Children and Childhood

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      Held Involuntarily in a Psychiatric Hospital

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      More from our inbox:The Debate Over Taxing TipsNonpartisan ElectionsSitting Still in SchoolAcadia Healthcare’s Park Royal hospital in Fort Myers, Fla., and Florida is among those that wrongly held some patients against their will.Michael Adno for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Patients Held Against Will by Hospitals” (front page, Sept. 2):Thank you for your hard-hitting exposé of Acadia Healthcare, a chain of psychiatric hospitals, which revealed Acadia’s corrupt financial practices. The authors report on the toxic effects — including but not limited to driving people away from treatment — of these unscrupulous procedures.But even when hospitals have pure motives, inpatient psychiatric care — especially when it is involuntary — can be traumatizing, and may lead to an increased risk of suicide: In one meta-analysis, “the postdischarge suicide rate was approximately 100 times the global suicide rate during the first 3 months after discharge.”The key to helping people is funding community-based, evidence-based programs. For example, “Peer-run respites provide a voluntary alternative to an emergency department visit or inpatient hospitalization for people experiencing a psychiatric crisis,” as was noted in a recent article in Psychiatry Online.With so much evidence to support the benefits of community-based mental health care, I believe that a paradigm shift in the mental health system — away from hospitalization and toward community-based treatment, including peer support — is long overdue.Susan RogersCherry Hill, N.J.The writer is the director of the National Mental Health Consumers’ Self-Help Clearinghouse.To the Editor:The motivation for this atrocious behavior is cited in the first paragraph of the article, where it is noted that Acadia Healthcare’s stock price has more than doubled. This is an example of the perverse results of the use of private equity to finance health care. There are other such examples.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Republicans Are Right: One Party is ‘Anti-Family and Anti-Kid’

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      In attacking Democrats and Kamala Harris, Republicans have been making a legitimate point: One of our major political parties has worked to undermine America’s families.The problem? While neither party has done enough to support families and children, the one that is failing most egregiously is — not surprisingly — the one led by the thrice-married tycoon who tangled with a porn star, boasted about grabbing women by the genitals and was found by a jury to have committed sexual assault.You’d think that would make it awkward for the Republican Party to preach family values. But with the same chutzpah with which Donald Trump reportedly marched into a dressing room where teenage girls were half-naked, the G.O.P. claims that it’s the Democrats who betray family values.“The rejection of the American family is perhaps the most pernicious and most evil thing that the left has done in this country,” JD Vance said in 2021. Pressed on those remarks last month, he went further in a conversation with Megyn Kelly, saying that Democrats “have become anti-family and anti-kid.”This is gibberish. Children are more likely to be poor, to die young and to drop out of high school in red states than in blue states. The states with the highest divorce rates are mostly Republican, and with some exceptions like Utah, it’s in red states that babies are more likely to be born to unmarried mothers (partly because of lack of access to reliable contraception).One of President Biden’s greatest achievements was to cut the child poverty rate by almost half, largely with the refundable child tax credit. Then Republicans killed the program, sending child poverty soaring again.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      5 Things School Nurses Say Parents Are Doing Wrong

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      The stalwarts of children’s health shared their tips and gripes.Carren Teitelbaum, a school nurse in Ramapo, N.Y., once had a student stumble into her office with a 102 degree fever. Mrs. Teitelbaum called his mother, who said she’d given her son Tylenol that had likely worn off and that she could come give him more.“That kind of thing is extremely frustrating,” Mrs. Teitelbaum said. “And it’s not an isolated incident.”Most parents are aware that fevers are a symptom of communicable viruses, and it’s best to keep their children home when they have one. But on short notice, many parents can’t stay home from work, leaving school nurses to care for sick and contagious children.Sending feverish kids to school is just one miscalculation school nurses say parents make. The New York Times spoke with 14 school nurses across the United States who shared other common mistakes. “Some of these things are common sense,” said Mrs. Teitelbaum, “but I find that what makes sense for me may not make sense for somebody else.”They leave the school nurse in the dark.Parents might inform a new teacher about their child’s health but many forget to tell the school nurse, Mrs. Teitelbaum said.Last year, a student with a bad headache visited Anna Etlinger, a school nurse in Cook County, Ill. After calling the boy’s mother, Mrs. Etlinger learned he experiences migraines that cause vomiting without medicine. But public school nurses generally can’t administer most medications without parental consent and permission from a licensed health care provider.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      5-Year-Old Killed After Bounce House Goes Airborne in Maryland

