Dr. Stanley Goldstein - Author and Psychologist

Only weeks seem to pass before yet another child's murder by their parent is reported, often after activity by the Family Court which goal is to safeguard children. A New York State case immediately came to mind when a judge returned custody of a child to their parent who had just been released from prison for child abuse. This, despite professional plea not to do so. A lawyer later remarked that the judge had excellent legal credentials but lacked common sense. Sadly, the decisions of judges, lawyers, doctors, and the general public tend to lack knowledge of child psychological development, they instead relying on what a psychologist long ago described as "naive psychology," the knowledge about behavior which one gained through personal experiences, some being accurate but not all.
Other common troubling decisions derive from judicial beliefs that (1) children are best served by living with their biological parents, and (2) that a child should live with their biological parent despite the parent's lengthy non-involvement and failure to pay child support. Thus biology is considered to supplant psychology regardless of its harmful impact on the individual. Consider: would a grown woman accept being forced to live with a man to whom she was once married, years after he deserted her? Yet children are regularly forced into this equivalent situation despite state mandate that judicial decisions be made in the best interests of the child.

 

"Court-Ordered Therapy That Separates Kids from a Parent They Love Stirs a Backlash/A controversial treatment used in custody fights can keep family members apart for years against children's wishes./'It all absolutely destroyed me.''' begins the article.

Knowledge of child psychological development is greatly lacking among doctors, the legal system, and the general public. Children are not easily swayed, being fully capable of deciding who most loves them. The concept that a child needs both parents in their life for healthy psychological development is untrue. What most often reflects such Family Court conflict is parental narcissism, the lack of self-knowledge.

I have known children who were overjoyed when their parents separated, one teenager telling her mother that if she divorced the alcoholic father she would get a job to help support the family. A seven-year-old once told me, "I need a new family."

As every lawyer will tell you, the Family Court is a Wild West show where the parent with the most skilled lawyer usually wins despite the best interests of the child being the sole deciding mandate which should occur. In New York State two children were recently murdered by their abusive parent after being returned to them from foster care despite the opposition of mental health professionals. Nuff said.

A basic human tendency is to consider other people as being rational. Disagreeable perhaps but rational nonetheless. Except for those who commit such unspeakable acts as the Utah father, Michael Haight, who recently killed his mother-in-law, his wife, and their five children ranging in age from four-years through seventeen-years. This occurred two weeks after his wife filed for divorce. He had earlier removed guns from the house apparently so his victims couldn't defend against his planned attack.
Two-years before his oldest daughter, Macie, then fourteen, reported to the police her father's multiple assaults and the extreme abuse she suffered which made her, to quote a news article, "very afraid that he was going to keep her from breathing and kill her." Which he did.
This raised the significant question of why nothing was done by the police. The possible answer, that the wife refused to press charges, isn't sufficient since Macie had clearly been harmed. Had an adult behaved similarly toward another adult they would have been jailed (hopefully, though this is not certain in these odd times). Yet the testimony of youth even older than Macie tends not to taken as seriously as an adult's.

Another possible answer for why children aren't removed from an abusive family is the belief that children are best raised by biological parents despite aberrant parental behavior. This, even in states where judicial decisions are required to be "in the best interests of the child," is hardly ever done. Only rarely are parental rights abrogated with children being freed for adoption.
Not that foster care is always better: a recent news item descirbed foster parents who not only sexually abused their two young wards but prostituted them.
Clearly, more sophisticated evaluations are needed of both criminals and foster parents, and greater education of police and judges too in the hope that, finally, decisions are made consistent with the safety of children rather than hoary philosophy.