Dlowan's weird work questions (about stuff to do with kids )

Well i said it before and I will say it again. I view prepubecent exploration as just that.
I can't remember being interested in girls and what they had until 14 or thereabouts so its hard for me to guess at whats going on.

I know this will be seen as pollitically incorect but....

I really cant see whats wrong with sexual/genital explorationand or sexual activity at that age. In my mind a 12 year old boy cant do much/any damage with the equipment he has at that stage. I'm no expert on prepubecent girls so If thats wrong and a boy could hurt then I have to change that. Also in my mind is that girls are probably just as interested in boys bits and how it all works.

I will tell another story. I was about 15 at the time. 2 boys, 11 & 12, two girls (from memory 8 & 5) are playing body games, streaking and general exposure, giggling and squealing, A women says "I'm not sure they should be playing those games", I think i said well they can hardly hurt each other can they? she said "I guess not".

Later I overheard these kids in a tent furthering their exploration. "let me stay in for longer" and "no shes too young" (about the youngest girl) is what i heard.
I didnt do anything about it.
I had no sense of coercion or force being used by the boys however I do think the girls were just going along with the whole thing rather than being active participants. Remember I was 15 or thereabouts at the time.

Years later I met the (now grown) 8 year old and asked her how she felt about this incident. She had no memory of this at all.

As a boy you get to see dads schlong when he gets out of the shower, getting dressed or taking a leak, but with girls/women it all hidden away and secret and naughty-naughty-no-no.

Maybe the reason the answer is damnded hard is that there really isn't a good reason for kids of that age group to not engage in sexual exploration.

I have come into contact with numbers of exchange students and have been intriged at the prissy attitude to naked bodies that American, Australian, Canadian, and British kids have.

Teenagers from these countries cant/wont even get undressed and shower after sports activities at school in the changerooms.
Boys seem a little less affected than girls as they get exposed to the football club changerooms.

The kids from Scandanavia and other European cultures are amazed at our attitude to naked bodies. (Why do they stare at me when i get changed? said one scandanavian girl).

Sauna, Onsen (in Japan) and Steam Bath (in eastern europe/turkey) are major major problems for the western exchanger to overcome in their quest to absorb the culture. (Some never get over this hurdle which is a little sad but i respect the individuals rights to decide.)

I think this attitude speaks volumes.

DLOWAN
It might be interesting to compare stats for your scenarios with those of Europe and Scandanavia. Is prepubecent sexual exploration more or less of a problem in such countries. Is it in fact seen as a problem?

yeah, this is exactly what I said in my first couple of posts that I wasn't especially interested in debating.


This is always gonna be one of those culture/values calls.....however


a. There has been extensive gathering of information re "normal" sexual behaviour in kids, (and this continues) and an actual instrument to determine what is considered normal, and what is considered clinically significant.

While there is obviously wiggle room around all this, and different cultures will perhaps view it differently, the kids I am talking about have behaviours that are measured as clinically significant, and whose behaviour is causing distress to others (or, in some cases, is clearly criminal) or has led to, or clearly will lead to, social exclusion and other negative consequences for them.

I do not see kids with sexual exploration within the normal limits (I am using those words understanding their value laden basis).

b. This work has been replicated in Europe, by Scandinavian researchers, and the data re what kids do, and what is considered normal, is, with a couple of slightly lighter attitudes in some European countries, extremely consistent.


c. The kids I and others see are generally kids who have been abused either sexually, physically, emotionally, or via neglect....or all or a cluster of the above. Other common factors that will cause kids to present with this behaviour, either in combination with the above, or not, are the witnessing of violence...especially domestic violence, but sometimes general violence (DV is HUGE in their backgrounds), traumatic or disrupted attachment histories, chaotic families which expose kids to sexual material well beyond their developmental readiness, or sexualise kids without actual physical touch...and a whole host of other dramas and crap which traumatizes kids.




I ain't seeing kids engaged in light hearted exploration.


Anyhoo, I probably won't especially enter into further discussion of this aspect, though it is fascinating and others may well want to. I work in our culture, and have to work pretty much within its norms.

I don't recall a rape scene in Mad Max or any general sexually charged overtone.

Perhaps i was old enough to understand it in its context.

I do recall feeling saddened by Mel Gibsons character's loss of his one true love.

To my earlier answer (What books would you allow in the school library?) I would add to Books on Porn:

Instructions on making fireworks.

Instructions on making bombs.

Books on booby traps.

Ok...this is just a throw down......I don't know if anyone will read it, but I be ventin'.


I don't want suggestions....but if anyone feels like a there there and a nice pat, I'm yours.



We have this torture device where I work, called INTAKE.


It is necessary, it is inevitable, it happens everywhere.....and, in my last job, it could get way harder at times, but this just sucks ALL the time.


