Kids thrown in juvenile detention for refusing to see possibly violent father

[Dervel]

This can't be right can it?

www.myfoxdetroit.com/story/29496924/family-judge-orders-kids-held-in-juvenile-center-after-refusing-to-see-father

I think so. One of those chat show people.

There's a lot of them around

"Let's have a heated debate about a very marginal issue which doesn't affect many people at all, but men are doing badly at the hands of women because of it so it's a huge overweening societal problem and we must all be very worried about it and Something Must Be Done."

There are very few programmes where they cover the issues where staggeringly large numbers of women are doing badly at the hands of men. Proportionately if you were an alien and got all your information about Earth from TV heated debate shows, you would think we lived in a vicious matriarchy where women have all the power.

Can't think why. Oh hold on...

It is like the wisdom of Solomon because you have two people who claim to care about the children.

On hearing that the children are being sent to a detention center, one asks for that not to be the case and works to get them out. The other (the only one allowed to visit the children) does not visit them, but leaves the country for work purposes.

No caring parent would leave a 9,10 and 15 year old who had committed no crime in a detention center. They would do everything in their power to get them out. The conclusion to draw is that the dad doesn't care about the children.

I mean, if some children I had never even met were detained and I was told only I had the power to decide who visited then or to get them released, I would drop everything to resolve it, as I believe most adults would do. It is shocking behaviour on the part of the father.

It's been compared to the wisdom of Solomon all over the Internet.

It's shocking and abusive isn't it?

And yet people still say "well we don't know if he was abusive".

We're not allowed to draw any inferences about whether or not he was abusive in the past (which the 15 year old boy says he was and he witnessed) from his current behaviour. The fact that we know past behaviour is the best guide to current and future behaviour in most cases, must be totally disregarded because innocent before proven guilty.

We all have to hold judgement like we did on Bill Cosby before we found out he admitted being a rapist, because a man who commits violence against women and/ or children, must always always be given the benefit of the doubt, however strong the evidence is against her, while a woman who says she was abused by a man, however likely her allegation is, is merely Medea's heir and so unreliable.

Inconsistency too, in that the children are deemed old enough to be blamed, in fact imprisoned, for making their own minds up about seeing their father, but not deemed to be old enough to be reliable witnesses to his alleged violence. Do they know what they're doing or don't they? Have they been alienated or are they being deliberately obstructive for, er, no particular reason? Judge is so far off the planet I'm expecting her image to be beamed back from the New Horizons probe any day now.

But surely it is not the place of the courts to imprison 9yo for being recalcitrant.

IYSWIM so even if they are refusing to see their dad just because they feel like it, then that's not a reason to send them to prison and tell them they may be incarcerated til age 18. It's nuts.

I mean, if some children I had never even met were detained and I was told only I had the power to decide who visited then or to get them released, I would drop everything to resolve it, as I believe most adults would do. It is shocking behaviour on the part of the father.

So true. I cannot imagine the pain if I though my DD was going to be locked up. Fly to another country? Not a hope in hell.

It's like some awful 1984/Clockwork Orange thing. Feel a certain way or get locked up. Deny the evidence of your own eyes and submit to the Court. Utterly horrifying.

Oh and Dr. Phil is a hack quasi-psychologist (not licensed to practice).

It sounds like the judge wanted the children to be in a place where they would have no choice but to go to counseling (after previous refusals) and to see their father. She clearly felt that all three of them were only acting under the influence of their mother, oh and that they were very rude children who needed knocking down a few pegs.

The father obviously felt the same way as given the opportunity to see his children with no interference from their mother, decided not to bother, rather leaving them in juvenile detention (which surely must have been very frightening for all three of them) with no friends or family allowed to visit.

The last report states that the children weren't locked up with juvenile criminals, makes you wonder what that wing of the centre was for - children in mental health crisis maybe? It does sound like the mother certainly has been very difficult and probably has obstructed contact, but surely the appropriate action would have been to punish her not the children?

Anyway, the father has now filed for custody.

Besides the jaw dropping cruelty of the judge, how is this not a bigger scandal? If this happened in the UK, there would be an immediate review, ministers would be called to answer etc etc. how is it possible that a whole nation's government can be so ignorant to find this acceptable?!

Oh and this site is interesting. It is the father's PR company, but has a number of other court transcripts.

Some of the comments from the guardian and the judge go a long way back (eg the children behaving in a cult like manner when refusing to engage with their father). It looks like the mother did make it very difficult for contact to happen at times, but some of the examples given of her bad behaviour are just weird - including a complaint that the mother asked to move a visit from 4pm to 4.30 and then arrived at 4.15. There also seems to be the assumption that the only reason why the children don't want to interact with their mother must be because of their mother, even when she is not there ("the apple doesn't fall far from the tree").

Oh and this sending the children off to the juvenile detention was not something new out of a fit of pique - the judge plainly says that she has done it before (and it looks like she has probably sent them um down too, although it's difficult to tell from the papers) and the things she said about that child were really really unpleasant, quite extraordinary really.

