Hacker News Reader

Comment by knaik94 | Hacker News Reader

I am not sure what the best way to communicate with these kinds of parents is. This is a parent with a very specific kind of mindset about who should be the ultimate authority on their child. More often than not, it becomes unhealthy for the child living in this environment both physically and emotionally.

Everyone understands the parents ultimately mean no harm, but their warped perception of science, among other things, means their actions are harmful. But trying to point this fact out makes them very, very defensive and they take it personally. Others only spend energy communicating because they want to help the child too.

That's the thing that always causes me difficulty when dealing with parents like this, it's like talking to a brick wall. My usual attempt is trying to get them to see me as someone speaking from a place of trustworthiness, but it's frustrating. Usually the kids are smart enough to pick up on certain things so I guide them a little. For context, I tutor. The same parents that dismiss me about things like this or getting a diagnosis/treatment for ADHD pay me to teach their kids about science and math. I want to continue caring and trying, but I understand why teachers become so jaded.

Does anyone have suggestions?

View on HN

> This is a parent with a very specific kind of mindset about who should be the ultimate authority on their child.

I think this may be your problem: you don't perceive the parent as the ultimate authority on the child.

As a tutor, you fill a strictly advisory role, not a position of authority, and even your advisory role is limited in scope. If you try to exert authority or influence outside of that scope then yes, you will run into a wall. You have to accept that your ability to influence extends only as far as the parents' trust in you.

As you gain trust, the circle in which you can exert influence expands, but you have to know where the boundaries are because every time you step out of them you lose trust and your ability to influence becomes weaker, not stronger.

But the question is whether parents should be the ultimate authority on the child, and the law in many countries does not support that. The lines get drawn at different points in different countries, but many have laws against child endangerment etc.

For example, in Europe it’s mandatory to send your child to school - whether the parents want it or not. Some parts of the curriculum are mandatory, whether the parents agree or not.

It is the role of the tutor and teacher to ensure that children receive an education in line with this. Parents can complain, but they have no authority there.

Regardless of jurisdiction, OP is not the state and the issues they're talking about (ADHD diagnosis and vaccines) are not related to their role as a tutor. Even in the most extreme state-as-ultimate-authority jurisdiction, OP's role on these topics would be that of a reporter, not that of an authority.

The alternative to the parents being the authority, is that the state is, but the state has lied constantly about everything related to COVID and children so that would be far worse.

in Europe it’s mandatory to send your child to school - whether the parents want it or not.

No it's not. It's mandatory to educate them. Home schooling exists in Europe and parents who think teachers at a school are teaching children things that are wrong can do various things about it.

No home schooling exists in germany - all children must go to a state-approved school and that school must follow the standard curriculum. There are a handful of possible exceptions - serious illness for example - but in the general case it’s not legal and may result in (partial) loss of custody.

See for example https://www.lto.de/recht/nachrichten/n/olg-karlsruhe-5ufh322...

So why did you say Europe when you meant Germany?

In Poland home shchooling is a thing. There are tens of thousands kids learning at home. They only need to come to school from time to time to do some tests. They have to pass mandatory exams after year 8 - for primary education and after year 12 for high school (yes, it is allowed to do high school education). To my best knowledge you do not have to provide any specific reasons why your kid is learning at home, the parents however need to provide evidence of theirs capacity to conduct that type of education.

> For example, in Europe it’s mandatory to send your child to school

No. No it isn’t. I don’t know where you’re writing from but I can tell you that home schooling is a thing in some European countries. Maybe all of them? I can say for sure and I’m unwilling to subscribe to a sweeping statement about a mass of 44 countries. It amazes me that anyone would.

I completely understand that the parents are the ultimate authority. I feel like I was in a position where I could have done more. I can't imagine how many times a teacher must feel the same throughout their years of teaching. I feel a lot of empathy for the child since I can relate. But that might make me more impatient about certain things than I would like to admit.

The specific situation I am thinking of is when the parents asked me about my opinons on ADHD treatment. I have volunteered my diagnosis when I learned one of the reasons for the student being sent to me was difficulty in school. I had my suspicions on the beginning, but I know kids grow at different paces. But then his a few school teacher recommended testing as well. He was professionally tested and showed that he would benefit from proper treatment.

The parents and I speak the same language, and they are immigrants, and so they trusted me with a lot of responsiblity regarding their child's schooling. I became sort of a translator too between the teachers and the parents, when appropriate.

It doesn't feel like I am putting myself in a position of authority when I am arguing for evidence backed actions. I don't mean medication, but in this case the parents didn't share the "diagnosis" with the school, which would have helped the student recieve accomodations through official channels. In that case it feels less about what's best for the child and more about how the parents want others to percieve their child.

