This week's featured article is "The Fragile Generation" by Lenore Skenazy and Jonathan Haidt, originally published in the December 2017 print issue.
This audio was generated using AI trained on the voice of Katherine Mangu-Ward.
Music credits: "Deep in Thought" by CTRL and "Sunsettling" by Man with Roses
The post <I>The Best of Reason</I>: The Fragile Generation appeared first on Reason.com.
Sabra Brucker works as an executive assistant. Her husband, Dagan, is a fifth-generation farmer in Cropsey, Illinois, about 100 miles south of Chicago.
After many years of infertility and miscarriages, they finally became the parents of four young children: Addison, born in 2017; Andi, born in 2019; and twins Aiden and Arie, born prematurely in March 2021.
The Brucker family had never previously endured a run-in with child protective services. A series of medical complications involving the younger twin, Aiden, suddenly changed that. After the parents sought care for their sick child, they were falsely accused of breaking Aiden's ribs and subjected to months of humiliating inequity. And when that was over, the authorities refused to disclose the identity of the actual perpetrator.
"I never thought that this was even humanly possible," says Sabra. "To be honest, I
was probably naive."
When Aiden was 5 months old, the Bruckers discovered he had genetic intestinal malrotation—the same condition that had required emergency surgery to save his older sister Addison's life back when she too was 5 months old.
On August 9, 2021, the Bruckers took Aiden to the OSF Children's Hospital Emergency Room in Peoria, Illinois. He was experiencing intense stomach pain and vomiting, just as his older sister had. Genetic intestinal malrotation can be a life-threatening condition, and it requires immediate, emergency intervention.
Aiden's condition, though serious, was not as immediately life-threatening as Addison's had been. He was given ultrasounds and X-rays for his upper GI track, abdomen, and chest. His intestinal reversal was visualized, but no skeletal concerns were noted. Nevertheless, he was held in the hospital for observation, and subjected to daily, repeated abdominal ultrasounds and chest and abdominal X-rays.
On the fourth day of his stay at the hospital, seven rib fractures became visible on the X-rays. These were all new, non-calcified fractures that had not appeared on earlier X-rays. Rib fractures are viewed by medical profession as evidence of possible abuse.
The Bruckers immediately suspected that the fractures had occurred during the hospital stay itself, possibly due to the extensive handling and exams Aiden had endured. The lack of any signs of these injuries at admission certainly suggested that they had appeared during Aiden's inpatient care. And yet as soon as the fractures were detected, a child abuse hotline call was placed to the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) naming the Bruckers as suspected abusers.
Sabra was in a meeting with her boss when she received the news.
"I immediately called my husband—he was at the hospital with Aiden—and I said, 'What is going on?'" Sabra recalls. "I just remember the sheer confusion and fear in his
voice."
Sabra and Dagan were not quick to point fingers, but they did wonder if the hospital was aware of its own potential liability when it accused them of causing the fractures.
Following the call to the child abuse hotline, a state-contracted child abuse pediatrician, Channing Petrak, assumed the role of directing Aiden's medical testing as a suspected child abuse victim. Petrak oversees child abuse cases under a subcontract her office holds with the DCFS for central Illinois. While not a hospital employee, she is viewed as the head of the hospital's child abuse team. In that capacity, she was empowered to decide which tests Aiden needed in order to confirm or rule out abuse.
She was also immediately enlisted to discuss the case with DCFS and the police and to determine whether child abuse had occurred. If she believed it had, her role would include testifying against the parents in the event the case went to court.
Petrak was responsible for testing not just Aiden but the other Brucker children as well. While parents have the right to refuse medical procedures that are not required by a court order or emergency, the fear of CPS retribution looms large.
On multiple occasions, Sabra requested a meeting with Petrak and the OSF team to ensure the timeline of the injuries was clear. She felt it necessary that everyone understand the fractures had not been present on Aiden's body upon admission, as shown by multiple X-ray examinations. Clarifying this, she thought, would allow her and Dagan to work alongside the hospital to identify their underlying cause.
Sabra even wrote on the whiteboard the team used for notes: "Can we clarify Xray finds with DCFS?" and snapped a photo of it.
"I wanted a picture with a time stamp because no one would speak to me," she says.
Sabra's requests were ignored.
Meanwhile, Petrak pushed the family to authorize an MRI, which would require Aiden to fast for eight hours and then undergo general anesthesia and be intubated. As there was no suspicion of other injuries that would have made an MRI useful, the Bruckers tried to object.
In response, the hospital threatened the family with a court order that would require Aiden to remain in the hospital's care pending a judicial order for the MRI. Since complying with the MRI demand seemed to be the only way to bring their son home quickly, Sabra comforted Aiden through the fast, and handed him over to the hospital's staff—who sedated and intubated him, and proceeded with the MRI.
