HEALING
DOESN’T MEAN
THE DAMAGE
NEVER EXISTED.
IT MEANS THE
DAMAGE NO
LONGER CONTROLS
OUR LIVES.
father wound
Childhood Trauma and ADHD
Recent studies have shown a notable similarity between the behavior of children diagnosed with ADHD and the behavior of children living in traumatic and abusive situations:
Though ADHD has been aggressively studied, few researchers have explored the overlap between its symptoms and the effects of chronic stress or experiencing trauma like maltreatment, abuse and violence. To test her hypothesis beyond Baltimore, [Dr. Nicole] Brown analyzed the results of a national survey about the health and well-being of more than 65,000 children.
Brown’s findings, which she presented in May at an annual meeting of the Pediatric Academic Societies, revealed that children diagnosed with ADHD also experienced markedly higher levels of poverty, divorce, violence, and family substance abuse. Those who endured four or more adverse childhood events were three times more likely to use ADHD medication.
Interpreting these results is tricky. All of the children may have been correctly diagnosed with ADHD, though that is unlikely. Some researchers argue that the difficulty of parenting a child with behavioral issues might lead to economic hardship, divorce, and even physical abuse. This is particularly true for parents who themselves have ADHD, similar impulsive behavior or their own history of childhood maltreatment. There is also no convincing evidence that trauma or chronic stress lead to the development of ADHD.
For Brown, who is now a pediatrician at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx, the data are cautionary. It’s not evident how trauma influences ADHD diagnosis and management, but it’s clear that some misbehaving children might be experiencing harm that no stimulant can fix. These children may also legitimately have ADHD, but unless prior or ongoing emotional damage is treated, it may be difficult to see dramatic improvement in the child’s behavior.
“We need to think more carefully about screening for trauma and designing a more trauma-informed treatment plan,” Brown says.
Dr. Kate Szymanski came to the same conclusion a few years ago. An associate professor at Adelphi University’s Derner Institute and an expert in trauma, Szymanski analyzed data from a children’s psychiatric hospital in New York. A majority of the 63 patients in her sample had been physically abused and lived in foster homes. On average, they reported three traumas in their short lives. Yet, only eight percent of the children had received a diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder while a third had ADHD.
“I was struck by the confusion or over-eagerness–or both–to take one diagnosis over another,” Szymanski says. “To get a picture of trauma from a child is much harder than looking at behavior like impulsivity, hyperactivity. And if they cluster in a certain way, then it’s easy to go to a conclusion that it’s ADHD.”
A previous edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders urged clinicians to distinguish between ADHD symptoms and difficulty with goal-directed behavior in children from “inadequate, disorganized or chaotic environments,” but that caveat does not appear in the latest version. Unearthing details about a child’s home life can also be challenging, Szymanski says.
A child may withhold abuse or neglect to protect his family or, having normalized that experience, never mention it all. Clinicians may also underestimate the prevalence of adversity. The Adverse Childhood Experiences Study, a years-long survey of more than 17,000 adults, found that two-thirds of participants reported at least one of 10 types of abuse, neglect, or household dysfunction. Twelve percent reported four or more. That list isn’t exhaustive, either. The study didn’t include homelessness and foster care placement, for example, and the DSM doesn’t easily classify those events as “traumatic.”
It’s not clear how many children are misdiagnosed with ADHD annually, but a study published in 2010 estimated the number could be nearly 1 million. That research compared the diagnosis rate amongst 12,000 of the youngest and oldest children in a kindergarten sample and found that the less mature students were 60 percent more likely to receive an ADHD diagnosis.
Monday Night Meeting at Lifepath Church Cancelled – 06/13/2016
We need to cancel the Monday night meeting of Castimonia at the Lifepath Church location only for this coming Monday night, June 13th. The meeting will resume the following Monday night at its regular time and location.
For an alternate meeting, please visit our Katy Monday night meeting at The Fellowship.
Monday Nights
Time: 7:00PM – 8:30PM
Location: The Fellowship – Community Room
22765 Westheimer Parkway
Katy, TX 77450
281.395.3950
To curb prostitution, punish those who buy sex rather than those who sell it
Originally posted at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/to-curb-prostitution-punish-those-who-buy-sex-rather-than-those-who-sell-it
Opinions
Jimmy Carter, the 39th president of the United States, is founder of the nonprofit Carter Center.