But you make a good point, even that might be something the parents take as me overstepping my authority.

Walk through the potential accommodations and what the parents should look for as evidence that they are helpful. If there’s an opportunity to take a low risk step like having the parents meet with a specialist at the school up front, it would help them become more comfortable.

Either parents should be allowed to kill their children on a whim without consequence, or parents are not the ultimate authority over their children. They are mutually exclusive beliefs.

Children aren't property. They're human beings that deserve the protection of the state. Sometimes that means protection FROM their parents.

> Either parents should be allowed to kill their children on a whim without consequence, or parents are not the ultimate authority over their children. They are mutually exclusive beliefs.

That's either a weird strawman, or you missed the point of what "ultimate authority" means here. The question is who gets the final say in how the child is cared for - if the parent thinks that something is harmful to the child, and the state says it's mandatory, who gets final say?

You're right. Children aren't property. They're human beings that deserve protection. Sometimes that means protection from the state.

> The question is who gets the final say in how the child is cared for - if the parent thinks that something is harmful to the child, and the state says it's mandatory, who gets final say?

The state gets final say.

On most parenting matters the state has no opinion, or at least has the opinion "let the parent decide." But that delegation of authority does not mean the state has given it up. We the people have authority in the matter in how you parent your child. We will go to such lengths as taking the child away and raising it elsewhere if that is what's best for them.

People don't get to murder their children and get away with it.

> We will go to such lengths as taking the child away and raising it elsewhere if that is what's best for them

Correction. "if we think that is what's best for them." Maybe it is, maybe it's not. It's kinda like the death penalty - the state can totally get it wrong, and mistakes have lifelong reprecussions.

> People don't get to murder their children and get away with it.

Again, this seems like a weird strawman. And like I implied before, balance that possibilty with the liklihood it's the state doing the murdering. I'd rather have a distributed system of parents putting a majority of their time and attention into figuring out what's best for their own kid -- rather than a bureaucratic state that's playing politics and influenced by lobbyists, deciding what's probably best for the majority of the kids.

It's not a strawman. If the state disallows you from murdering your child, they have authority over you. There are court cases every year where parents who kill their kids get convicted and sent to jail. Who had authority? The people who went to jail, or the people who sent them there?

> I'd rather have a distributed system of parents putting a majority of their time and attention into figuring out what's best for their own kid -- rather than a bureaucratic state that's playing politics and influenced by lobbyists, deciding what's probably best for the majority of the kids.

I would rather have the state disallow murdering children rather than each parent deciding for themselves if they should be able to murder their kid. Maybe you had great parents, but not everyone is so lucky. Sometimes parents don't do what's best for their kid. In those cases, it's better for the state to use their Ultimate Authority to intervene in the interests of the child.

Stopping people from killing their children should be uncontroversial.

> I would rather have the state disallow murdering children rather than each parent deciding for themselves if they should be able to murder their kid.

You're the only one here who has said anything about parental authority overriding the murdering-is-bad laws that most countries seem to have. The state disallows murdering children in the same way it disallows murdering anyone else - via general laws that are nonspecific to parents and their authority over their children.

If you were talking about some other kind of crime where the state was claiming specific authority over the special case of parents' authority over their kids, then I'd understand why you brought it up. Like I said earlier. That's either a weird strawman, or you missed the point of what "ultimate authority" means here.

> Sometimes parents don't do what's best for their kid. In those cases, it's better for the state to use their Ultimate Authority to intervene in the interests of the child.

Except that what you're advocating for isn't intervention in just those cases. You're also advocating that the state intervene in cases where: the treatment is harmful to the child, and the well-educated parent knows it, but the state thinks it's for the best, and causes harm to the child. And you're justifying it by saying the parents shouldn't be allowed to murder their kid. Which is really weird logic.

I'm talking about whether or not parents have ultimate authority over their children. Why do you think murder is a special case that isn't included in "ultimate?" Many parents truly believe it is their right to kill their child if they so choose, and that the state should not be able to intervene or punish them in such situations. "I brought you into this world, and I can take you out of it." You seem really optimistic about the kinds of behaviors and beliefs parents have. Parents are often abusive and -definitely- believe their children are their property to do with as they please. For real. This is the exact kind of thing the original comment was talking about.

If you want to replace "murder" with "beat" or "starve" or "sexually molest" or whatever else, feel free. Murder is not a special case. Parents do not have ultimate authority over their children. It can be easily seen through example in the real world.

