CA - Hannah,16,Devonte,15,&Ciera Hart,12 (fnd deceased),Mendocino Cty,26 Mar 2018 #5

[mtnlites]

In a word: Photoshop.

Yes, it could very well be Photoshop or they could just have naturally good-looking teeth.

 

[PetDetective]

I don't know. I'm thinking that losing the kids might have been a motivation as well but from a different angle.

It seems that Jen and Sarah knew how to handle CPS. Spankings and "punishing the children by withholding food" are the same accusations that were made in the past. The kids were never taken away (even if it was only because the family ran).

I am wondering if the family had a big pow-wow over how CPS found out this time? Maybe the kids finally admit to Jen and Sarah that they are unhappy. Jen and Sarah feel betrayed and that the kids are ungrateful. (Jen and Sarah seem to emphasize gratefulness).

Jen and Sarah can't see letting the children leave. They then think that the only option is death...:moo:

That’s a possibility.
Idk though, I’m not convinced this was their plan as much as it was her plan. I may have missed something that points to or proves it was a decision they both made though.


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[mommylicious]

Just spent some time browsing the pictures on Facebook. I wish we'd never heard of the Hart family. I wish that the children's lives could have been as amazing and magical as it looked to the outside world. I wish that they had had the opportunity to grow up loved and nurtured, to spread their wings and explore and make their mark on the world. :anguish:

 

[PinkPrincessPoop]

I was a homeschooled child myself growing up. There is too much abuse of all varieties going on (educational, financial, emotional, physical, sexual, etc). There are many, many families who homeschool well and are excellent people - but leaving homeschool families to simply "use the honor system" when it comes to adhering to regulations is absolutely ridiculous. For every good homeschooling family, you have at least 2 more bad ones who are simply using the laws to their advantage to abuse their children.

 

[?mysterian?]

That’s a possibility.
Idk though, I’m not convinced this was their plan as much as it was her plan. I may have missed something that points to or proves it was a decision they both made though.


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It seems like a whole lot of information is still missing about this tragedy. Hopefully LE where the Harts lived will make their findings/reports public, as well as LE where the wreck happened. I'm trying to reserve judgement until more details are released.

 

[PinkPrincessPoop]

Just spent some time browsing the pictures on Facebook. I wish we'd never heard of the Hart family. I wish that the children's lives could have been as amazing and magical as it looked to the outside world. I wish that they had had the opportunity to grow up loved and nurtured, to spread their wings and explore and make their mark on the world. :anguish:

It really shows you how fake social media can be! I kind of believe the more aggressive people are with posting photos and updates with how "wonderful" their life is, those are probably the people who are the most miserable.

 

[rosesfromangels]

It seems like a whole lot of information is still missing about this tragedy. Hopefully LE where the Harts lived will make their findings/reports public, as well as LE where the wreck happened. I'm trying to reserve judgement until more details are released.

Me too.

 

[K_Z]

Hm. As a person not born in the US but white, I think I have real life experience as to what coming into a different culture (USA) is like. And my sister adopting kids from overseas and one of my best friend’s adopting non white children , but two born in the US gives me a fairly deep understanding.

What I mean by immersion is being with people of their culture at appropriate times. Shared meals with people invited to the home and vice versa. Going to celebrations. Even visiting the birthplace. Learning about their backgrounds from people who are part of the culture. Keeping the language alive.Learning about the contributions of their culture to the world.

There is so much wonderful about all peoples on earth.

BBM for focus.

I'm glad you explained your thinking, because "cultural immersion" is a fairly negative term related to international adoption, unless the term "immersion" is in the context of speaking English and assimilation to the new country and culture (America, in this case). Immersion in the birth culture is counterproductive once they are in a new country-- CONNECTIONS to the birth culture are important, but are secondary to making sure the child is settling into and developing appropriately in the new language and culture.

Connections to birth culture are on a continuum over the lifespan, and include all the types of things in your post-- food, language, history, art, culture, etc. Some kids want lots of connection, some want little to none. Some are completely apathetic to their birth culture, and have little to no memory of it. Forcing those kids to have lots of "immersion" when they don't want it, or forcing them to learn the birth language, leads to all kinds of social, psychological, and behavioral problems. Likewise, restricting a child from connections to birth culture, who WANTS lots of connections, is also harmful. And kids have different needs at different ages, for connections to birth culture.

