Girl Shown Photos of Dead Father in School

tybee204

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Man this is messed up


Mother Questions Drunken Driving Curriculum

Sept. 14, 2005 -- A 12-year-old Knoxville, Tenn., girl was traumatized when she was shown gruesome photographs of the car crash that killed her father during a health class presentation by police to educate youngsters about the dangers of drunken driving, the girl's mother said.

Marla Higginbotham, the girl's mother and a drug awareness educator for Think Drug Free America, questioned whether it was appropriate to show the graphic photographs to such young children.

The graphic pictures that were shown to a Holston Middle School health class by a Knoxville Police Department officer contained images of the badly mangled body of the girl's father after he was thrown from a car during a collision.

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/story?id=1124536&page=1
 
In Driver's Ed we were always shown photos of mangled cars - but never actual people!!!!!! This is terrible!!!! What was that officer thinking??!!
 
This is inexcusable. Inexcusable. That poor little girl. She's just 12, how many 12 year olds go on drunken driving sprees? This was way too much information and way too graphic of a presentation for that age group--even if it had been somebody else's body. The fact that it was her daddy, well that just compounds the errors. Those police officers should be suspended.
 
kgeaux said:
This is inexcusable. Inexcusable. That poor little girl. She's just 12, how many 12 year olds go on drunken driving sprees? This was way too much information and way too graphic of a presentation for that age group--even if it had been somebody else's body. The fact that it was her daddy, well that just compounds the errors. Those police officers should be suspended.

Wonder if this was part of the D.A.R.E. curriculum. :furious: Oh, that program really set me off!!!! When my youngest was in elementary school the D.A.R.E. curriculum taught her that regular tobacco cigarettes were drugs and that alcohol (beer specifically mentioned) was a drug. Imagine my and my husband's surprise when at a large gathering our daughter announced to everyone that her mom and dad did drugs!!!! We had beer in the fridge. Keep in mind that my husband was a police officer and I held an administrative supervisory position in the city and our daughter is announcing to folks that her mommy and daddy do drugs. I marched down to that school and threw an absolute fit!!!! I visited the school board and said if we had repurcussions over it - I would file a lawsuit!!
 
How awful. I remember seeing pictures of crashes too, but not with any people.
 
OMG!
I suspect that this was indeed the embattled D.A.R.E. curriculum! It DOESN'T work! Why, oh why, do they keep using it?
Prayers for this child....
 
less0305 said:
Wonder if this was part of the D.A.R.E. curriculum. :furious: Oh, that program really set me off!!!! When my youngest was in elementary school the D.A.R.E. curriculum taught her that regular tobacco cigarettes were drugs and that alcohol (beer specifically mentioned) was a drug. Imagine my and my husband's surprise when at a large gathering our daughter announced to everyone that her mom and dad did drugs!!!! We had beer in the fridge. Keep in mind that my husband was a police officer and I held an administrative supervisory position in the city and our daughter is announcing to folks that her mommy and daddy do drugs. I marched down to that school and threw an absolute fit!!!! I visited the school board and said if we had repurcussions over it - I would file a lawsuit!!
I'm with you on DARE. What an expensive waste. All three of my kids went through it. They all agreed the only thing they learned were Ways to take drugs they'd never heard of before. Fortunately none of them were into drugs so it didn't matter but that's not true of all their classmates.


http://www.time.com/time/education/article/0,8599,99564,00.html

Here’s a news flash: "Just Say No" is not an effective anti-drug message. And neither are Barney-style self-esteem mantras.

While most Americans won’t be stunned by these revelations, they’ve apparently taken a few DARE officials by surprise. According to the New York Times, after years of ignoring stubbornly low success rates, coordinators of the 18-year-old Drug Abuse Resistance Education program are finally coming around to the news that their plan to keep kids off drugs just isn’t working. That means a whole new DARE program — one which critics hope will sidestep existing pitfalls.


