Sparkling Adventures in Child Neglect: Now with Rats!

[Vex]

The talk of her baby son's murder being a neutral event... it's just so disturbing. Lauren needs psychological help.

The girls are being forced to look at the death of their brother at their father's hand as a neural even that merely brought about change and some 'sadness'. Aisha no longer goes in the water - clearly these girls have unresolved issues that Lauren refused to allow them to air.

[ThatSnark]

I hate to even type this thought out, but I'd be interested to see what you all think. I guess we all agree that these rats are not going to live long, happy lives-- it's winter now, but it's eventually going to warm up in that van and not be a safe environment for them. So my thought was that when these rats die, the girls are going to have a very adverse reaction to something they've loved and cared for dying suddenly, and it will release their grief over losing David and Elijah.

I've seen it happen before. I had a close friend as a child whose father died suddenly. She didn't cry much then, because she didn't really understand the permanence of his death. Six months on when her cat died, she understood death by then, and grieved the cat-- and her father-- tremendously. She fortunately got therapy to help her process these losses.

*sigh*

[chaotic life]

Most of those girls were and are still firmly entrenched in magical thinking mental capacities. That means they fully blame THEMSELVES for whatever cross feelings they had towards their baby brother that caused his death. Without intensive therapy, kids in that age range can be the worst to recover because of the magical thinking and how you simply do NOT know what is underneath the façade for years if you don't work to see under it in the first place.

Add to that the reality that the older girls blame their MOM for what happened to their family--for not stopping it and not saving their brother. I guarantee you they do, because that is a stage of grief for children and when not allowed to truly grieve, they will simply internalize that thought process.

Five months after my son died, when my teen daughter had resisted processing her grief to the point it incapacitated her, she exploded in a family therapy session, screaming at me and demanding to know why I KILLED HER BROTHER. My son died of Cystic Fibrosis and I most certainly did not kill him. However to a child older and more cognitively aware than Lauren's girls, the fact that I did not stop what happened made me responsible in her mind. Until that point in her therapy, she had resisted any help we tried to give her in processing her grief because she blamed us for his death. She had to move through that blame so that she did not see us as the enemy of her grief.

I'm sorry. I've walked the same path Lauren has in the last year. It was that commonality that drew me to her story in the first place. The differences between us are that no one KILLED my son and that my family has actually done the hard work of walking this journey, while she calls her grief neutral and makes it sparkly and denies that her children struggle at all. As I said before, this will explode on this family at the point that the grief denied and suppressed becomes more than these children can handle anymore.

Contrastly, my family faces our one year anniversary on Friday. Every child who is still in grief therapy is set up for a session this week, and I'm calling Hospice today to see if the grief counselor can come to the house to do one final family therapy session for everyone. My children have been in grief therapy since before my son died. Those no longer IN therapy are not because they have been released because they and their therapists agreed they were ready to leave grief therapy. For the rest of their childhoods, if I see grief trying to overwhelm them, I will put them back into therapy. Even when they are adults, I will encourage them to see out support if they struggle in their grief. I don't expect anyone to "get over" losing him. I expect us to integrate this sadness into our lives so that it no longer feels like a ripping hole in our souls.

My own therapist tells me that the second year is MUCH worse than the first year. I'm not happy to hear that. I cannot imagine something being worse than what this has been. She says that the first year society gives you permission to grieve. The second year, society says it's time to be done and you are so very much NOT done. I am now prepared for this problem. Lauren? She sees no therapists, doesn't even acknowledge she needs to grieve. I anticipate she will become nearly incapacitated in this upcoming year, worse than she did the first six months after his death.

[So Many Lies]

I hate it when people say that they PTSD every time they experience a traumatic event. There is a difference between having experienced a traumatic event and having PTSD. PTSD is complicated and usually the result of multiple traumatic events and possibly underlying reasons like lack of stability or lack of emotional support. Everyone has trauma. Some people need help working through their trauma but may not have PTSD.

I could see Lauren's kids having PTSD. Their lives are not stable, they dont have emotional support, and they have experienced multiple traumatic events including their brothers death.