Until the age of about 6-7, kids have a very easy time learning to listen to and speak a new language. After about age 7-8, the learning profile mirrors adults who learn new languages. It's much, much harder.

I remember that you've mentioned that you have an education background, and certainly within the educational community "immersion" has a specific meaning within the context of K-12 immersion language and culture programs (which have proliferated and grown in popularity in more populated areas in the past 20 years).

As I mentioned before, enrolling a child from, for example, a Spanish speaking birth country into a Spanish immersion educational program here in the U.S. is highly discouraged-- and in fact, should be actively discouraged by school administrators. A school aged child who is from a Spanish speaking country, and adopted after age 3 or so, should not be enrolled in Spanish immersion. This only delays English competence in both speaking, listening, and writing, and results in a child with a much more contracted fund of knowledge for expression. (And sometimes behavioral problems, and social problems.)

Well-meaning people may think that enrollment in a Spanish immersion program would provide an outlet for expression and built in translators for the child, easing their transition from a Spanish speaking country to an English speaking country. But the exact opposite is true. The kids take much, MUCH longer to learn to listen, speak, read, and write in English at age appropriate levels, and remain behind into adulthood, which affects their life trajectory for work and school. Adoption professionals and outcome studies have demonstrated this.

This is also why K-12 non-English speaking kids often have a tremendous amount of difficulty and a very protracted requirement for ELL services. They are neither completely fluent in the birth language (most cannot read and write in their birth language, only speak it), or in spoken and written English. Their expressive language, and writing ability, in most cases, is far behind their peers who speak English from birth, and many times they never catch up. (They meet criteria to be moved out of ELL services, but that is not the same thing as being equal in language ability to their English speaking peers.) They are caught between 2 worlds-- birth language at home, English outside the home, and typically the parents speak and read very little English. Many non-English/ partially fluent parents do not read books in the birth language to the children at home, don't teach reading and writing in that language, and are unable to help with English homework assignments. This results in a child who reads, writes, and expresses him/ herself at a far lower level than a child who speaks English from birth.

This is pretty far off topic from the Hart kids, who were born into English speaking families (we think), so I'm getting back to the Hart family discussion here.

The kids early background may have been English based, but as with most kids from difficult backgrounds, their fund of knowledge and expressive language abilities were much more contracted and limited than peers from more stable families. It takes *a lot* of intervention over time to help adopted older kids catch up in their expressive language abilities, even when English is their first language. Many, if not most, of older adopted kids have global delays, along with psychosocial delays, and physical effects from their difficult beginnings. Many kids never catch up to peers, and have more lifelong challenges with academics and things like effective writing skills that are necessary for college and career.

Having realistic expectations is part of the educational process of adoption education classes. Not every child will be able to "overcome" their social, academic, and intellectual challenges and become a college graduate, or an astronaut. That's not pessimism, that's realism. You parent the child as they are, trying always to have expectations that are neither too high, nor too low.

IMO, the Hart women never had realistic expectations and an appropriate parenting plan for any of the 6 children they adopted. The children were far too close in age once the second set of siblings was added, making individuation nearly impossible (if the Hart couple ever even tried). Birth order was severely disrupted, the 2 sets of siblings were 2 families within a family, all the kids had serious and pervasive needs, and the Hart's answer to these challenges was isolation and "group supervision"-- like classroom management, or chaperoning a field trip. There wasn't a lot of actual "parenting" going on, IMO.

 

[Silver~Bell]

I was a homeschooled child myself growing up. There is too much abuse of all varieties going on (educational, financial, emotional, physical, sexual, etc). There are many, many families who homeschool well and are excellent people - but leaving homeschool families to simply "use the honor system" when it comes to adhering to regulations is absolutely ridiculous. For every good homeschooling family, you have at least 2 more bad ones who are simply using the laws to their advantage to abuse their children.

Really? Where do you get that statistic of twice as many "bad" families using homeschooling to abuse than "good" families using it to educate? That's an astounding claim.

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[Whiteorchids]

I took my 10-year-old to Burning Man last year and we're returning again this year as well. While the drug culture is definitely present, I don't find that it's any more blatant than what we see around my town in the most popular drug-shopping areas (FWIW, most drug transactions go down in the parking lot between our McDonalds and Rite Aid).