So...you get to work and gird your loins for the horror.


They now have a special room for it, which is great, cos you don't get intake **** all mixed up with your normal ****.


So......you go in there.


Dotted around the room, in various trays, which bear little relation to their contents, are up to forty or more (sometimes way less) intake forms, with assorted papers or files attached to them, from previous days' intakes. These may be a few pages thick, or up to fifty or more pages thick, with several files attached.



THE NAME OF THE CLIENT IS NOT AT THE TOP OF THE FORM.......THE NAME OF THE REFERRING PERSON IS. Yet, all subsequent discussions relate to the name of the child, which is buried halfway down the page. (THAT one I will try to change, as I gain seniority and credibility)


Alll these files have yellow stickit notes on top of them, stating, kind of, what is the immediate next step/plan/what we are waiting for re each client.


If you have time, you read enough of these files to have some vague idea of what the **** they are about, and work out which ones need urgent attention. Personally, I can't retain forty odd files worth of info, but I do my best to have some vague sense of what is actually there.


The enemy (the world outside the intake room) has a number of ways of reaching you.

1. The normal phone (which takes voicemail messages as well) Used by all the agencies to which we relate, and any citizen with a query, gripe, concern, your own clients, doctors, MPs, mad people, other people's clients when they are not there, students wanting their homework done, aliens, animals and the evil with a grudge.

2. The conference phone (which panicked admin staff use when you are on the normal phone) and which is used for conference calls with welfare and police as well. Everyone can hear everyone on the conference phone, including the person on the normal phone, who may be anybody, unless you remember to mute it when answering the panic/conference phone.

3. Email.

4. Fax machine.

5. Notes brought in by admin staff.

6. Faxes, files (medical and ours), brought to you by admin staff.


7. Assorted people, ranging from Admin to directorial staff to doctors who hang around the door, sometimes in crowds of up to five, making incomprehensible signs at you, or saying "come and see me as soon as you are off the phone." (Which is NEVER, thank you)

8. The public, walking in off the street.


I shall continue.

reading w' empathy, will shut up and listen.

My wife works in local government community services branch.
I think I know what you need Dlowan.

I'm listening.

Bless you both.


You are shedding karma as you read!!!



Ok...you are attempting to make sense of the files...and start ringing the people you need to...who are never there, bless them cos they are as busy as you, or even get the names enough in your mind so that when people ask if you have thr xxxx file with you, you know. (They can also be with admin, the senior on duty, known, accurately, as the SOD...poor bloody sod....one of the doctors, or where the lost socks go. This last is very rare, since admin are on the ball.)


The normal phone rings.


The email pings.


You pick up phone.


This can be ANYTHING.

It can be about an injured kid needing an urgent forensic medical, another stupid doctor in the community who, despite mandatory reporting having been law for thirty years, still doesn't know what they have to report, or to whom. Generally they think it is you...and some get highly indignant when you tell them they have to use their august doctorly digit to call the correct people. No, you won't do it for them. Why not? Well, apart from the law and all, they are the ones with the information. Yes, they may get put in a queue...yes, it's awful..yes, WE get put in the queue too...yes, there shouldn't be queues.


The other phone rings.....a clerical person comes in with a faxed Tier One (that is highest priority child protection response needed, which means you have to drop everything, grab the SOD, and organise a strategy discussion with police and welfare. More of them later.)

Dr God is still on the phone, or the family court aggrieved person is, or the sobbing mummy, or the distraught kindy director or or or.....


You have to get them off the phone.


Politely.



Another clerical person comes in with a note.....ER are on the phone wanting to know urgently if the kiddy who just came in needs a forensic medical, as opposed to an ordinary one.....this means you have to track down the SOD AND a doctor, but the tier one is still waiting, and you are now really going to have to hang up on caller one.....you do.


In rushes reception......"Oh, thank god you're off the phone, the police are wanting to go out and interview bla bla, but they need the results of the forensic......they have been waiting fifteen minutes."


You look for the bla bla file, which needs to be discussed with doctor x, meanwhile, you have to find the SOD and doctor Y to discuss the tier one and the ER request.


The phone rings..you ignore it and continue hunting for the bla bla file.

The email pings 3 times.


You ask the clerical person to track down the bla bla file.



You look for the SOD and the two doctors.


The ******* place is barren. It is the Marie Celeste. There is NOBODY there. Except the two clerical people now following you with the urgent messages.........there are now two tier ones, an ER problem, two angry detectives on the phone, a lost bla bla file....one missing SOD and two missing doctors. And you can hear BOTH phones in the Intake room ringing. **** 'em...this is why god made voice mail.


That is the first ten minutes of a bad day.



