Tim,
The kids in the Romanian orphanage did get shelter and food, but they didn’t get to interact with other children—or anybody else. They spent most of the time in their cribs, left by themselves. Look it up.
Once again, you are wrong to assume that parents need to be taught how to interact with their kids since the studies show that parents have no influence in that domain. Sorry, but you are completely wrong on this.
And for the last time, regarding your first paragraph of your previous post, if you think you need to teach parents that they have to feed their kids and not keeping them locked in the basement, by all means, go ahead.
I recognize that it is difficult for persons who have grown up in and around, pretty much typically functioning families, to believe that there are a significant number of babies who may be subject to conditions, that to some degree, in some ways, replicate the conditions that were exerienced in the Romanian (and other similar) orphanages.
But anyone who has worked for enough time in the field of Early Childhood Intervention, can tell you that there are babies who have been raised in similar conditions. I have seen a toddler whose head was flat in the back. (This was not an inherited trait. It developed because the child had been left in a car seat for most of its earlier life.) There are babies who die in the USA due a conditon called failure to thrive, which often is a product, primarily, of severe neglect. Yes, this is often related to mental/emotional or drug abuse or cognitive deficits of the parent. But, in my experience, it was not due to the parents not loving their child and not being motivated or not being able to learn different behaviors in regards to their children once they had support in learning how crucial their changing their behavior towards their children was. So why not spend a little bit of time reaching these parents with the critical education before they have babies?
I already said I doubt it would have any effect. What are you going to teach such people? Don’t get high if you have small kids? When it comes to severe cases like these, I would be actually inclined to take the “Hitler way.”
One of my cousins is mentally retarded (her IQ can’t be over 70) and ended up pregnant. My uncle and my aunt had to raise her baby, who, BTW, grew up to be a very bright child. This happened in the Czech Republic and the government ordered her to get sterilized. I see no reason why not treat parents who are addicted to drugs the same way.
The reason is that we care about people.