The other Brucker children—ages four, two and now six months—were also subjected to observation at their home. These included visual exams of their genitals.
The state even demanded that the 4-year-old daughter, Addison, submit to a forensic interrogator. This investigator reported that Addison was very "sweet" and "polite," and no concerns were noted from her 2-hour interview.
Meanwhile, DCFS determined that the Bruckers could not take Aiden home by themselves upon his discharge. Instead, the agency demanded the family find someone else to take care of their four children. That person could do so at the Bruckers' home, and Sabra and Dagan could live there—but they would not be allowed to be alone with their children at any time. If they not did find a caregiver to watch the kids 24/7, the children would be taken into foster care and placed with strangers.
Sabra's parents, Don and Shari Boyd, lived 273 miles away. Thankfully, Shari was on hand to help out, even though she was in the middle of breast cancer treatment.
Diane Redleaf, a defense attorney who co-chairs the National Coalition to End Hidden Foster Care, says that the Bruckers' experience is commonplace. Efforts are underway to secure reforms that would allow families like the Bruckers to have some recourse when they are threatened with having their kids taken away.
This arrangement for the children was supposed to last for just two to five days, but DCFS kept extending it. The caseworker even reminded grandma Shari that she couldn't use the bathroom without taking the kids in with her. Sabra and Dagan's nighttime feedings of their baby twins also had to be supervised by Shari.
The Bruckers wanted to object, but they felt they had no choice.
This led to odd situations, such as Dagan not being able to have his kids take turns riding the combine with him—their favorite fall activity. The combine had only two seats, so if one of the children rode along, Shari and the other three children would have to somehow ride along too, or the government's plan would be violated.
As the weeks dragged on, the Bruckers worked to demonstrate that the abuse allegations against them were false. A University of Chicago pediatric orthopedic specialist, Christopher Sullivan, saw Aiden in his office and reviewed his radiology imaging and lab testing, formally concluding that the timing of the fractures' first appearance made it impossible for them to have occurred prior to the hospital admission.
Sullivan also noticed that Aiden had very low Vitamin D and high parathyroid hormone levels, which made his bones extremely fragile. He concluded that the likeliest explanation for the fractures was routine handling at the hospital.
Despite this report—and many letters from the Bruckers' pediatrician, family members, friends, and teachers—DCFS's restrictions persisted.
Meanwhile, DCFS came to suspect that the Bruckers' day care providers were Aiden's possible abuse perpetrators. For that reason, DCFS told the Bruckers they could no longer send their kids there. Everyone who had ever been in contact with Aiden before his hospital stay had suddenly become a suspect.
Sabra requested that their two older children be allowed to keep going to their day care— with their familiar friends and routines—but the caseworker said no. The caseworker also continued to demand weekly check-ins with the Bruckers. Each time, she insisted on strip-searching the twins and commenting on natural bodily features, such as inverted nipples.
As the family languished, Sabra checked the mail one day and was shocked to find a bill from the hospital for over $60,000. Her private insurance provider had denied the payment for Aiden's MRI as "medically unnecessary." The Bruckers told the hospital's billing department that they had not requested the MRI; it was done at the behest of Petrak. Soon after this, the Bruckers' billing records disappeared from their file at the hospital.
Illinois gives DCFS 60 days to complete an investigation. Knowing this, the Brucker family decided on day 60 that they had had enough of the "voluntary safety plan." They hired a lawyer with DCFS experience who confirmed their right to terminate the plan. He notified DCFS accordingly.
Three months later, in January 2022, a caseworker from a different DCFS regional office phoned Sabra to say their investigation file had been transferred. Since the children had not been seen by DCFS in several months, the new caseworker wanted to come observe them. The family declined this request. The new DCFS caseworker also informed Sabra that the Bruckers' case file was completely empty of investigative notes.
In March, and again in October, 14 months after the case had begun, the Bruckers' attorney submitted a complaint to the DCFS Inspector General. In November 2022, he received a response saying the inspector general was unable to investigate this complaint because the case was still open. The Bruckers couldn't help but wonder whether DCFS was keep the status of the investigation ambiguous in order to avoid accountability.
Finally, in November 2023, the Bruckers received a letter from DCFS stating that the case was now closed and Dagan and Sabra were cleared of any wrongdoing. Curiously, the letter claimed that "someone" had been "substantiated" as Aiden's abuser.
The Bruckers filed an inquiry as to who that person was. They were told they had no right to see these records.
Neither Petrak nor the hospital responded to a request for comment. A spokesperson for DCFS declared in a statement: "DCFS is mandated by Illinois statute to investigate any allegations of child abuse or neglect that is reported to our agency."
