Wesley Gordon, boy who became a rapist. Bad parenting or bad seed?

The Daily Mail say his mother 'accepts no blame herself' for her son's descent into crime. So where did it all go wrong - what turned that cute little toddler, pictured sucking his dummy, into a violent rapist?

We're told that Wesley Gordon committed his first 'crime' at 4, throwing custard at a school dinner lady. It was downhill from then on. According to his mum, his dad hasn't been around since Wesley was a baby. So is his 'jobless mum of 3' to blame - or could he have been impossible to control, whatever kind of parenting he'd had? Nothing has been said in this report about how his siblings have turned out. His mum blames police and social workers for his inability to accept authority. Aren't those lessons learned early at a parent's knee?

Yet, according to a growing number of scientists, parents like Wesley's may not be to blame. Kids who won't behave, and go wild, may just be born that way. Will genome research ever reveal definitive answers to the age-old nature/nuture debate?

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Parenting/good-parents-child-bad-seed/story?id=11235893

Chemical coshes for dementia patients

Reducing the use of anti-psychotic drugs for dementia patients can only be a good cut to make surely? Yet on ITV News' Facebook wall everyone's complaining about it! They're missing the point. See my previous blog about the autism industry, in which I say that anti-psychotics are used as a one-size-fits-all drug that don't work for everyone & cause nasty side-effects. They can cause early deaths in elderly patients too. Some dementia patients are being given chemical coshes because they wander a bit & there aren't sufficient staff to cope. This happens to other vulnerable people in residential homes too. My daughter was sedated AS A PRECAUTION because another resident kicked off & staff worried they wouldn't be able to cope if my daughter started too! I found out what had happened because I'd come to take my daughter home for a visit. It resulted in a Safeguarding Alert, which is a meeting to discuss what happened & review procedures to protect vulnerable adults. What happens behind closed doors when vulnerable people don't have family or anyone else to watch out for them?

Agency Nurse blamed for switching off patient's life support machine

I'm not surprised this has happened. The system is failing our most vulnerable people. My daughter has severe learning disabilities & autism, & for basic day-to-day functioning needs skilled carers to use specific & consistent communication strategies. Unfortunately, although they do her best, many of her carers have been immigrants who struggle with basic english. I can't even understand what some of them say. Many vulnerable adults are looked after by fat cat privately run care providers who charge vast sums of money, yet pay their care staff very low wages.

Epilepsy

How brave Min is for telling me her story about developing epilepsy out of the blue -in today's Sunday Mirror Magazine. I worked hard on this to get my facts right as, you may see from my previous blog, my daughter has epilepsy. I learned a lot by speaking to Min. It gave me an insight into how disorientated my daughter must feel after a seizure - she doesn't have the ability to tell me herself.

The autism industry

As a mum desperate to help my severely autistic child, headlines such as - ‘How diet cured my son’s autism,’ always grabbed my attention. I felt sceptical. Either the child had been misdiagnosed & wasn't autistic in the first place - or the parents were fooling themselves.

It's easy to get sucked into the huge autism industry that feeds on families like ours. Understandably, parents want to do whatever they can for their child, but some such claims risk giving parents false hope. I constantly felt guilty that I wasn't doing enough to help my daughter, Chrissy. I wasted lots of time researching treatments including vitamin therapies, speical diets & environmental medicine in the hope that it might help her but, as she has a history of adverse reactions to various mainstream medications, I feared alternative therapies could cause more harm than good.

A third of parents of autistic children have tried unproven 'alternative' treatment in their search for a cure and one in ten has used what medical experts class as a 'potentially harmful approach.'

I eventually tried Chrissy, who's now 27, on the gluten & casein free diet for several months. She became anorexic & it had NO effect on her autistic behaviours.

The truth is, there is currently no 'cure' for autism. My view is that we will eventually identify more chromosome anomalies that pre-dispose people to autism. Four years ago, it emerged that Chrissy’s autism and learning disability was caused by a rare chromosome anomaly. No diet or vitamin regime can treat that. You can adapt the environment & use communication strategies to help someone with autism cope better - but you can only go so far with these approaches. I hope one day someone will come up with more effective drug treatments than the one-size-fits-all anti-psychotic drugs that learning disability psychiatrists prescribe now. Anti-psychotics don't work for everyone & can cause nasty side-effects, such as increased agitation & substantial weight gain. Maybe when we know more about the causes of autism & have better treatments, we parents won't waste so much time trying to 'fix' our children.

The DLA Takeaway for disabled children & adults

Contact a Family are calling for the rules to be scrapped where a child’s DLA is stopped after 84 days in hospital. The charity has submitted a response as part of their 'Stop the DLA Takeaway' campaign to the Department of Work & Pensions.

The mobility component of our daughter, Chrissy's DLA has been stopped because she is in an independent hospital funded by the NHS, having assessment & treatment. She isn't like a usual NHS patient, confined to a ward. I take her out of the hospital for dentist, neurologist, overnight home stays etc & she goes out & about just as she did when in residential care. We have appealed & the hospital has written a letter of support - confirming that she still needs 'help with getting around.' 10 weeks on, we are awaiting a response. We have a Disability Law solicitor standing by keen to act on Chrissy's behalf if the appeal fails.

It makes me mad when there are so many shameless, undeserving people scammning the benefits system, that the most genuinely vulnerable members of our society, lose out...