Drug and alcohol addiction and abuse. Recognition. Prevention. Treatment
20/20 Parenting. Recognizing and mitigating early vulnerabilities and risk factors.
Letters to Kerry
Stories of Victory, Struggle, Tragedy, & Workplace Concerns
August 31st, 2007:
An illuminating and troubling overview of the contradictory laws that impede responsible parenting of pre/teens. Gina is the mom I have accompanied to two government meetings this past summer. Info on the first here. The second was with Rich Coleman, MLA, Langley Township and local RCMP. We were pleased with the information and responses we received. I'll keep you posted on further developments. – Kerry
I have been working hard for the past few years persisting through my MP and MLA to change the laws, as that is what the police suggested I do as a parent of a challenging teen. What I learned during those tumultuous years was this:
At 12 years of age, through the Federal Privacy Act, our children have a right to full privacy from their parents regarding legal and medical issues. A parent cannot obtain any info about their own child without the child's signed consent.
If your child over the age of 12 is taken to hospital for ambulance, the parents are legally obligated to pay the charges, but are legally forbidden to any information about the complaint, treatment, or admittance or release of the child without their child's signed consent.
If you suspect your child has been involved in criminal activity and you ask police for information on their files, they will cite the Federal Privacy Act Sec 8 (2) and tell you that you must first have your child's signed consent. If they receive the signed consent, they send the written information to the youth in a sealed envelope, with a cover letter explaining their right not to show it to you.
Only if your child is arrested, and is under the age of 18, will parents be notified that they have been in trouble with the law.
At 14 y/o a child reaches the age of sexual consent. There are no laws that police can enforce to make a child return home against their will, and there are no laws that police can enforce to make an unruly incorrigible child leave your home.
If your child (over the age of 14) is using or abusing drugs, they have a right to make that choice, and further, the right to self-destruct in addiction. Parents in B.C. have no legal recourse to gain their children back from drugs through forced intervention.
Your 14 y/o daughter can run away from your home, enter a life of prostitution, crime and drug addiction, and you, the parent, even knowing the location where she is residing with older men running drugs for them, the police cannot help you as this is your daughter's choice. The laws as they are not only allow our youth to choose this lifestyle, they also prevent parents from intervening.
A child is mandated by law to attend school until the age of 16, but this law is seldom if ever enforced.
The YJCA is focused on protecting young criminals from consequence, rather than rehabilitating them. The probation program is often ineffective, and does little towards rehabilitation. Most teens are aware of this ineffectiveness through peers who have experienced it.
My province [BC] has a Parental Responsibility Law that holds parents liable for any damages caused by their children and youth up to the age of 19 and up to $10,000.
So, while you are held responsible for them and their actions to the age of 19, your parental rights are removed by age 12 in some aspects and in all aspects certainly by age 14.
Police are often not clear on the laws that affect parenting, and often mis-inform parents who are trying to help their teens.
Government support services are fragmented and ineffective. Private support services are very expensive. Both require a ‘willing participant’; the common mantra is, “you can’t help someone who doesn’t want help”.
These are all contributing factors to the detriment of PREVENTION of many, if not most of these problems in youth and adult court. Responsible parents trying to help their challenging teens have no resources to back them - only people and professionals telling them things like:
- ‘there's nothing you can do”; “you have to let them hit rock bottom”; “they have to want to change their own behavior”; and the most irritating of all – “kick 'em out!” (As if putting a challenged, or drug addicted, or drug experimenting, or just an immature, normal rebellious teen out on the streets with no support is going to be helpful, productive, and prevent further damage and harm to the individual, the family, and society.
Meanwhile, the youth continues to miss out on educational opportunities, and a chance to rehabilitate, continuing on their path to self-destruction, often landing in the courts.
WE NEED TO CHANGE THE CONTRADICTORY LAWS THAT INHIBIT RESPONSIBLE PARENTING.
While some laws mandate that parents must care for their children's health, safety and well-being, other laws make that impossible.
Our MLA says the obstacle to BC instating similar laws to Alberta (PCHIP/PCHAD) is our very strong and vocal Human Rights Commission.
So, when we take a stand, how do we proceed past these obstacles?
Gina, a concerned Mom, BC, Canada
Gina welcomes your feedback! Email her at: icanseeclearlynow@hotmail.com