In situations like the Bruckers', which are far too numerous to be viewed as aberrations, concerns about children's health and well-being are cited as pretexts to legitimize witch hunts against parents and other caregivers. These investigations have lasting consequences. The Brucker children were left with extreme separation anxiety. Sabra experienced debilitating post-traumatic stress disorder. The family considered suing the caseworkers but decided that litigation would force them to relive the horror.
But they did decide to speak out about their harrowing experience. They want people to understand that the state's so-called voluntary safety plan did was neither voluntary nor safe—it was a sham.
Thankfully, Aiden's medical condition has resolved, and he's now in excellent physical shape.
"He's growing, cute, talking, very healthy now," says Sabra.
Meanwhile, Petrak recently became president of the board of directors of the National Children's Alliance. The organization oversees funding and accrediting for child advocacy centers, where allegedly abused children are interviewed and assessed across the country.
The post Illinois Falsely Accused These Parents of Abusing Their Baby—and Now Won't Tell Them Who Actually Did It appeared first on Reason.com.
A study just published in the prestigious Journal of Anxiety Disorders describes a "novel treatment" for clinically anxious kids: letting them do new things, on their own, without their parents.
In other words, letting them be Free-Range Kids.
The pilot study, by Long Island University psychology professor Camilo Ortiz and his doctoral student Matthew Fastman, focused on four kids. In his everyday practice, Ortiz would often use cognitive behavioral therapy to treat kids with anxiety. This involves exposing patients to the very thing that scares them so that they can overcome it. For instance, a person deathly afraid of dogs might be shown a picture of a dog, then stand in the same room as a dog, and finally have to pet the dog.
Independence therapy works differently.
"We didn't actually have the kids face the things they're afraid of," says Ortiz.
The patients included:
The independence therapy involved each family separately visiting Ortiz five times, in his office or on Zoom. At the first session, only the parents came. Ortiz discussed the value of independence and even showed them this video of me, which, Ortiz said, "has been unbelievably effective. Many parents cry."(Ortiz told me he has been aware of Free-Range Kids since I let my 9-year-old ride the subway alone and has subsequently followed the work of Let Grow.)
At that visit, Ortiz asked the parents about their biggest concern. One couple said their daughter was too scared to sleep in her own bed. Another said their son wouldn't go up or downstairs in their home without them.
On the next visit, the child accompanied the parents. But without mentioning the big fear, Ortiz talked up independence and asked the kids what they'd like to start doing on their own. Despite their anxiety, they wanted to walk home from school, play chess in the park, take public transportation, and many other things. "OK," Ortiz told each child, "your assignment is to do one 'independence activity' a day for the next four weeks." The parents' assignment was to let them.
And yet, Ortiz confides, "The whole time I was rooting for things to go wrong." It's when a person goes from "I can't handle this!" to "Whoa—I handled it!" that the biggest growth occurs, he says.
For one of her independence activities, the girl afraid to sleep in her own bed took a city bus—and missed her stop. She was so upset that she actually talked to a stranger: the person next to her. That person told her to get off and walk two blocks back. She accomplished this, and the results were incredible.
"During the last week of treatment, unprompted," Ortiz wrote in the study, the girl "slept in her bed after never having made it through a night previously." And then she kept doing it.
Similarly, while out on an independent walk, the boy terrified about his health "really had to pee," Ortiz says. He relieved himself on the side of a building. Later, when Ortiz and the boy discussed this during a session, "we had a good laugh, but he actually learned something: Life can be messy, and it's OK."
Being psychologically flexible is one of the most important factors for predicting a good life.
In the end, the kids' anxieties markedly decreased. That was true even for the one patient who didn't finish the treatment. After two sessions, she was already "over the hump," said her parents, who reported that "she requested to stay home alone for four hours, went into a restaurant to ask for a table, babysat three kids, and organized an online art auction."
In psychological terms, it seems the kids' confidence spread from the new things they were doing to the things they'd been too scared to do. This mirrors a recent study of people afraid of both heights and spiders. Treated for one, they became less afraid of the other.
If further studies of independence therapy show this kind of success—Ortiz is seeking funding—it could prove a valuable alternative to cognitive behavioral therapy for three reasons. One, it seems to require fewer sessions, which makes it cheaper. Two, it doesn't require much training and could be done in schools. Three, it doesn't require the parents, kids, or therapists themselves to deal with the unpleasant, triggering fear.
"This is a pretty big finding—that you don't have to actually treat directly the thing someone is afraid of to make that thing better," says Ortiz.
The post 'Independence Therapy' Could Revolutionize Treatment for Child Anxiety appeared first on Reason.com.
A mom recently went to her daughter's Maryland elementary school to ask why the kids aren't allowed to play tag at recess—or even to close their eyes.
