Why didn’t we have school shootings and massive bullying when we were younger? It is mainly because of one word and it begins with the letter P and ends with the letter S. PARENTS! We talk about guns and mental health a lot in this country. However, I haven’t heard people talking about the lack of discipline in our country because of fear. When we allowed the government to come into our houses and take on the position as the silent parent, we opened the door for disruption.

Some of you might find it ironic as hell that I am taking this position, but there’s a reason behind it. When I was in the academy for investigator training, one of the first things we learned was that the majority of CPS cases would be fictitious. I didn’t want to believe it because surely 85 percent of cases couldn’t really be just parents, trying to be parents. However, after I graduated the academy and cases started coming in, I soon learned the dark side of reporting.

While a handful of my cases were actual abuse, the majority of my cases were not abuse. Many of them were cases with teens or preteens who were out of control. Some of the children were so out of control that their parents could no longer afford to take care of them. In many ways, we have the government to thank for this epidemic. Parents are scared to parent because anything and everything can be used against them when it comes to reporting.

We are talking about in some cases parents raising their voices, spanking, removing doors, and talking to children about their weight issues, these are some of the things that parents did to get CPS called on them which always resulted in Rule Outs. The calls would come from clinics, schools, family members, or people involved in custody fights.

A single mother was using a provider for her newborn and she didn’t feel like the doctor was really showing the level of concern that she needed, so she switched providers. The clinic called in a case on the new mom with a load of lies which were easily picked apart due to records. I have always and will always say CPS needs a new screening method. The current method does more harm than good. If you have a reporting system that lets retaliatory accusations flourish then you have a broken system.

There needs to be some form of punishment for false accusations because there are too many false allegations that result in stagnated parenting. Good parents become fearful of future calls and stop reinforcing rules out of fear of future CPS interactions. This fear then spreads to family members and friends which later interrupts how the family is able to parent. Keep in mind in order to close cases investigators must contact references even if the case happens to be fictitious. Thus spreading fear of how and what parents can do to parent their children.

Enter in the wayward child that we see today. Parents cannot parent due to fear of the government and the government is not equipped to take on the full responsibility of parenting all the children they have helped corrupt. So people reach for medication or therapy when perhaps the only thing they needed in the first place was the ability to parent their children without the fear of the government.