This will be my 10th year of attending Burning Man. I've never done any drugs there, nor have I been offered any. Marijuana is probably the most prevalent, but I see (or rather smell) it at local music festivals here in my state as well. Depending on where you live, recreational marijuana isn't even illegal so your stance on that is kind of personal. Alcohol, opioids, and benzos are widely available at BM to but, again, I haven't found them to be any more prevalent than what I've seen at local festivals (or even our county fair).

You more or less get what you want out of Burning Man, or any of the smaller reclamations that lead up to BM. If it's sexual freedom and exhibitionism that you want, you'll find it there. If it's uppers or downers or smoking weed with like-minded people you want, you'll find it. However, you'll also find just as much "conservative" activities as well. Each camp has its own theme and there truly is something for everyone. We personally go for the creative vibe; we enjoy the bonding of artists from all walks of life, we like the inspiration that comes from the installations, and we LOVE the community feel (there's nothing for sale at Burning Man except ice-you barter for everything you need). There's even an enclosed area for families with kids called "Kiddsville" where you can find all kinds of "camp" type activities for the little ones. You won't find any sex or blatant nudity or drug use in it.

I think burning man is a really strange event or whatever you call it. I watched many you tubes on it. Couldn’t believe my eyes. Too weird and creepy for me but hey to each their own. I’ve lived in Southern CA my entire life so nothing surprises me anymore. Lol.

 

[PinkPrincessPoop]

Really? Where do you get that statistic of twice as many "bad" families using homeschooling to abuse than "good" families using it to educate? That's an astounding claim.

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I never said that was a statistic. This is me speaking about my personal experience as both a homeschooler (were you homeschooled? are you homeschooling children? are you part of the community? Please share your experiences!) and as someone who has in the past volunteered my time with an organization that focuses on homeschool abuse/neglect. You are free to disagree with me of course, but please don't put words into my mouth, simply share your opinion.

And yes, I do find the state of the homeschooling community quite "astounding," for better or worse.

 

[RickshawFan]

*********

Until the age of about 6-7, kids have a very easy time learning to listen to and speak a new language. After about age 7-8, the learning profile mirrors adults who learn new languages. It's much, much harder. *******

That's just not correct. A 7-8 year-old learning a new language typically can acquire fluency. This is not at all true of adults. All you have to do is listen to the accents of adult 2nd language speakers (usually betraying their native tongues); young language learners can get the accent as though native-born. Also, children have different routes for learning language skills than adults.

My comments here come from personal and professional experience. I have taught in many classrooms with multilingual students, learned 4 languages before the age of 12 (2 in school, 2 immersion), 2 more as an older teen, and 1 more very difficult attempt in full adulthood. The learning process of a child learning a language is light years different from an adult's. Try it?

*******

The lengthy topic ^^^^^ on language, might benefit from comparing the differences between British (and other countries') children—who might be taught 1-2 languages as a child and 1-4 languages as a teenager—and their general facility with language in general (word play is a national quirk) vs the end result from the delayed foreign language teaching in most American schools. Most Americans, in my experience, really stumble with foreign language mastery.

Also check out the studies done with underperforming elementary children in a special program to learn Latin in Philadelphia (IIRC) public schools. The program dramatically improved their overall school performance.

*******

Related to a topic that was touched on ^^^^^^^, I have never encountered an "immersion" school in the US that doesn't conduct classes in English. Parents fear, evidently, that kids can't master subjects like math and writing if they are taught in a foreign language. This is not "immersion".

Evidently that parental concern doesn't apply to, e.g. Latino parents and their children.

*******

 

[fridaybaker]

I was a homeschooled child myself growing up. There is too much abuse of all varieties going on (educational, financial, emotional, physical, sexual, etc). There are many, many families who homeschool well and are excellent people - but leaving homeschool families to simply "use the honor system" when it comes to adhering to regulations is absolutely ridiculous. For every good homeschooling family, you have at least 2 more bad ones who are simply using the laws to their advantage to abuse their children.

BBM. Can I ask where you acquired the statistic that there are twice as many "bad" homeschooling families as "good" ones?