> Except that what you're advocating for isn't intervention in just those cases. You're also advocating that the state intervene in cases where: the treatment is harmful to the child, and the well-educated parent knows it, but the state thinks it's for the best, and causes harm to the child. And you're justifying it by saying the parents shouldn't be allowed to murder their kid. Which is really weird logic.

I am not trying to advocate for, nor justify anything. I'm simply saying that the state does not allow parents free reign to do whatever they want to their children, simply because they're parents. Murder is an obvious example, but the state also disallows lots of other things. If parents had ultimate authority over their children, the state could not allow or disallow anything, because they would have no say in the matter.

> Why do you think murder is a special case that isn't included in "ultimate?"

Because that's completely outside the context of what we're discussing here. Because we were talking about who gets final say on medical treatments, and because I clarified with OP [0].

Sure, there's evil people out there. Though usually "I brought you in...I can take you out" seems like hyperbole. But child abuse is wrong for the same reason the same abuse towards adults is wrong. I'm creating a distinction, because the principle involved matters: is the state exerting authority over the bad action done to the child, or over the child itself?

> I am not trying to advocate for, nor justify anything.

You are explicitly advocating for that, and explicitly justifying it. "The state gets final say." "It's better for the state to use their Ultimate Authority to intervene." "I would rather have the state disallow murdering children rather than each parent deciding for themselves if they should be able to murder their kid." "People don't get to murder their children and get away with it."

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34379462

I suggest you look into laws surrounding medical neglect of children. The first part of my comment was general, and is specifically describing this very type of parent, but not taken to an extreme. As far as my state laws go "A parent who denies their child vital and necessary medical treatment faces the following consequences:

• Loss of custody. The child is taken to state custody for protection if the parent is found of negligence.

• Criminal charges. The parent may be charged with child abuse and neglect or even assault if it is proven that he or she has failed in providing the necessary medical attention for the child."

The state take will authority of both situations. I am not sure what the laws are regarding this where you are. HN is a globally accessible website, but discussions are generally US-centric. It wasn't outside the context, I was just not focusing on the very extremes. After you've interacted with this type of parent once or twice, it becomes very easy to identy harmful behavior. I do mean interact with parents that ended up losing custody over neglect. I hope you empathize more with the children stuck in these situations after reading some of the cases. I am not 100% sure what you are attempting to argue.

In my state becoming aware of such behavior and failing to report itself is a crime. I think the crime part only officially applied during when I was associated as an employee of a univeristy and teaching high schoolers. I know I had to do mandated reporter training. The law states every single state resident is a mandated reporter, but I am not sure about the consequences for residents.

The reason vaccination is not covered under this law is because there is it's hard to prove the harm of denying vaccines, in a legal way. There are plenty of people, especially healthcare professionals, that wish vaccination was covered under this kind of law. It is true in some states but not all.

"Results. Our search yielded 9 cases from 5 states. Most courts (7 of 9) considered vaccine refusal to constitute neglect. In the 4 cases decided in jurisdictions that permitted religious exemptions, courts either found that vaccine refusal did not constitute neglect or considered it neglect only in the absence of a sincere religious objection to vaccination.

Conclusions. Some states have a legal precedent for considering parental vaccine refusal as medical neglect, but this is based on a small number of cases. Each state should clarify whether, under its laws, vaccine refusal constitutes medical neglect."

https://www.hg.org/legal-articles/is-denying-medical-treatme...

https://reportingchildabusenj.org/#:~:text=All%20residents%2....

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5308147/

I'm familiar with those laws. The problem is that those laws can be invoked in ways that harm the child, just as easily as they can be invoked to prevent harm. You both are focusing on situations where the parent is abusive. I'm looking at situations where the parents are genuinely caring for the child, and the state invokes those laws to the detriment of the child.

I mean, it's too bad that the Ninth Circuit had to specify that "a social worker and a police officer are not entitled to qualified immunity for investigating a report of a child crying by making a nonconsensual entry into a home without a search warrant or special exigency and coercing a parent to aid them in strip-searching her child." [0]

As I pointed out earlier - what happens when the parent is well-educated, and knows better than to allow some treatment for the child, but the state decides otherwise and forces something that harms the child? This is the risk which we run when we allow the state to have final say.

Edit: archive link instead of original dead link.

[0] https://web.archive.org/web/20100706002834/http://www.family...

As an observer reading this exchange, this is my take:

> You both are focusing on situations where the parent is abusive. I'm looking at situations where the parents are genuinely caring for the child

A(n ignorant) parent can absolutely genuinely care for the child, and yet abuse them with medical neglect if they've been brainwashed into thinking that (some) medical care is bad, even when it's not. That's what is being discussed here.