As the day progresses, you get constant phone calls about cases which the person on the end of the phone has been working with for a few days and knows intimately.....YOU, on the other hand, are still desperately looking for the file in the pile, as you attempt to give reasoned and nuanced advice and sound intelligent....speed reading each file as you get it and trying to simultaneously take notes, (which may end up in court) read the file, listen and respond appropriately, and ignore the people lined up at your door.



Then, because the actual child protection advice and decisions are so crucial and serious, no final comments can be made without discussion with SOD and or doctors.


These people will then send you back with questions, which you have learned to write down verbatim, because you will be grabbed several times on the way back to the phone and have to deal with things, and it is NO fun to get back and say...now ,I need to ask you....er...something......now what was it again...damn, it'll come back I KNOW it will.....just let me think....

You go back with the info....oh, ok, but I need to know this (you think: then why the **** didn't you ask that before?) ...or: no, THAT wasn't what I wanted to know (yes you did fuckwit, and I have it on paper)....



It's like being hands separated from your brain, and having to run back and ask it questions.








And it goes on like that all day.

We emerge at the end of the day looking ghostlike and haunted...in my case, hair sticking up, eyes slightly bulging....(cos I don't do any of the work I am consulting on/arranging/ whatever.....I do a quite different job...so don't know anywhere near as much about how that whole system works...I am learning, but not as fast as those who DO it do). One is either sleepwalking, or madly hyper. There appears to be a ritual of going home and having some stiff drinks, and collapsing.


Thing is, nobody can think of a better way of doing it all, and there is endless good will to attempt it.


The poor SODs and a number of my colleagues then have to do oncall on top of that.......







There.

I whinged.

It felt good.

Who says the Old World has all the bureaucracy prizes sewn up?

I think your agency definitely has a chance for the gold in the Olympics of Officialdom.

Will you be competing personally, or does seniority count when selecting the team?

God is that familiar.

So so familiar.

Especially the part of everyone descending at once and having to politely disentangle oneself from some of them to deal with others when the ones who require polite disentangling are themselves distraught and their case is only non-urgent in relation to the case you have to deal with immediately.

Ugh.

Quite vividly recounted.

mmmmm



uh hu.




I see.




yup


You done GOOD.......... no...... great today!



Interesting aside.
I once spent a Saturday night in Accident and Emergency at the Royal Melbourne. (my dad was coming in by plane from a regional hospital). I watched the triage sister work for most of her shift 10.00 pm until 4.00 am.

If I ever meet a triage sister again I will do ABSOLUTLY ANYTHING she asks me to........... IMMEDIATLY.

The AGE newspaper had an ITALY world cup poster which I liked the colours of so i stuck it up on the wall, but when i walked past it it fell down. i didnt even touch it either.




These are for you, cause a smile is always handy to have around.

Awwwwww.....now a nice pat on the head, please.


Anyone else want one?

Dont push it fluffy :wink:

Exactly who is calling whom fluffy?


Take the fur out of yer eyes, and look in a mirror.

love ya.

I got to go away for a long stretch of work, maybe 2 months of working away from home. I'll be home on weekends but not during the week. Its way up in the boonies so not even mobile contact.

You stay safe.

Actually, all the stuff makes sense. That is the tragedy of it all!





I hear you, sister.


Sometimes my brain just says "I'm full" and stops processing stuff. It's awful...I just sit and gawp at people....I KNOW how infuriating that is for them, and I TRY......but I just don't know how to make my neurones fire molecule by molecule by force of will...and seeing myself, as if from the ceiling, gawping like a fool, while internally attempting to whip my synaptic neurotransmitters into action, just makes it worse.


The other day, when I discovered I had somehow confused my Intake day, and that I was "on", with five families booked in as well, one of whom had just arrived, while I had my boss saying "Why aren't you in the Intake room, a tier one just came in?" at the door, while reception was on the phone, the admin boss was pointing out that I had a problem, and two admin staff were simultaneously saying that I WAS on Intake (I having squawked "I can't be!" in a desperate act of bootless denial when informed I was, which I hadn't expected anyone to react to) AND that I couldn't have a family now Because I Hadn't Put Them And at least Two of the Others on the Clinic Sheet ( a capital offence).


I just said to all of them to go away and leave me alone for five minutes because I didn't know how to deal with it! And I didn't, until they had all gone away.


Thing is, clinical people are very supportive when that happens. It is a nightmare that sooner or later happens to us all.

Boonies?


Sounds dangerous for a kangaroo..........don't you stop fruz in no bright lights, hear?

Holy F Moses, Deb. That sounds like a job for five people..

<pats bunny on head>

Guess there's no funding for that, eh?

For patting us on the head?

Nah...we rely on donations, and each other for that!

Do you need a hug or a giggle?

or both?

You can have them.