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      Children were inside the play structure at a baseball game when it was carried 15 to 20 feet in the air the by the wind. One child died and another was injured.A 5-year-old boy was killed at a professional baseball game in Maryland on Friday after a bounce house was picked up by a wind gust while children were inside of it, the authorities said.Children fell from the inflatable play structure when it was launched 15 to 20 feet in the air before landing on the baseball field at Regency Furniture Stadium in Waldorf, Md., where the Southern Maryland Blue Crabs were playing Friday night, according to a statement from the government of Charles County, Md.The 5-year-old boy, who has not been identified, was airlifted to Children’s National Hospital in Washington and later pronounced dead, according to Jennifer L. Harris, the press officer for Charles County, and the county’s news release. A second child was also airlifted to the same hospital and treated for non-life-threatening injuries.The death took place while the Blue Crabs were playing against the York Revolution in an Atlantic League of Professional Baseball game in Waldorf, about 25 miles south of Washington. The teams then halted play, and the Blue Crabs postponed their games over the weekend.“Our entire organization shares our condolences with the family mourning the loss of a child, and concern for the child who was injured,” Courtney Knichel, general manager of the Blue Crabs, said in a statement. “Our thoughts and prayers are with them all.”The bounce house was on an elevated, fenced-off surface above right field, according to a report from WRC-TV, NBC’s Washington affiliate. After being lifted off the ground, it crashed on the field near the first-base line.The bounce house is usually set up in an area for children to play in during games, Ms. Harris said in an email.A spokesman for the Blue Crabs could not be immediately reached for comment.Bounce houses have gone airborne and killed children before. This past April, a 2-year-old was killed and another child was injured in Arizona when the wind picked up the bounce house they were in and threw it into a neighboring lot. In 2021, five Australian children died after a bouncy castle was propelled 30 feet in the air during their school’s end-of-the-year celebration.Regency Furniture Stadium in 2008. On Friday, one child died and another was injured during a baseball game at the stadium.Mark Gail/The The Washington Post, via Getty ImagesA study by the University of Georgia found at least 479 injuries and 28 deaths happened in wind-related bounce house incidents around the world between 2000 to 2021.The Consumer Product Safety Commission, an independent federal regulatory agency, recommends that bounce houses should not be used when maximum wind speeds exceed 15 to 25 miles per hour. The group advises that if “the tops of the trees are swaying” it may not be safe to use a bounce house. Bounce houses should be secured with at least six anchor points, according to the Amusement Devices Safety Council, Britain’s workplace health and safety regulator. More

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      ‘I Was a Childless Cat Lady’: Women Respond to JD Vance

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      More from our inbox:Clearing Homeless EncampmentsFood and Gas PricesThe Roger Maris FireThe selection of Senator JD Vance of Ohio as former President Donald J. Trump’s running mate was supposed to appeal to women, voters of color and blue-collar voters, but a stream of years-old comments has threatened to undermine that.Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Past Comments Fluster Vance as Democrats Go on Offense” (front page, July 29):JD Vance, the Republican vice-presidential nominee, said in 2021, “We’re effectively run, in this country, via the Democrats, via our corporate oligarchs, by a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made, and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable, too.”I would say this to Mr. Vance:I was a childless cat lady: three cats, no kids.I thought fertility was a given. There was no medical reason I couldn’t have children. Yet it did not happen. Three cats. A great career. No kids.I was, in effect at 38, a “childless cat lady.”I pursued fertility treatments. Treatments that many Republicans want to ban.I had painful tests, surgeries, running to the lab — five vials of blood drawn every day at 6 a.m. — then rushing to work for a minimum 12-hour day.Childless cat lady lawyer. Meow.I had one fabulous child at 38 with I.V.F. She was a triplet, but I lost my daughter’s siblings.I was pregnant three other times. I lost two other babies at four months. I needed a D and C: same procedure as an abortion. If I didn’t have the surgery, I would have died.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      How the Kids Online Safety Act Was Dragged Into a Political War