An ineffective past
DARE, which is taught by friendly policemen in 75 percent of the nation’s school districts, has been plagued by image problems from the beginning, when it first latched on to Nancy Reagan’s relentlessly sunny and perversely simplistic "Just say No" campaign. The program’s goals include teaching kids creative ways to say "no" to drugs, while simultaneously bolstering their self-esteem (which DARE founders insist is related to lower rates of drug use). It's apparently not a bad way of educating five-year-olds about the dangers of drinking cleaning fluid. But it's a bust at keeping teenagers from smoking pot.


According to an article published in the August 1999 issue of the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, DARE not only did not affect teenagers’ rate of experimentation with drugs, but may also have actually lowered their self-esteem. The study, called "Project DARE: No Effects at 10-Year Follow-Up," bluntly deconstructs every claim the program makes. More than 1,000 10 year-olds enrolled in DARE classes were given a survey about drug use and self-esteem, and then, a decade later, the same group filled out the same questionnaire.

The findings were grim: 20-year-olds who’d had DARE classes were no less likely to have smoked marijuana or cigarettes, drunk alcohol, used "illicit" drugs like cocaine or heroin, or caved in to peer pressure than kids who’d never been exposed to DARE. But that wasn’t all. "Surprisingly," the article states, "DARE status in the sixth grade was negatively related to self-esteem at age 20, indicating that individuals who were exposed to DARE in the sixth grade had lower levels of self-esteem 10 years later." Another study, performed at the University of Illinois, suggests some high school seniors who’d been in DARE classes were more likely to use drugs than their non-DARE peers.
[...]
 
Several years ago my hubby had to go to a Calif Hwy Patrol office for something, I think to have a 'fix it' ticket release. Anyway, while waiting to be helped, he was looking at their bulletin board. There was a flyer showing the benefits of wearing and not wearing a seat belt. While he was looking at it he realized that the picture of what happens when you don't wear a seat belt was his best friend who'd been thrown from his vehicle out in the middle of the desert.......He was devastated. We knew that's what happened and that's why he had a closed-casket service. But to see it was....... worse.

JMHO
fran
 
I can agree with some of the comments on DARE. My son also went around thinking for YEARS that my husband and I smoked pot because we smoked cigs. :doh: I felt so sorry for him when we figured out his thinking because all of this time he thought his parents were do something illegal.

However, I gotta say that even though middle schoolers aren't likely to be the drunken driver, they are placed in situations where they could be a passenger in the car of a drunken driver, and some are starting to drink themselves by this age.

In our city some of the nurses in one of the hospitals have put together a program called "Trauma Nurses Talk Tough". They have slide presentations where they do show accidents AND the people involved. Everyone knows ahead of time what the slide show is about. They have slide shows geared to gun/violence, drunk driving, drugs, skateboarding/biking w/o a helmet.

I have seen the drugs/drinking one and the driving one and while graphic, it really brings home the reality of the situation.

I do feel so sorry for this little girl and adding to her pain. There was a thread around here recently called "it's a small world" and I have to think this would qualify....
 
I think this type of stuff just contributes to the desensitization of American Children.

Never would I have thought it appropriate to show graphic death photos to one of my children at 12 years of age. Not at any age.

We continue to expose children to horrible sights to the point that they reach adult hood with their sensibilities numbed

In our over exuberant quest to protect them physically we destroy then emotionally.
 
tybee204 said:
I think this type of stuff just contributes to the desensitization of American Children.

Never would I have thought it appropriate to show graphic death photos to one of my children at 12 years of age. Not at any age.

We continue to expose children to horrible sights to the point that reach adult hood with their sensibilities numbed

In our over exuberant quest to protect them physically we destroy then emotionally.

Thanks for the input. This is what I have been seeing all day. I have said before that my hug control is in overdrive, I will find one more tomorrow.I will hug and hug and just say, even if I don't believe it that someone will make a difference.Just keep trying that is all we can do.Hug these people.It is so painful.
 
