Sad statistics

In Oregon, where I now live, the number of neglected and abused children has risen...in fact it reached a 10 year high in 2006...

I am a believer that much abuse comes about due to lack of knowledge of basic child development. While working in this field in Washington, D.C., I saw abused infants - abused because parents thought that the baby was "disobeying" them or was "out to get" them. Many also expected children less than one-year-old to be completely toilet trained!

If those parents had known that infants don't have the capacity to "disobey" and their bodies could not be toilet trained in infancy - maybe those children would not have been hurt?

I also believe that the increase in poverty rates is a factor and that won't change until we have people in Washington,D.C. look at the human effects of the outsourcing of many jobs and the stress on families trying to work and raise children with little support.