It is disturbing that some human rights and public health organizations are advocating the full legalization of the sex trade, including its most abusive aspects. I agree with Amnesty International, UNAIDS and other groups that say that those who sell sex acts should not be arrested or prosecuted, but I cannot support proposals to decriminalize buyers and pimps.
Some assert that this “profession” can be empowering and that legalizing and regulating all aspects of prostitution will mitigate the harm that accompanies it. But I cannot accept a policy prescription that codifies such a pernicious form of violence against women. Normalizing the act of buying sex also debases men by assuming that they are entitled to access women’s bodies for sexual gratification. If paying for sex is normalized, then every young boy will learn that women and girls are commodities to be bought and sold.
There is a much better policy option.
In my 2014 book “A Call to Action: Women, Religion, Violence and Power,” I described the approach known as the “Nordic model,” which is consistent with advancing human rights and healthy societies. Pioneered in Sweden and adopted most recently in Canada and France, this strategy involves decriminalizing prostituted women and offering them housing, job training and other services. Instead of penalizing the victims, however, the approach treats purchasing and profiting from sex acts as serious crimes. Another key component is public education about the inherent harms of prostitution for those whose bodies are sold.
In Sweden, demand for prostitution has fallen dramatically under this model. Conversely, Germany and New Zealand, which have legalized all aspects of prostitution, have seen an increase in sex trafficking and demand for sexual services.
Critics of the Nordic model assert that mature adults should be free to exchange money for sex. This argument ignores the power imbalance that defines the vast majority of sex-for-cash transactions, and it demeans the beauty of sexual relations when both parties are respected.
Sex between people who experience mutual enjoyment is a wonderful part of life. But when one party has power over another to demand sexual access, mutuality is extinguished, and the act becomes an expression of domination. As author and prostitution survivor Rachel Moran explained in her book, “Paid For,” once money has exchanged hands, a woman must deliver whatever service the customer demands.
In May 2015, when the Carter Center held a global summit to end sexual exploitation, sex-trade survivors, including Moran, described their painful journeys through exploitation. They told of the abuse they suffered — abuse that should be understood as torture. They expressed their determination to speak not only for themselves but also for those who are either too traumatized to come forward or who perished as a result of homicide, suicide, drug abuse or disease. They compare their movement to the abolition of slavery, an institution that once also seemed like a permanent fixture in society.
Prostitution is not the “oldest profession,” as the saying goes; it’s the oldest oppression.
Those survivors told us that they once believed that selling sex was their choice but that this attitude was a requirement for survival — that only once they were fully free from the fetters of the trade were they able to fully understand their lack of choice.
If full legalization is adopted, it will not be the “empowered sex worker” who will be the norm — it will be the millions of women and girls needed to fill the supply of bodies that an unlimited market of consumers will demand. Where do we think these young girls in the sex trade will come from? (Most victims are girls, though some boys are exploited, too.) It is simply naïve to oppose sex trafficking of children and women and at the same time support decriminalizing the buyers who create the demand and the pimps who profit from the supply of girls and women.
I believe it is better to help women and girls avoid a life of prostitution and to deter men from buying sex acts.
We must not abandon the equal dignity of each human being by simply regulating a form of abuse. There is a better way.
Two Tennessee ministers, 30 others snared in prostitution, human trafficking sting
KNOXVILLE — Two local ministers face felony charges for seeking sex with underage girls during an undercover sting targeting human trafficking and prostitution this week, authorities said Friday.
Jason Evan Kennedy, 46, head of the children’s ministry at Grace Baptist Church of Knoxville, was one of two men charged with felony human trafficking and patronizing prostitution after they answered online advertisements specifically offering sex with an underage girl, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation announced during a news conference.
Also charged with felony trafficking is Zubin Percy Parakh, 32, of Oak Ridge, who serves as creative pastor with Lifehouse Church in Oak Ridge, according to the church’s website.
In reality, the ads were placed by law enforcement as part of a four-day sting operation at a North Knoxville motel, deemed “Operation Someone Like Me,” conducted by the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation and the Knoxville Police Department.
Another 25 men who responded to the ads were cited for patronizing prostitution. They include a local engineer and a volunteer firefighter, whom authorities did not identify Friday.