> As I pointed out earlier - what happens when the parent is well-educated, and knows better than to allow some treatment for the child, but the state decides otherwise and forces something that harms the child? This is the risk which we run when we allow the state to have final say.

I think the bigger question is which risk is larger, that the parent is right or a state employing experts. I'm sure both risks exist, I'm not sure both are even remotely as likely and thus as dangerous. [0]

[0] https://www.forbes.com/sites/carlieporterfield/2022/12/26/oh...

   > Sometimes that means protection FROM their parents.

And based on history, sometimes that means protection FROM the state.

So in your capacity as a tutor, do you think you are qualified to make medical diagnoses of and medical decisions for other people's children? It's generally thought that this is the parents' decision because they have the most information about the child and the biggest "stake" in their child's success.

Has it occurred to you that you might be working with incomplete information? Has it occurred to you that your conclusions might be wrong?

I have a diagnosis. Their teachers suspected a diagnosis and the child was tested. The child would benefit from treatment. The parents were asking for my opinion. As a tutor, I would be one of the first people that would know if a student is struggling and needs testing for a learning disorder.

These situations I am talking about are specifically when the parent is clearly choosing to disregard information because they don't trust it or want it to be wrong for one reason or another. I don't understand why it's still such a divisive thing when the idea of parents being wrong is brought up. Parents, like all humans, have the capacity to do bad/wrong things with good intentions.

Pediatricians face the same situation every day when dealing with this type of parent.

EDIT: The child was tested by a healthcare profesional and was diagosed and medication was recommended. And I went through the same school system. They came to me for advice.

Fyi, speaking as a parent: as it relates to ADHD and giving young children powerful psychoactive drugs, the fact that you only seem aware of one side of an extremely complex and contentious issue makes me disinterested in your advice on this or any other parenting topic. The kinds of people I look to for advice understand the arguments on both sides and, while they may have a position one way or the other, are not zealots.

As someone that has a diagnosis and takes medication for it and and an educator, I understand better than most both sides of the situation. I apologize if it seems like I don't understand both sides. In asian culture there is still a very very strong stigma surrounding treatment for mental health issues. Sometimes hesitancy is cultural and other times it's religious and other times it's pride. My own struggles growing up in a similar situation as the child and learning that I suffered unecessarily after I started medication, affects the language I use to describe the situation. Maybe I have become more jaded than I realize, I appreciate your perspective.

I appreciate your response and being willing to reconsider.

It’s great that you found an approach that worked for you. But yes, I would still suggest humility in assuming that you can identify when the same approach will work for someone else, especially when that someone is a child and the parents, who know that child better than anyone else, don’t share your conviction. There are good reasons to be skeptical about diagnosing young children with ADHD except in very rare circumstances.

Most of the parents I feel frustrated with show hesitancy about even testing, despite also being very concerned about their child failing in school. They treat a positive diagnosis and even testing like a conspiracy, and continually argue that it's simply a question of laziness and motivation.

I am not sure what age you define as young children. I think ages 13 and above, with the assumption they started puberty at minimum a year prior and are at least entering high school, is a fair time to seriously consider/start pharmacological treatment. That was my suggestion to some other parents who have directly asked me. Sometimes starting medication younger is necessary, but in my opinion most kids aren't doing anything where focus is critical to their long term success before starting high school.

I similary have reservations about the current way in which ADHD hyperactive is diagnosed in children younger than 12. I am mainly talking about primarily inattentive diagnoses, because that's what I have experience with and feel confident speaking about. I only teach kids in high school and older. On the other hand, there's a weakness in identifying girls who would benefit from being tested, and an issue of underdiagnosed women, because of the way ADHD symtoms present differently by gender.

I respect your beliefs and can tell they come from good intentions and a desire to help.

That said, my personal inclination is that diagnosis and medication should be a last resort after first trying alternative approaches to education and learning, as well as looking at lifestyle issues like diet, sleep, exercise, screen time, etc.

My experience of education in the US is that it was mostly bad, and that most teachers were bad, particularly when it comes to helping intelligent, creative, and eccentric kids reach their potentials. If at all possible, I would always favor first trying to find a better environment for a child who is struggling rather than using drugs to force them to adapt to a low quality education system.

My perspective comes from a place where I went to a fantastic school but the ADHD made even that education system feel medicore/poor. Not every parent will have the luxury and freedom required to help kids reach maximum potential. If lifestyle changes are enough to fix the situation, the child doesn't meet the critera for ADHD in the first place.

