Child Handcuffed by Police | Eastern North Carolina Now

    The lead story alongside the Great Republican Debate is of a child being handcuffed with ADHD --- and now there is a lawsuit over it:

    The mother ---"Amanda Dawn Burton --- claims her son ended up with 13 or more bruises to his body. Burton also stated that not only does he have ADHD, but also Schizophrenia and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, in defense to people criticizing her parenting in the comments on the News9 article regarding the incident. She also alleges the child has been suicidal in the past."

    I am noting how things have changed since I was a child in the 50's going to school. There were no such things as special teachers, yet we survived. There WERE some badly behaved kids, but they were quickly dealt with by the teacher or principal. You did not have one kid disrupting the whole class. He was dealt with by parents and school people or he was expelled until he could do better.

    It is called DISCIPLINE! Perhaps the crux of the matter is failure to train and discipline our children in this modern era. The Bible says, "Bring up a child in the way of the Lord and he will not depart from it." Bible stories are replete with the results of bad discipline and lack of respect to the parents or elders, much less God. Each one shows clearly that disrespect begets trouble or even murder or death.

    How about FOOD? Our children today are typical of my grandsons some years ago. Their father was a poor one loving drugs more than his wife or children. Their mother was in a most responsible and demanding job. There was sufficient money to buy anything at Christmas, BUT there was little time to love and cook good meals at home from scratch. Instead, momma went by any number of fast food places and brought home the burgers, pizza, whatever you could buy to fill those growing bodies. We already know that additives and fast food are bad for our children and mess up their body chemistry.

    How about LOVE? My wife worked near our daughter and it was a long drive each night to join me here at Bath when she was in Rocky Mount. Instead, she began to go to our daughter's after her hard work day and be there for our grandsons. She was quickly there after our latchkey kids entered their house from the bus. Gam was looking after homework, play, and starting something nutritious for supper. She loved those boys as only a grandmother could. We were perplexed with some of their emotional issues and a betting person would think you would have to hire professionals to get them back to normal. GAM LOVE is not something you can buy and, by God's grace, those 4 boys are normal now!

    One of those 4 boys had teachers wanting to classify him as ADHD. His mother and Gam looked at the diagnostic criteria and saw a little bit of commonality, BUT we also knew he could be controlled with love and overseeing by his family. He was most smart and curious. He could get more than mad and have a demonic look in his face and eyes. He was MAD / ANGRY / sensitive to the way he was being treated at school and by his brothers. He was smart enough to realize THINGS WERE NOT RIGHT. He was the "odd child out" being ostracized by brothers who were ganging up on him. That is a normal part of kids growing up.

    I was the oldest of 4. My younger brother was born on March 3 after I had been born on March 23 the previous year. He was a pain to me. He always wanted to be with my friends rather than find his own. We did stuff to him to let him know he wasn't welcome and being a pest. He had a serious temper and even tried to take a 2X4 to me one day when we were almost college age. Our "bible story" could have been one of brother killing brother in the 20th Century!

          •  Has anything really changed with humanity?

          •  Is ADHD something new and unique to 2015?

          •  What can we do better to avoid such child cuffing as we see this week?

    I think we can!

    Here is what common sense tells me as I view the events of the last 69 years since I was a child:

          •  My parents were as fair and equal as any humans could be BUT they still had children competing for attention and claiming favorites were played.

          •  Today we are each different --- and as adults function OK in short spurts together, but about a week is enough of any reunion.

          •  Our children and families are each as different as us 4 children were. Our choices of spouses, ways we raised our children, the problems with them each show simple differences in basic personality we each had.

          •  You could say ADHD was an undiagnosed problem and the drugs of today could have solved all the problems of kids and growing up.

I am convinced: LIFE IS TOUGH / PEOPLE HAVE ISSUES / ALL OF US ARE TEMPTED TO SIN.

    Here I use the basic definition of Sin as SEPARATION.

    The basic Greek word is harmartia (harmartia) --- which denotes separation---from God / our basic self / each other / joy and happiness God meant for us to discover in this life.

    As traditional and spiritual as it sounds, we could just be living in a growing state of SIN . . .