Be careful what you blog!

FranticFrummie

Tue, Jul 14 2015, 2:03 pm

http://onsbs.com/2015/06/12/me.....post/

"Investigators reported that the parent’s continued on-line blogging content was considered strong evidence that the child remained unsafe to return home."

Starting a Go Fund Me page, asking for help, sharing your frustration, or any other sort of social media can get you on the radar of CPS. All it takes is for a doctor with an agenda to look at your Facebook page and decide that you are a psycho. Scary!

WriterMom

Tue, Jul 14 2015, 2:16 pm

That is disturbing. I understand the need to reach out, particularly if you're trying to fundraise, but in general people need to be way more careful about what they put online, particularly about their children. Anything on the internet lives forever, and can be taken out of context and manipulated extremely easily. Privacy settings and pseudonyms are fairly easy tools for your own protection, at minimum.

debsey

Tue, Jul 14 2015, 2:21 pm

I'm confused - what did they actually do WRONG? If the autism diagnosis is incorrect, surely that's on the medical professionals, not the parents who are acting in good faith based on those diagnoses.
This type of thing happened to someone I know slightly - her autistic son was prone to wandering in the middle of the night- she had lots of stories of him turning on the fire or leaving the house - even after putting in multiple security measures - so finally, she started locking his door at night.
All was fine until he had a severe allergic reaction and they needed a home care nurse, who heard from the mom that they lock him in at night and called DYFS. Months and months of legal nightmares followed.........

debsey

Tue, Jul 14 2015, 2:33 pm

WriterMom wrote:

They were suspected of exaggerating their child's medical problems for attention and fundraising, and of subjecting him to unnecessary treatments (in the view of CPS.)

But if they had a diagnosis from a state hospital, surely that's on the hospital? As far as fundraising - how else can they get extra help, over what the state will cover? I dk what's going on, but there MUST be more to the story.

FranticFrummie

Tue, Jul 14 2015, 2:40 pm

As you can see, this is hardly a rare or unusual situation.

http://www.freerangekids.com/w.....buse/ (check all the links in the article, too.)

http://www.hopeforjacob.org/jacobs-story

https://m.facebook.com/FightFo.....Bella

This one is exceptionally bad: http://m.seattlepi.com/news/ar.....0.php

WriterMom

Tue, Jul 14 2015, 3:25 pm

I'm sure there's a lot more going on than we see in a single webpage (or even in several) - and particularly if there are children and medical issues involved (and especially if both) there are strict limits on what doctors and social workers can say, for privacy reasons.

I've heard of other cases where there is a high rail on the bed or a lock on the door for a child's safety, and some well-meaning but dumb social worker interprets it as abuse. Part of the situation here is to be very very careful of who you let into your space, not only your physical home but also your virtual life in the form of what you discuss online.

However, I am also aware that there are parents who use 'medical abuse' or Munchausen by proxy, because an in-law was one: she'd feed her kids substances to make them sick, then rush them to the hospital and revel in the attention and the praise she got for being such a good mother to such sick children. There must be a happy medium between giving the parents the benefit of the doubt and guarding children who are too young to defend themselves. The big problem here is you have many people with minimal knowledge of the family sitting in judgment upon them. I agree with you, in general, if the family doctor/people who've known the family for years think it's legit, that carries more weight than some freaked out social worker who sees a net around the bed and assumes it's abuse.