"We'd recently transferred from another district and my daughter was taken aback by how many rules there were," said the mom, whose name is being kept private to protect her identity.
There are indeed a lot of rules at the girl's new school—four typed pages of them. The mom found this out after the school administrator handed her a copy of the "Montgomery County Public Schools Playground Supervision Recess Procedures for Playground Aides." It states, among other things:
- Baseball and football games are not permitted at any time.
- Haphazard running, chasing and tag games on the blacktop are not permitted.
- A student may not begin to swing on rings and bars until the student ahead of him/her has finished.
Once they do swing or climb, they must use an "opposed thumb grip." (As opposed to their teeth?)
The rules also instruct playground aides to "caution children if it appears that emotions and excitement are mounting to a point where incorrect actions may soon result."
After the mom sent me the rules, I contacted the Montgomery County office in charge of recess safety. They did not respond.
"It really feels as though maybe we've lost touch with what's developmentally appropriate," the mom told me.
An administrator who met with the mom explained that the school's primary job is to keep children safe at all times. The mom disagrees; a school's primary job is to teach children and avoid interfering with their development.
Boston College Psychology Professor Peter Gray feels similarly.
"These rules demonstrate no trust at all of the children, nor even of the playground supervisors," says Gray, a co-founder of my non-profit, Let Grow. "When we treat people as irresponsible, they become irresponsible."
The mom said she felt a bit sorry for the administrator, who had no say in these rules. (Just like the kids.) And she added that today's children really do seem a little rough when they play tag—probably because they've had so little practice at it.
I have heard this from other people who work with children, especially occupational therapist Angela Hanscom, who notes that when kids don't move enough, they fail to develop proprioception, the ability to know where their body is in space and how much force it needs to do something physical.
All the more reason to let kids start adjusting to each other in the easiest, most natural way possible: through play.
In his new book, The Anxious Generation, Jonathan Haidt recommends bringing more play into kids' lives by keeping Friday afternoons free so kids can play in the neighborhood. He also recommends that schools stay open before or after school for mixed-age free play in a no-phone zone: what we call a "Let Grow Play Club." (Haidt is another co-founder of Let Grow. Our Play Club materials are here, for free.)
Depriving kids of play in the name of safety is dangerous. Even more dangerous than two kids using the climbing rings at once.
The post Elementary Schools Ban Tag, Football, and Fun During Recess appeared first on Reason.com.
"Wow!!!!" "Congrats!" "Next step: New York Times crossword puzzle!"
I began receiving such texts on Friday, after achieving the modern-day equivalent of immortality: I became a clue on Jeopardy!.
The category was "Points of View," and the clue was this: "Lenore Skenazy, who wrote of letting her 9-year-old right the NYC subway alone, moved this term from raising chickens to raising kids."
If you can't guess the answer, there's a clue at the top of this article.
So, how does one become a Jeopardy! clue? It's easy: Just let your kid do something the world considers dangerous, then write a column about why the world is wrong. Then write some more columns about it, appear on every possible talk show in defense of yourself, and then graciously accept the nickname "America's Worst Mom."
Then, start a blog about the issue and give it a catchy name, manage to trademark said name (shout out to Dale Cendali, America's top intellectual property lawyer and my dear friend from college), and write a book with the same title. Next, you have to speak at about a million schools, as well as corporate behemoths like Microsoft and DreamWorks. Perhaps most importantly, write to Matt Welch at Reason, out of the blue, and propose yourself as a columnist.
In fact, I recently rediscovered that first letter to Reason, which began:
Hi Matt!
Looking over all the topics on the Reason blog—ever fascinating—I see one that's not covered much: Parenting. And yet looking at parenting is how I found you and the whole Libertarian movement.
I was angry to learn about parents who'd been arrested for letting their kids wait in the car, or walk to the pizza parlor, or play in the park. I couldn't believe some daycare workers had to check in on sleeping babies every 15 minutes to record their sleep positions. I heard from teachers who had to fill out hazardous materials reports for each different brand of baby wipe and dish soap in their classrooms. And I still don't understand the drop-side crib recall — or so many of the CPSC's crusades (like this one against a sandal with a flower on it). And of course I hear about pretty much every Zero Tolerance travesty in this country, often days before the mainstream media gloms on. And that's not to mention all the so-called "safety precautions" set in motion after Sandy Hook, or the insane and arcane background checks now required of school volunteers. (I wrote about those in Monday's Wall Street Journal.)
So if you want to be on Jeopardy!—Jeopardy! Masters, actually—and have the contestant answer the clue correctly, just dedicate about 16 years to one specific topic and all its strange and infuriating ramifications, become the world's leading expert on the topic, and write for Reason!
The post How Free-Range Kids Became an Answer on <em>Jeopardy!</em> appeared first on Reason.com.
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