The other judgements seem to mostly consist of the parents lawyers disagreeing with each other and demanding money for being messed about, and the judge telling the dad how wonderful he is for persisting. A lot of the mother's lawyers complaints appear to be that the mother was complying with orders and the father was not, but was allowed all sorts of variances.

There's quite a funny bit where the mother's lawyer is talking about what fun the parenting time is going to be, just after it's been determined that the children will be spending all day in a locked room with their father and a supervisor. I assume that was one of the visits when the children decided not to communicate with any court officials and to totally ignore their father. It doesn't seem terribly surprising!

Goodness me some of the transcripts are really painful. the judge appears to be a real bully, and the things that the guardian is alleged to have said to the children are just so nasty, trying to blackmail and bully the children to see and interact with their father. I cannot imagine how anyone could possibly thought that a good relationship could have been developed on that basis. Poor poor kids.

I just don't understand the father's long term plan. If his aim is that he wants a relationship with the children, then surely at the merest whisper of them being sent to juvenile detention, he'd step back, tell the children he loves them and that he would always be there for them if they changed their minds. It would be heartbreaking for him sure but I can't see how he thinks he can salvage anything out of this.

But he obviously doesn't want a relationship. He wants to bend everyone to his will. And it's so sad and pathetic that a family court judge is facilitating it.

There are some mothers on here who have given up their children because they recognised that they couldn't be the best parent for their child. they are fantastic parents and don't get enough credit. But a man puts his kids through hell and gets congratulated for perservering.

The last report states that the children weren't locked up with juvenile criminals, makes you wonder what that wing of the centre was for

They were in a facility called Mandy's Place that is for abused and neglected children who are removed from the family for their own protection. I'm not sure what terminology is used in the UK, but in child protection systems in the US, this is sometimes called detention. It is temporary and from facilities like this, children may be placed in foster care, go back to the family with services in place or go to a long-term residential facility for abused children.

But it is certainly not for punishment; detention of this type is for protection of the child. This judge's attitude to these children is really reprehensible.

Odd that the judge believes that it is a place of punishment. "You'll have people watching you in the loo" (misquote) with the children separated from each other and the people who care for them. If that's how that state 'protects' children, then they need to have a look at how they do things.

The children have now been sent to a summer holiday camp for the next two weeks instead, as the judge obviously realised that her decision was very unpopular (bearing in mind that in the US judges are elected). The father is still in Israel, so he didn't choose to visit the children at a time when they would presumably have been forced to see him (given that the 'justified' claim for detaining them was for them to receive therapy and reestablish a relationship with their father).

Surely if the mother really did alienate the children and the father has been fighting tooth and nail to interact with them he would have seized this opportunity with both hands?

I started reading the comments under the linked article in the OP and had to stop because I was horrified that people were supporting and applauding the judge's decision.

The judge has clearly fallen hook line and sinker for the father's "line" and is determined that he must be the "good guy" in this scenario, so is making everything else fit into her view.

Those poor children, what an utterly hideous experience for them. And she expects them to even want to see their "father" after he was the one who allowed them to be locked up away from their family? she's insane.

There are some mothers on here who have given up their children because they recognised that they couldn't be the best parent for their child. they are fantastic parents and don't get enough credit. But a man puts his kids through hell and gets congratulated for perservering.

What on earth does believing yourself a bad parent and giving up your kids have to do with believing yourself a good parent denied access to your kids by the other parent for years on end? Are you suggesting a parent should 'give up their children' and be credited for it when the other parent simply wants that to happen?

So, are they free to return to their mother after summer camp?

Oh and Dr. Phil is a hack quasi-psychologist (not licensed to practice).

Meaning what? You dont think parental alienation exists? Try Dr Google then. I would have thought common sense would tell anyone kids can easily become parental cannon fodder after divorce. Its not much of a leap after that to be able to empathise the effects that would have on them.

So, are they free to return to their mother after summer camp?

Here you are, via Dr Google, news 10 hours old at time of posting:

www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/oakland/2015/07/20/jailed-kids-hearing/30412597/

PArental alienation is definitely a thing. It is also, however, a useful tool for a manipulator to use to further abuse an abused family. The correct course of action at this stage in this case would be to work out which is actually the case.

Which is worse? If she is guilty of PAS then her children will be prejudiced against their father but will still be safe; if she is telling the truth then she is keeping them safe from a man who hit her in their presence and may or may not have hit them as well.

Assuming the former and forcing the children into a non-secure situation with a potentially abusive man is a pretty big risk to take. I for one would want to be VERY sure that she is the one lying, before potentially putting the children at risk.

The one thing for certain is that custody should not be given to that judge. If you want to read a Jewish news spin on it (could possibly be behind a paywall for you): www.haaretz.com/blogs/routine-emergencies/.premium-1.665369