Here is a local link for this story.

http://www.wate.com/Global/story.asp?S=3845938

"KNOXVILLE (WATE) -- Marla Higginbotham says her daughter should never have seen the photos of the 12-year-old's dead father after an auto wreck, nor should any of the other seventh grade students in her class.

The graphic pictures show her father's badly mangled body after he was ejected from during a collision. They were shown to a Holston Middle School health class by a Knoxville Police Department officer.

"I disagree with photos, live body images, and that's only for elementary and middle," Higginbotham said. "Now when the kids get older, you have to use age appropriation, and that's a different story, but when we're talking about elementary and middle school, they're not mentally, I don't think they're developed enough." "

There is more at the link, including a link to the pictures. There is also supposed to be video although I haven't watched.
 
I looked at the pictures and it made me a little queasy, and I can usually look at things like that. What in the hell were they doing showing those kinds of pictures to 12 year olds? My daughter is 12 and I know she would have nightmares over those pictures and instead of concentrating on the message of the class she would be terrified of the images. The picture of the car alone was enough!
 
fran said:
Several years ago my hubby had to go to a Calif Hwy Patrol office for something, I think to have a 'fix it' ticket release. Anyway, while waiting to be helped, he was looking at their bulletin board. There was a flyer showing the benefits of wearing and not wearing a seat belt. While he was looking at it he realized that the picture of what happens when you don't wear a seat belt was his best friend who'd been thrown from his vehicle out in the middle of the desert.......He was devastated. We knew that's what happened and that's why he had a closed-casket service. But to see it was....... worse.

JMHO
fran
Fran! That is a horrible story, I am so sorry.

Fran and I live in the same school district. I don't think either if us have great things to say about it,it most definitlely has its shortcomings. But I'm quite certain these photos would never have made it to classroom.
I was on the committee to review this type of material, as well as "health" type movies and classroom information. This was passed before a panel of parents and staff. These pictures would never have passed the whole panel. As a matter of fact, I doubt they would have ever made it to panel.

I would be upset about showing these pctures to 12 year olds in general. The fact that this was this gal's father was just over the top.

This is a sad story, but there's a bigger issue here as to who is deciding what gets shown in the classroom and at what age.
 
I most heartily agree with the mother here - if you have to sign your permission to go on the internet, go on field trips, participate in sports, etc., why in the world would they not send home a form that says, "Would you allow your child to participate in a program where graphic photos of a mangled body will be shown." This is totally uncalled for. I can not imagine that poor child's pain. You know, when identification of the deceased is done in a more humane way - you have to wonder about a police dept. that would show graphic photos as these to children!!! They don't even want mature legal adults to see bodies for identification purposes if at all possible. You can bet your last dime I'd sue over this - and I hate our lawsuit happy climate - but this would warrant a suit in my book.
 
tennessee said:
Here is a local link for this story.

http://www.wate.com/Global/story.asp?S=3845938

"KNOXVILLE (WATE) -- Marla Higginbotham says her daughter should never have seen the photos of the 12-year-old's dead father after an auto wreck, nor should any of the other seventh grade students in her class.

The graphic pictures show her father's badly mangled body after he was ejected from during a collision. They were shown to a Holston Middle School health class by a Knoxville Police Department officer.

"I disagree with photos, live body images, and that's only for elementary and middle," Higginbotham said. "Now when the kids get older, you have to use age appropriation, and that's a different story, but when we're talking about elementary and middle school, they're not mentally, I don't think they're developed enough." "

There is more at the link, including a link to the pictures. There is also supposed to be video although I haven't watched.

I saw it earlier and I wanted to show it to our Police Chief - but I think they've removed the link to the pictures. Anyone else able to find the pictures now?
 
less0305 said:
I saw it earlier and I wanted to show it to our Police Chief - but I think they've removed the link to the pictures. Anyone else able to find the pictures now?
Oh wow, you are right. Very interesting indeedy.
 

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