Myriad observations and decisions go into making dreaded call

Perhaps it’s the faint mark of a handprint on a child’s face, or the trail of bruises on an upper arm.  Maybe it’s the welt left by the smack of an electrical cord against tender flesh.  Sometimes it’s subtle – the child who doesn’t leave each afternoon until I finally kick him out because I need to go home. Often it’s just a feeling, a tiny prickling of the senses that prompts me to watch a child carefully, to scan her face each day for signs of trouble. On rare occasions, it’s the child’s own words, usually beginning with, “Do you promise not to tell anyone if I tell you something?”

My heart sinks at that phrase.

Teachers are expected — between phonics, dividing fractions, encouraging STEM careers, preventing bullying, monitoring nutrition, instilling values, and teaching financial savvy — to recognize and report signs of abuse. The process is painful for both me and the child, the guidelines for reporting are fuzzy, and frequently I don’t know what outcome to hope for.

The need to call authorities can be sickeningly clear. Students disclosing sexual abuse or extreme physical abuse obviously need to be rapidly removed from danger.  These are the children I wish I could take home myself, but instead I pull the trigger on the process that subjects them to round after round of questioning by school officials, social workers, and other authorities.  If I am nauseous hearing their stories, I can only imagine how it must feel to live them. These are children who tremble as they talk, who would crawl up into my lap if they still fit, or who bristle with as much anger at me for revealing their family secrets as they do at their perpetrators. These are kids who slip away into the system — first a shelter, then emergency foster care, and then hopefully a permanent placement.

Often I lose track of them and spend decades wondering where they ended up and if they got the physical, psychological, and social help that they needed.

However, there’s definitely gray area in reporting.  In a community where many families live far below the poverty line, I’m cautious when referring children for investigation of neglect.  We’re told that signs of neglect include ill-fitting clothing, poor hygiene, frequent illness, attendance issues, or hunger.   Teachers know all too well that these are also signs of extreme poverty. Some argue that parents who cannot afford to adequately house, feed, or clothe their children shouldn’t be allowed to raise them, but an equally compelling argument is that in the absence of abuse, children aren’t best served by being ripped away from their parents.  Several times I’ve had to reassure crying moms who have just been visited by social workers, “Poverty isn’t a crime.  They won’t take your children just because you’re poor.”

I’m required to report emotional abuse, but I hesitate before making such calls.  Training videos tell me that a child who is overly immature may suffer from emotional abuse.  I dubiously scan the students with tiny Lego men hidden in their desks, the covert thumb-suckers or nail-biters, the believers in Santa Claus; maybe they’re just babies.
The converse, we are told, is also a sign – the exceedingly mature child who takes care of peers, the perfectionist, the overly compliant child. This student is a teacher’s dream; of course you may pass out papers, help your struggling seatmate with that math problem, show the new student around at recess.  Frankly, by Friday at 2:30, I would be delighted to have a classroom full of overly mature, exceptionally compliant children. In the back of my mind, however, I know that sometimes such students are well-raised, but some truly are terrified of the consequences of making even small errors. I also know that it’s rare that a phone call to authorities about such a child will receive anything more than a cursory follow-up.

Once a student slips away into the system, I am wracked with doubt.  Did I do the right thing?  Is a child better off in a shelter? While I’ve met some exceptional foster parents—families who have raised, healed, and even adopted their young charges— I’ve also had students being raised by families clearly unprepared for the depth of the issues abused children bring into their homes.

I dream of a world in which calls to the county’s Child Protective Services are never needed.  Until that day though, I watch very carefully and make that hard call when I must.