“Human trafficking is a demand-driven crime,” said Kate Trudell, executive director of the Knoxville-based Community Coalition Against Human Trafficking.
“This crime is grossly protected by stereotypes that tell us it happens to certain people in certain places and many of us like to believe that those people and those places are not here in Knoxville, Tenn. But folks, unfortunately they are.”
Knoxville Police Chief David Rausch added that the problem has evolved from traditional circumstances involving prostitutes motivated by drug addiction to become much more coercive, and often involuntary.
“It’s not what used to be out there,” Rausch said. “Now what we know is it’s deeper and uglier than that. It’s people completely being taken advantage of.”
Traffickers use “a number of scripts” to manipulate girls and young women, the police chief said, preying on victims of child sexual abuse and teenage runaways, as well as drug addicts, with offers such as modeling jobs.
“There’s a number of ways they get tied into it,” Rausch said.
Five women also were arrested on prostitution charges — three of whom accepted authorities’ offer to help them leave sex work. There were no underage girls recovered during the Knoxville operation, nor were any traffickers arrested.
Kennedy and Parakh were charged with felony trafficking because they specifically sought out an underage girl for sex, authorities said.
Kennedy was arrested Thursday during the sting operation at the Best Western Knoxville Suites, 5317 Pratt Road, in North Knoxville, authorities said.
He remained jailed Friday in lieu of $50,500 bond.
According to arrest warrants, Kennedy responded via text Thursday to an online ad posted on ********.com offering sex with two females, including one he was told “was 15, going on 16.”
After arriving at the motel, Kennedy “state that he wanted to have sex with both the underage juvenile and the other female in the room,” the warrants state. “The defendant placed the agreed amount of $100 on the counter. The defendant removed his pants and was taken into custody by law enforcement.”
Kennedy, a married father of three, was responsible for ministry for the church’s children from birth through fifth grade, according to a cached page of the church’s website from Feb. 13, 2015.
The Southern Baptist Convention lists Grace Baptist Church, celebrating its 100th year this year, as having more than 4,000 members with an average attendance of almost 2,500 people. The affiliation of Baptist churches has resources online to help a church’s staff check the backgrounds of potential hires, but any background check will fall short if a person has no previous arrests.
“The children’s pastor of Grace Baptist Church has been terminated as (a) result of an arrest in a police sting related to prostitution and human trafficking,” according to a statement released by the church Friday afternoon.
“The actions of the children’s pastor for which he has been arrested were part of his life outside the church, and we have received no questions or concerns related to his conduct within the church or its ministries.
“The children’s pastor was hired two-and-a-half years ago. The church’s background check turned up no issues that indicate any previous problem. In fact, the children’s pastor in his application affirmed that he had no issues in his background of a criminal or other nature.
“We are praying for his family and will continue to provide the services of our ministry to them.”
Parakh initially was cited for patronizing prostitution and released. Authorities have since secured a warrant for his arrest on a charge of felony trafficking, although he had not yet been taken into custody, according to TBI spokeswoman Susan Niland.
According to the Lifehouse Church website, Parakh is originally from Chattanooga and is a longtime friend of Lead Pastor Jeremy Songer. The website says Parakh is gifted in music, media and technology.
A call to Lifehouse Church on Friday went unanswered.
The human trafficking charge is normally a Class B felony, however, authorities said they will seek to enhance it to a Class A felony because the sting operation took place within 1,000 feet of a church. Authorities did not identify the nearby church.
A Class B felony normally is punishable by a prison sentence of eight to 30 years and a $25,000 fine; a Class A felony is normally punishable by a prison sentence of 15 to 60 years and a $50,000 fine.
The Knoxville anti-trafficking operation was the fifth sting of its kind across the state in a crackdown on human trafficking by TBI and its partnering agencies, deemed “Operation Someone Like Me.”
“This is not just a Knoxville problem — this is a statewide problem,” said TBI Director Mark Gwyn.
Previous stings were conducted in Brentwood, Clarksville, Jackson and Chattanooga, resulting in 98 arrests and citations since May 2015.
Ads posted by undercover agents on ********.com during the Knoxville sting garnered more than 300 contacts, according to the TBI.
In one of the ads, agents posed as a juvenile girl. That ad received more than two-dozen responses.
More details as they develop online and in Saturday’s News Sentinel.