 

[Whiteorchids]

In this picture of Devonte Hart dated the 2013 Portland viral hug incident, you can see Jen Hart to the right of him. She's clearly not slim.

http://newyorkbeacon.com/heres-how-...rtedly-profited-from-adopting-black-children/


If you look up the photographer credited, you can see more public pictures of the protest event, including a photo I find particularly chilling of Devonte looking up at Jen with tears in his eyes. He looks frightened and appears to be receiving instruction. I presume this is just prior to the meeting with the policeman. I am beginning to think that those claiming that Devonte was pushed into a planned photo op are correct. JMO. The picture is displayed in the photographer's public portfolio gallery, but I cannot link it here without written permission.

I have the same Canon camera and Canon L lens which is Canons top of the line expensive glass (lenses) you can tell L lenses with the red circle ⭕️ around the lens the Canon white lenses are L glass too. She must have used the kids food money or the money Devonte and the kids raised for that setup. She sure as heck didn’t work unless she was paid for her photography by staging the photo shoots of her kids to sell to the tabloids, news outlets, magazines etc exploiting her own kids like the photo of Devante and the policeman. All staged!!!

 

[goldenbear]

If you are facing the pacific ocean in California you are facing west. Directly behind you would be east. Objects in the ocean travel to your left or to the south, I would expect the remaining two children to be south of the crash site.:rollercoaster::rollercoaster:

 

[bluesneakers]

In this picture of Devonte Hart dated the 2013 Portland viral hug incident, you can see Jen Hart to the right of him. She's clearly not slim.

http://newyorkbeacon.com/heres-how-...rtedly-profited-from-adopting-black-children/

If you look up the photographer credited, you can see more public pictures of the protest event, including a photo I find particularly chilling of Devonte looking up at Jen with tears in his eyes. He looks frightened and appears to be receiving instruction. I presume this is just prior to the meeting with the policeman. I am beginning to think that those claiming that Devonte was pushed into a planned photo op are correct. JMO. The picture is displayed in the photographer's public portfolio gallery, but I cannot link it here without written permission.

Yes, he looks terrified! I believe she was telling him he needed to "face his fears" or some nonsense. That photograph makes me so angry.

I read an opinion piece about it and it compared Devonte's very real, justified fear of police officers to being afraid of bears. Being afraid of bears keeps you alive. You don't go hug a bear because you're afraid of it.

 

[Whiteorchids]

In this picture of Devonte Hart dated the 2013 Portland viral hug incident, you can see Jen Hart to the right of him. She's clearly not slim.

http://newyorkbeacon.com/heres-how-...rtedly-profited-from-adopting-black-children/


If you look up the photographer credited, you can see more public pictures of the protest event, including a photo I find particularly chilling of Devonte looking up at Jen with tears in his eyes. He looks frightened and appears to be receiving instruction. I presume this is just prior to the meeting with the policeman. I am beginning to think that those claiming that Devonte was pushed into a planned photo op are correct. JMO. The picture is displayed in the photographer's public portfolio gallery, but I cannot link it here without written permission.

How do you find the photographer name? I would like to look at that photo.
Never mind I found it [emoji4]

 

[mtnlites]

I was a homeschooled child myself growing up. There is too much abuse of all varieties going on (educational, financial, emotional, physical, sexual, etc). There are many, many families who homeschool well and are excellent people - but leaving homeschool families to simply "use the honor system" when it comes to adhering to regulations is absolutely ridiculous. For every good homeschooling family, you have at least 2 more bad ones who are simply using the laws to their advantage to abuse their children.

I am interested as to how you've reached this number, or from where you've read this statistic. I homeschool my kids and I've never seen an official number like this.

 

[Whiteorchids]

Here is a link to an interview the photographer gave about the photo he took of Devante with the policeman. It made me cry.

https://kollaboration.org/3515/inte...nguyen-on-his-viral-ferguson-rally-hug-photo/

 

[Eloise]

It was pretty clear to me that PinkPrincessPoop wasn't trying to say that was a statistical number, she was imparting an anecdote based on personal experience using colloquial language ¯\_(&#12484_/¯

I doubt it's even possible to get statistics on homeschoolers who are "good" vs "bad" at what they do, given there are probably a lot that are off the grid and off the books, depending on jurisdiction. Anecdotes is probably all there is to go off when speaking generally.