Homeschooling requires a lot of sacrifice from parents in order to set up the child for success, both socially and career-wise. Covid showed me the value in kids socializing with their peers in their age range, during middle and high shool, and how much they will struggle socially if that piece is missing. The thing about ADHD is that once the child leaves the homeschool environment, they will begin to struggle.

It is a myth that ADHD is possible to outgrow, the current thinking is that kids that seemingly outgrew it were incorrectly diagnosed to begin with. The stigma around medication ends up negatively affecting people that are diagnosed. I know I delayed starting medication longer than I should have from the stigma and from time to time feel guilty for needing it after I come across certain messages or articles. It feels like imposter syndrome. The stigma around the diagnosis has been changing but not around the medication.

I respect your decision regarding medication and in many ways agree with you evaluation of the US school system. I do hope you reconsider your take on a diagnosis, it's not prescriptive in any way. It can only benefit the child, "worst" case scenario is you paid a healthcare professional to talk to your child for an unnecessary few hours. There are a tons of options that open up for kids once there's some sort of documentation like a 504, in the US. Simple things like no restriction on bathroom breaks and just being able to have small snacks like baby carrots in class helped me, but it's open ended. I have heard of accomodations like extra exam time or being able to audio record classes and even alternate testing environments or formats in college.

I don't expect to change your mind, I just wanted to share why I believe differently. I appreciate you hearing me out despite my bad initial impression, in my experience that is a usually a sign of a great parent.

The fact that you and a teacher have diagnosed a child with ADHD means less than nothing. Medical advice from teachers has about as much weight as stock tips from them.

They were likely taken aback by how forward and certain you seem to have been about it. If you had instead said, "your child is having some academic trouble, maybe you should get him tested for a learning disability" it would have gone over better. Focus on providing advice within your area of expertise.

Teachers, in general, seem to feel entitled to be surrogate parents to children, but that's really not their role. Their job is solely to help the child learn.

Did you think that the problem may be the other way around? Their perception of the reliability of "the science" is accurate and yours is warped.

The last years have split the population into those who blindly believe in academic and government scientific claims, regardless of how incredible those claims are or how frequently they turn out to have been wrong. And the rest, who don't treat science religiously, and who develop doubt when they see untrustworthy behavior. The first camp can't understand the second because they don't even try to. They feel the righteousness of the true believer.

So here's the suggestion. If you're really a tutor who has such great understanding of the science, try debating with the parents and investigate any claims they make to justify their beliefs honestly. Do Your Own Research. Do not attempt to brainwash the child bypassing the parents. That will simply reinforce their pre-existing beliefs that people who are pro-vaccine are engaged in scientism, can't defend their beliefs and prefer to use communist-style tactics to manipulate others (like turning children against their parents). It will cause them to double down.

That is some very charged language. Showing empathy and helping a child become better at critical thinking isn't anything close to brainwashing. Maybe you're trying to use language that you imagine the parents might think in, but that's not charitable to them either. By asking this question, I felt like I was making it clear that I am trying to understand the parents and reach some middle ground.

You aren't showing empathy, you claimed the parents were "brick walls" with "warped perceptions" who were harming their own children, and that you specifically told them that! No wonder they got defensive. That's the opposite of trying to understand them and it's certainly not charitable to them, is it?

To engage in empathy you must be able to fairly articulate their views and the reasoning they use to arrive at them, in the same way they would or even better. In both posts you haven't done that. That's why they aren't listening to you. Your response to their views is laughable, it's to say "trust me" and then try to manipulate ("guide") their child when they aren't around, which is the opposite of being trustworthy. They trusted you to tutor their child in specific subjects and instead you betrayed that trust, then act surprised when they are "brick walls"?

To convince the parents, you first need to convince them to talk to you and take you seriously. That in turn requires that you, firstly, stop bringing their child into it. Just ignore the child. The child is not being harmed, you aren't a hero who's saving them. The child's views are not your business, they are the parent's business. And secondly, that you do the legwork to fairly investigate their beliefs and the evidence they found convincing, so you can debate with them directly instead of telling them about "a place of trustworthiness" that they clearly don't believe in.

> very specific kind of mindset about who should be the ultimate authority on their child

What are you referring to here?

I believe he is saying that the state has ultimate authority over their child, not the parent.

They believe as a parents, they have all of the specific knowledge required to give their child the best possible life. While ignoring pediatricians and teachers. I wasn't referring to myself in any way.

I mean, given they hired you as a math tutor, that sounds like hyperbole. Which doesn't sound like it answers my question.

Why would you, as a tutor, suggest medical interventions for your students?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com