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      The Senate was set to pass the Kids Online Safety Act on Tuesday, but the legislation faces an uphill battle in the House because of censorship concerns.Last week, the American Civil Liberties Union sent 300 high school students to Capitol Hill to lobby against the Kids Online Safety Act, a bill meant to protect children online.The teenagers told the staffs of 85 lawmakers that the legislation could censor important conversations, particularly among marginalized groups like L.G.B.T.Q. communities.“We live on the internet, and we are afraid that important information we’ve accessed all our lives will no longer be available,” said Anjali Verma, a 17-year-old rising high school senior from Bucks County, Pa., who was part of the student lobbying campaign. “Regardless of your political perspective, this looks like a censorship bill.”The effort was one of many escalations in recent months by those who oppose the bill. In June, a progressive nonprofit, Fight for the Future, organized students to write hundreds of letters to urge lawmakers to scrap it. Conservative groups like Patriot Voices, founded by the former Republican senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, are also protesting with an online petition.What was supposed to be a simple piece of legislation to protect children online has been dragged into a heated political war. At the heart of the battle are concerns about how the bill could affect free speech on culturally divisive issues, which both sides of the spectrum worry could be weaponized under the guise of child safety. Liberals worry about censorship of transgender care, while conservatives are concerned about the same with anti-abortion efforts. The tech industry has also latched onto the same First Amendment arguments to oppose the bill.The controversy stems from the specific terms of the Kids Online Safety Act, or KOSA. The legislation would require social media platforms and other sites to limit features that can heighten cyberbullying, harassment and the glorification of self-harm. The bill would also require tech companies to turn on the highest privacy and safety settings for users under 17 and let them opt out of some features that have been shown to lead to compulsive use.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Vivian Jenna Wilson, Elon Musk’s Transgender Daughter, Says He Was ‘Cruel’ and ‘Uncaring’

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      Vivian Jenna Wilson’s remarks, in an exclusive interview with NBC News, were a response to Mr. Musk’s comments about her transgender identity.Vivian Jenna Wilson, the transgender daughter of Elon Musk, said this week that her father had been “uncaring” and behaved in a “cruel” manner toward her as a child over her being queer and feminine.In an exclusive interview with NBC News on Thursday, Ms. Wilson, 20, called Mr. Musk “cold,” “very quick to anger” and “narcissistic.” She described him as an absent father who, according to NBC, would “harass her for exhibiting feminine traits and pressure her to appear more masculine, including by pushing her to deepen her voice as early as elementary school.”Ms. Wilson’s interview came in response to remarks Mr. Musk made earlier this week about her transgender identity.In an interview on Monday with the Canadian psychologist Jordan Peterson that was streamed live on X, Mr. Musk used Ms. Wilson’s birth name, which is known as deadnaming, and said that she was “dead, killed by the woke mind virus.” Mr. Musk also said that he had been “tricked” into authorizing gender-affirming care for her. He later doubled down on his claims about Ms. Wilson on X, saying that she was “born gay and slightly autistic” but that she “was not a girl.”Ms. Wilson said that her father’s comments had “crossed a line,” and she countered that he “knew what he was doing when he agreed to her treatment” when she was 16, NBC reported.It said that Ms. Wilson said she thought that her father had been “under the assumption that I wasn’t going to say anything and I would just let this go unchallenged, which I’m not going to do, because if you’re going to lie about me, like, blatantly to an audience of millions. I’m not just gonna let that slide.”Mr. Musk did not immediately reply to an email requesting comment on Friday afternoon.Ms. Wilson has largely stayed out of the public eye, NBC reported. The last time she garnered media attention was in 2022, when she filed a request to change her name “and, in the process, denounced her father,” it said.At the time, NBC reported, Ms. Wilson said in a court filing that she no longer lived with Mr. Musk, nor did she “wish to be related to my biological father in any way, shape or form.”Ms. Wilson told NBC on Thursday that she had not spoken with her father in about four years “and that she refused to be defined by him.”“I would like to emphasize one thing: I am an adult,” she said, according to NBC. “I am 20 years old. I am not a child. My life should be defined by my own choices.” More

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      Moving In Childhood Contributes to Depression, Study Finds

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      A study of more than a million Danes found that frequent moves in childhood had a bigger effect than poverty on adult mental health risk.In recent decades, mental health providers began screening for “adverse childhood experiences” — generally defined as abuse, neglect, violence, family dissolution and poverty — as risk factors for later disorders.But what if other things are just as damaging?Researchers who conducted a large study of adults in Denmark, published on Wednesday in the journal JAMA Psychiatry, found something they had not expected: Adults who moved frequently in childhood have significantly more risk of suffering from depression than their counterparts who stayed put in a community.In fact, the risk of moving frequently in childhood was significantly greater than the risk of living in a poor neighborhood, said Clive Sabel, a professor at the University of Plymouth and the paper’s lead author.“Even if you came from the most income-deprived communities, not moving — being a ‘stayer’ — was protective for your health,” said Dr. Sabel, a geographer who studies the effect of environment on disease.“I’ll flip it around by saying, even if you come from a rich neighborhood, but you moved more than once, that your chances of depression were higher than if you hadn’t moved and come from the poorest quantile neighborhoods,” he added.The study, a collaboration by Aarhus University, the University of Manchester and the University of Plymouth, included all Danes born between 1982 and 2003, more than a million people. Of those, 35,098, or around 2.3 percent, received diagnoses of depression from a psychiatric hospital.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More