I want my baby back - Panorama

[Hels20]

I hesitate to put this on the board but would be interested in the views of anyone who watches this - it's tonight on BBC 1 at 9pm.

I hope it gives a balanced account. Then there is the Channel 4 programme on Wednesday T 10pm on Finding a Mum and Dad.

Mrs B I really don't know the answer sadly no one does.
Devera yes the child's needs are paramount I was directly referring to Lilkas comment about sympathy for the adoptive parents.

Why would I not have an enormous amount if empathy for the adoptive parents? I also feel deeply for the birth parents. And obviously, the child first and foremost

My empathy and sympathy are not like limited to one party in the proceedings

wizardpc

Given that I am a child abuse survivor, I fear that a whole thread on MN wouldn't be enough to describe it.

Yet, I want to acquiesce to your request and I will look for the medical and official definition. Give me a minute.

Adoptions can be overturned in rare circumstances where legal procedures were not followed

Thank you Lilka ... I did know that, but didn't caveat my statement as I should have done.

That 'like' shouldn't be in there, sorry. Posting on Kindle!

Emotional abuse is pretty well defined, and the hideously damaging effects of it on a child's life are also very well recognized

I have only seen actual adoptions where there has been either real and significant actual harm or neglect or where an older sibling has suffered since and the younger siblings have been removed at the same time. The younger siblings have been removed under the likely to suffer significant harm. Do you think thats wrong then? Break older siblings arm, abuse and underfeed but because it hasn't happened to a younger child yet they have to stay until it does? (CLue - IJ thinks the younger children should not be removed)

I'm not sure what "risk of future emotional harm" is legally...

"To make a care order, the court must be convinced that the threshold criteria set out in section 31(9) of the Children Act 1989 are met (that the child is suffering, or likely to suffer, significant harm and that the harm is attributable to the parents or carers). The court must also be convinced that making an order is better for the child than making no order at all - this is known as the presumption of no order."

Lilka of course you are right to feel sympathy for the adoptive parents so do I . I just feel that what the birth parents are going through is not comparable.

I know a parent who was jailed for forcing/persuading her 14 year old to artificially inseminate herself because the mother wanted another child. Should the younger siblings (female) have been allowed to stay with her? Is that abuse emotional or physical, she didn't stand over her with a loaded gun?

Of course as is often the case it wasn't the sole issue around her parenting but if someone told me that I had to leave her pre-pubescent children with her because they hadn't been abused enough yet, I'd be horrified.

And this was a friend, not a story I heard through some friends of friends or someone who's adopted a child with that story. I know this family and if "future emotional harm" was cited as a reason for removing the other children, I'd have been the first in the queue saying "Absolutely right"

wizardpc

For you (from Women's Aid website):

Emotional abuse is often difficult to recognise. It can be very subtle, often being overlooked by a person’s friends and family. The person affected may not even think or feel that abuse is taking place.

Emotional abuse can affect women and children experiencing it in many ways. It can leave deep psychological scars and can seriously damage the self-confidence of the person experiencing the abuse.

Emotional and Psychological abuse includes a range of non-physical controlling behaviours that cause emotional damage and undermine a persons sense of well-being.

Emotional and Psychological abuse includes:

· Telling someone they are worthless,

· Telling them no one else wants them,

· Forcing someone to do things at an exact time or in an exact way,

· Undermining a persons actions, thought and beliefs,

· Telling someone they are weak and could not manage to look after themselves on their own,

· Making someone believe they are mad,

· Telling someone that the domestic violence and abuse is their fault.

· Not allowing someone to have visitors,

· Controlling who a person is friends with,

· Not allowing them to go out,

· Not allowing someone to see their family and friends,

· Not allowing someone to be left alone with other people,

· Not allowing someone to use the phone, send letters or emails.

· Locking someone in a room or house,

· Not allowing someone to go out to work, not allowing someone to go to college or evening classes,

· Accompanying someone everywhere that they go in order to keep control over what they do, who they see and what they say.

· Telling someone they are a bad parent,

· Getting children to say and do things to upset someone,

· Encouraging children to get involved in the abuse.

· Abusing someone’s children or pets,

· Damaging possessions,

· Accusing someone of lying when they are not,

· Telling someone they are fat, ugly and useless,

· Making someone believe that no one else likes them.

· Threatening to harm someone, or to harm their children or pets.

· Threatening to have someone locked up saying that they are mad,

· Threatening to have someone deported or withholding care if someone is aged, ill or disabled,

· Telling someone they will find and kill them if they leave,

· Threatening to abuse someone in front of their children, family or friends.

Of course, abused people (whether they are adults of both sexes or children) don't experience all the above, all together I mean.

Wizard, care to give the list to John Hemming? Because he seems OBLIVIOUS to the fact he is actually advising child molesters, abusers of any kind and surely even rapists to go abroad. Might such a list be of use to him?

