenile practice is not just anecdotal. Kids are emptying schools around the country by making alarming threats. Incidents have been reported in Wisconsin, Massachusetts, Illinois, and Colorado, to name a few.

A juvenile in upstate New York was sentenced to 18 months in juvenile prison for making threats to a high school security guard. In California, students skipped school by the hundreds after a student posted a threat on MySpace.