Parental rights denied by 9th Circuit Court

Nobody seems to have brought it up, but what I gathered from the statement was that the questionnaire was designed to bring to light any trauma (violent or sexual) which might be inhibiting a child's learning.

It's also been my impression that touching oneself as such a young age is indicative of sexual trauma. I think asking whether a kid touches himself out of a neurotic response to rape is more valid than wondering whether 6 year olds get horny.

If you look at the wording of that letter, the parents have a point that it wasn't explicitly stated that there would be questions with sexual content. That may have been an ingenuous ommission by the district, but I can easily imagine a meeting where someone said "Oh don't say that; then they'll never go for it!"

Oh, and lurker, by the third grade I had a rough understanding of procreation. eg. Babies came out between girls' legs, and boys peed up there to make it happen.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

You have a point Watts. The questionnaires would be useful if they indicated specific children who had been traumatized, allowing those children to be helped, or to find relations between specific learning problems and specific traumas, allowing the former to be solved by treating the latter.

However, if anonymity is guaranteed, then the only thing you get is a statistic analysis of children who have been traumatized. A comparison with one regarding children with learning problems might indicate a relation. However, I thought we already knew that there was a link between the two.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Isn't it taking the ruling completely out of context to say parents have no determination on the disposition of their children? The ruling says:

Quote:

In summary, we hold that there is no free-standing funda-
mental right of parents “to control the upbringing of their chil-
dren by introducing them to matters of and relating to sex in
accordance with their personal and religious values and
beliefs” and that the asserted right is not encompassed by any
other fundamental right. In doing so, we do not quarrel with
the parents’ right to inform and advise their children about the
subject of sex as they see fit. We conclude only that the par-
ents are possessed of no constitutional right to prevent the
public schools from providing information on that subject to
their students in any forum or manner they select.

This just means they don't have the right to sue anyone who allows the kid to learn something not explicitly approved by the parent. I think that's reasonable. Well...they can't successfully sue, at any rate.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Originally Posted by AliceNWondrland

It may come as a shock to some of you, but not all first graders know that masturbation, self-mutilation, sexual abuse and excessive violent and gory movies and TV even exist. Why expose them to those concepts at such an early age? Sure, they're going to learn about all that stuff eventually, but doesn't anyone hold childhood innocence sacred anymore? Don't the parents have the right keep them innocent until they're a little older?

Alice, the school respected that when they sent out consent forms.

Also, it's still kind of creeping me out that nobody's getting this, maybe it's just me. If parents have a fundamental right to control what their children learn, that means they can call upon the courts to take action against anyone who introduces anything to their kids which doesn't meet their approval. That sounds like a legal nightmare to me. I could sue the neighbors for letting their kids swear near mine.

I also want to make sure everyone is aware that nobody said anything about parents not having a say in raising their kids. The only thing that ruling said was that the rest of society has a right too. Since when has a child ever been raised without society's input? This doesn't seem new to me.

Further, I recall while I was in high school, everyone was bitching about parents having too much control over the school system. The school administration was tied up about so many things because the PTA/PTO had so much weight. So, it seems to me that if your kid hears/learns something you didn't want them too, you first present your viewpoint, with all the authority of parenthood behind it, and then you rally and kick the shit out of the place that allowed it.

Regarding childhood innocence, I agree, it's a wonderful ideal. I'll point out that in my experience, it was ruined by my peers, not by the administration. I'm certain this is the norm.

This is an affirmation of the status quo, why are we all up in arms about it now?

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?