Seeing the Effect of CPS on the Kids

The kids have been very fractious and upset for the last couple of days – mostly yesterday – and Laura finally pointed out how they were behaving and treating the family and asked them why they were feeling that way. Their response? They expressed ongoing distress at having been pulled out of class and questioned by CPS at school. We asked them to tell us more about the experience – specifically Laura asked who was present during the interrogation – and they told us that they were alone with the woman from CPS. They said that they had been asked if they wanted anyone from the school office present but they declined the offer. Mariah specifically said that she was afraid it would be a specific person from the office (I can’t recall who she said) that she didn’t feel comfortable with. In other words, the children were given the option to have someone else present but their options were implicitly limited by the CPS person (it might have felt like an explicit limitation from a child’s point of view).

Upon hearing this we explained to the kids that they could not be forced to participate in an interview with CPS if they were uncomfortable. We told them that they could explicitly request any adult that they personally felt comfortable with and that they could refuse to participate in an interview with a stranger of there were no adults available to be present who they weren’t comfortable with. Laura also expressed her feeling that it shouldn’t be legal for CPS to conduct interviews with children of these young ages without another adult chosen by the child being present.

I made sure to teach the children why it is important in society to have an organization like CPS with the authority to intervene in family life but also how such authority can be abused either through ignorance, negligence, or malice on the part of people from the organization. I explained that since the goal of CPS is to keep kids safe they should listen whenever kids tell them they don’t feel safe – even if what the kids are telling them is that they don’t feel safe with people from CPS.