The problem is that medicine is (sorry doctors) not really a science. At least not yet. It's far removed from Physics, etc. ...to the point where I think it's almost like ancient alchemy. Many treatments can't actually be scientifically explained. It's all about trying... and seeing what happens. Different bodies can react differently, and so forth. At least that's the feeling I get... and to me, that would render any 'expertise' futile if there is never just ONE answer to the exact same problem.

And then, there's statistics - another unexact thing that is all to do about probabilities. Unfortunately, both these unexact sciences inebitably collide. A medical 'expert' looks at symptoms and looks for the most likely reason behind those symptoms. Considering the fact that each time I go to the GP, they get it wrong 30% of the time, there is a chance that what the programme said can actually happen. Contrasting this with treatments I had abroad (where they do so many tests with you before deducing anything)... the way it works here is quite questionable.

And then... the law. These cases seem to be the only ones where it's sort of upside down... you're guilty unless proven innocent.

SoonToBeSix, don't you think that what is important is what the children are going through rather than either set of parents?

Lilka

Emotional abuse is pretty well defined, and the hideously damaging effects of it on a child's life are also very well recognized

The scars are also permanent. Many child abuse survivors know very well that those scars won't ever disappear.

Contrarily to what the abuse apologists believe, in some cases even physical abuse is less scarring than emotional and psychological one. To be honest I don't remember exactly, minute by minute, any of the times I've been beaten up, even after serious injuries. Unfortunately I remember what I've been told countless times and that affected all the rest of my life

and that case I mentioned was reported (withholding details) in the press and I didn't see any cudgels being taken up by JH or IJ or their supporters to object to how the younger girls weren't actually being physically abused so should have stayed with the mother.

SnowBells

And then... the law. These cases seem to be the only ones where it's sort of upside down... you're guilty unless proven innocent.

Not at all. Unfortunately when DV and rape are involved victims are guilty until proven innocent. It is notorious that the majority of rapists and abusers are NOT behind bars.

Now if in UK you have a system protecting children... why would you like to destroy that too?

Kew

and that case I mentioned was reported (withholding details) in the press and I didn't see any cudgels being taken up by JH or IJ or their supporters to object to how the younger girls weren't actually being physically abused so should have stayed with the mother.

JH and IJ don't give a about abused people, they don't recognise emotional and sexual abuse as valid. They only recognise abuse when it is physical and it has left visible scars.

It is a 18th-century idea of the whole issue!!

And to point out that in the programme, three families were highlighted two claimed a miscarriage of justice because of low Vit D levels. However there was no medical evidence given to prove this was the cause of the fractures.

The family who did have medical evidence had the children returned.

FWIW I think there are very very few children taken into care who should not be. underlying medical condition or know.

I feel very sad for Jill as she seems to have bought into the idea her child was taken because she was blond and blue eyed therefore desirable to adopters.

So yet again we hear from parents, but we don't hear from SS, because, oh yeah, they can't give their side of the story.

Parents should be careful what they wish for. If they wish for utter transparency in the courts then they have to be prepared to take the condemnation that might come when abuse of children is revealed in minute detail.

Mary

I guess it is difficult to get rid of them. They always say the same stuff, just to stir the pot. When they come back with the same topic, like a broken record, and they get spanked, they flee.

Wonder if they will flee all together abroad, one day (we can always hope, can't we?)

Parents should be careful what they wish for. If they wish for utter transparency in the courts then they have to be prepared to take the condemnation that might come when abuse of children is revealed in minute detail.

Exactly. My fear is also that a few abused women, thanks to all this scaremongering, won't find the courage to report to police what's happening to them and their children, not to incur in kind of absurd childsnatching conspiracy :(

I just don't understand why they bother coming on here.

Its not like they go unchallenged.

My recently adopted son was removed from his birth parents as soon as he was born - and was placed for adoption due to risk of future harm. Following reading his CPR, no right minded person would have any doubt that this was in his best interests. His CPR made for some fairly grim reading. His life would have been hellish if he had remained with his birth parents - and I dread to think what would have happened to him.

I thought last night's programme was very sad and reasonably non-sensationalist - however, I definitely agree that it is not in the children's interests to use their personal details and photos. I am sure there are rare cases when the medical experts are wrong - and it is only later and with greater understanding, that this comes to light. It's always going to be that balance between removing children unnecessarily or leaving them at risk of serious harm or possible death at the hand of their parents.

One thing that did strike me was how quickly the children were removed when there was evidence of physical harm - compared to sometimes how long children are left in chaotic homes to suffer the more insidious effects of neglect. Neglect is potentially far more harmful to the developing brain and the child's future mental health, than much of the physical harm - although can be much harder to prove

I just don't understand why they bother coming on here. Its not like they go unchallenged.

Madame, those people are always on everywhere, trying to recruit vulnerable people and enrol them in their program. It is like abusers, lose a victim, onto another.

I start to think they are the conspiracy.............

I really am no one who has been on here before!!