Your kids are your’s, not NJ’s or the schools’ (Opinion)

There is a bill making it's way through the legislature that could mandate your child be "screened" for depression every year between grades 7 and 12. Kids do have more pressures and influences than when we were coming up. With more single parent homes, more two parent households both working, less real social interaction and more social media pressure, it's no wonder kids can get depressed. Is that the school's responsibility or the parents and family of the kid? Is the school system looking to help or looking to help themselves to more taxpayer money by classifying kids to get more federal or state funds?

Think about when you were a teenager. You could be "classified" as depressed about half the time when you're parents asked, "what's wrong, Jen"? I don't like the idea of the government (and public school IS the government) poking around in my kids head. The state acts like our children are their kids. You can opt out of this program, but what stigma is attached to that option? Back the f*** off and just teach kids the basics. If they're depressed, we'll handle it. If we need help, we'll ask. If he or she is a problem, let me know.

My brother and I were mama's boys when we were young and in Catholic school. My older brother cried every day he was in school in the first couple of grades. One nun told my mother to strip him naked when you get him home and lock him in his room! I don't know if it took care of his separation anxiety (a term that didn't exist then) but he eventually stopped crying at school! Did it end up making him hate school? Of the four of us, he's the only one that completed college. Maybe the state should mandate nuns to be counselors in every high school!

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