Possibly Triggery: What Is Happening To Our Kids?

[Kobi]

TRIGGER: discussion of child abuse and violence against children


I am noticing a lot more stuff in the news about stuff happening to kids in the USA. It's troublesome. I dont know if stuff is happening more or if I am just paying more attention to it.

Just boggles my mind what kids today have to deal with.

So, I thought it might be helpful to keep track of it for a while. I found this today:
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‘Am I Ugly’ Videos Spark Disturbing YouTube Trend

It seems perfectly natural that we value others' opinions of us. People seek feedback. Post a picture, make a comment, "like" us. In this world where everything seems instantly shareable or share-worthy, it is hard to know what to keep to ourselves. A troubling new trend making its way around YouTube has many people begging the question: "Are we obsessed with others' opinions of us?" A search of the phrase "Am I Ugly" on YouTube yields dozens of videos of young girls asking the anonymous, and notoriously judgmental, YouTube community to judge how they look.

Many of the videos have thousands of comments, which range from the nice end of the spectrum with encouraging words, all the way to the extremely cruel with comments that need not be repeated. In one of the more polite comments, someone tells a girl that she is pretty and that she should just focus on doing her homework. Some people suggest that the girls are just fishing for compliments or wanting attention from anyone who is willing to give it.

Trending Now spoke to New York-based child psychiatrist Francisco Gonzalez-Franco, who told us that on a basic level, the videos are "a masochistic way to diminish their anxiety." Gonzalez-Franco adds that the girls feel incomplete, and they want people to confirm their fear that they are ugly. If people confirm it, even though they may be strangers, the girls may stop seeking that confirmation, he said. Gonzelez-Franco does insist that the girls should seek help from friends or family instead. He said the last place girls should be looking for validation is from YouTube commenters.

This is not the first open forum in which girls have asked strangers for feedback on themselves. Popular website Formspring welcomes anonymous replies to open questions that people ask. The topics usually end with similar results as the disturbing "Am I Ugly" trend. Unfortunately, people make cruel comments knowing they may never be identified. Some people believe this is taking cyberbullying to a new level, and could have tragic consequences.

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/trending...171407972.html

[Kobi]

ATTALLA, Ala. (AP) — Roger Simpson said he looked down the road and saw a little girl running outside her home but didn't give it another thought. Police, however, said the man witnessed a murder in progress.

Authorities say 9-year-old Savannah Hardin died after being forced to run for three hours as punishment for having lied to her grandmother about eating candy bars. Severely dehydrated, the girl had a seizure and died days later. Now, her grandmother and stepmother who police say meted out the punishment were taken to jail Wednesday and face murder charges.

Witnesses told deputies Savannah was told to run and not allowed to stop for three hours on Friday, an Etowah County Sheriff's Office spokeswoman said. The girl's stepmother, 27-year-old Jessica Mae Hardin, called police at 6:45 p.m., telling them Savannah was having a seizure and was unresponsive.

Simpson said he saw a little girl running at around 4 p.m., but didn't see anybody chasing or coercing her.

"I saw her running down there, that's what I told the detectives," Simpson said from his home on a hill overlooking the Hardins. "But I don't see how that would kill her."

Authorities are still trying to determine whether Savannah was forced to run by physical coercion or by verbal commands. Deputies were told the girl was made to run after lying to her grandmother, 46-year-old Joyce Hardin Garrard, about having eaten the candy, sheriff's office spokeswoman Natalie Barton said.

Savannah Hardin died Monday at Children's Hospital in Birmingham, according to a news release from the sheriff's office. The sheriff's release said an autopsy report showed the girl was extremely dehydrated and had a very low sodium level. A state pathologist ruled it a homicide.

Full Story

[Kobi]

(AP) — A female high school Spanish teacher in Los Angeles was arrested after two male students said they had sex with her, police said Thursday.

Gabriela Cortez, 42, of Montebello, was arrested late Wednesday on suspicion of two felony counts of unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor, said Montebello police Lt. Luis Lopez.

Cortez was arrested after an 18-year-old youth went to the police station last week and reported that he had a sexual relationship with her from 2008 to 2010 while he was a student at Roosevelt High School in Los Angeles, where Cortez taught Spanish, Lopez said.

During the interview with detectives, another student was mentioned. That student later told detectives that he also had sexual relations with Cortez at her home in Montebello, a suburb of Los Angeles east of downtown, Lopez said. Both youths have since graduated.

The first student came forward because his conscience was bothering him, Lopez said.

Cortez, whose arrest was first reported by KTTV-TV, was released on $140,000 bail and placed on administrative leave from her job. She could not be reached for comment. She is scheduled to appear in court on March 22.

The arrest was the seventh involving allegations of sexual misconduct between students and Los Angeles Unified School District teachers and school employees in the past month.

The uptick in arrests comes in the wake of a particularly egregious case of alleged sexual abuse of students at a South Los Angeles elementary school that roiled the district last month. The arrest of former third-grade teacher Mark Berndt, 61, who was charged with 23 counts of lewdness for allegedly feeding children his semen on cookies, blindfolding and gagging them as he took pictures, spurred a flood of reports of other cases to law enforcement.

One resulted in the arrest of a second teacher at the same school on a charge of fondling a second-grader.

The scandal has since expanded with the discovery this week that the district failed to report Berndt and another former teacher, George Hernandez, charged with molesting children to the California Teacher Credentialing Commission.

District Superintendent John Deasy has ordered officials to comb through the past four years of cases of teachers charged with misconduct to ensure they have all been reported to the commission.

In the Hernandez case, he was later hired by the Inglewood Unified School District after the commission showed he had a clean disciplinary record. He is now charged with sexually assaulting a student there and is believed to have fled to Mexico.

http://news.yahoo.com/la-teacher-arr...175715197.html

[girl_dee]

This is why i refuse to watch the news, including the God awful CNN.... of course i stay in touch but i also believe there is a lot of good in the world which of course never makes the news.

I think when there is a lot less going on in the world these stories make the news, i don't think it ever stops happening.

makes me ill !

[The_Lady_Snow]

I firmly believe pedophiles have made lower income, Latino populated, single parent/working parent household and social networks the sick pedophile playground that we are starting to hear of now.

It's chilling and it upsets me to the core how many children of color are being hurt by these monsters...

[girl_dee]

Originally Posted by The_Lady_Snow

I firmly believe pedophiles have made lower income, Latino populated, single parent/working parent household and social networks the sick pedophile playground that we are starting to hear of now.

It's chilling and it upsets me to the core how many children of color are being hurt by these monsters...

yup and i KNOW for a fact this is true about the single parent homes and kids with low self esteem...they think with no dad around to kick their sorry ass it will be easier for them if and when they get caught.