PTSD is used in the media then in court because it is a bona fide psychiatric illness. This is the groundwork needed to form part of the legal defence.

To lessen the charge mere trauma won't be enough it has to be a recognised illness. Of course it's crap...hardly anyone really gets ptsd. It's so overused in court.

[ladyaudley]

chaotic life, thanks for that post. Most of us don't have that sort of experience to compare, so we can only infer from other grief in our lives, maybe some that wasn't as immediate. Thank you for giving some insight into how other families who actually care for and nurture their children deal with something this horrific.

[DarkAnts]

PTSD is used in the media then in court because it is a bona fide psychiatric illness. This is the groundwork needed to form part of the legal defence.

To lessen the charge mere trauma won't be enough it has to be a recognised illness. Of course it's crap...hardly anyone really gets ptsd. It's so overused in court.

I know it's a real anxiety disorder. It's serious and complex that is caused by multiple traumatic events and underlying reasons. People don't usually develope it from one specific event. A person can develope an anxiety disorder after a single traumatic event but it at not be PTSD. I suffer from PTSD and I am tired of it becoming a buzzword for all trauma induced anxiety. PTSD is the worst of the trauma induced anxiety disorders. There are other medical diegnoses for the othe trauma induced anxiety. Most common people don't know or understand that so they assume that they have PTSD when they may have one of the less severe anxiety disorders.

[AtroposHeart]

I never got to reading the Sparkling Adventures post before, but damn what a fucked up family.

Doesn't Australia have any form of Child Protection Services to take the girls away?

[Vex]

Yes, we do, but they don't reside in one state and DOCS is on a state level. She has had run-ins with them before, and for a while after Elijah's death she was only allowed supervised visits. They found her home-schooling efforts satisfactory, but their van was found unsatisfactory and she had to do quite extensive work to satisfy safety requirements. Her family has voiced concerns in the past but they're blocked out by Lauren if they show any 'negativity', so now they mostly keep silent.

If she lived at their home full time, it would be much easier for DOCS to step in, but they can't do anything if she's constantly moving. The kids fall through the cracks and that's really sad. I'm not sure that Lauren's ill-advised lifestyle choices count as actual abuse, but they might.

*DOCS. Because this isn't America.

[lilith]

DOCS (the NSW family welfare agency) was contacted after Aisha went missing overnight with Luke, but they were unable to locate the family and no action was taken.

What I find interesting about that incident is that it must have been one of their fellow rainbow gathering participants who called and reported them. That community wouldn't contact DOCS unless they had valid and major concerns - unconventional parenting, unschooling, freebirthing, recreational drug use, etc are accepted in those circles. Someone must have been very concerned to contact DOCS about a fellow rainbow family.

[ladyaudley]

Does anyone remember when the whole Aisha going missing and Lauren leaving to find a car incidents were? I tried to find them, but was so far unsuccessful... year and month would suffice.

[Vex]

I think she deleted those entries. She frequently goes back to edit entries. How authentic.

[ladyaudley]

I feared as much. Grmbl. I vaguely remember there being a youtube video David made of himself and the girls stuck in the van waiting for her return. My search has brought up this gem from last September though:

There are many stories of women who have created psychological and emotional junctions in their children’s lives upon the exit of a partner or death of a child. I refuse to let Elijah’s death be such a pivotal point in our daughters’ childhoods. Life will continue for them in the way they like it — full of learning opportunities, adventures and friendships.

no, no, no. They don't *create* those junctions; such an event by its very nature *is* such a junction. They just teach their children that that's okay. :angry-banghead:

[pikachu]

Here's the post where B. was lost overnight on the mountain with a man they barely knew

sparklingadventures.com/index.php?id=1474

[happy atheist]

I archived the entire site right when she stopped blogging, so I have everything except the videos.

It would take me some time to navigate through it all and find something, but if she's pulled stuff, I can do it.

[ladyaudley]

Thanks Pikachu! bloody hell. And happy atheist, that's some dedication right there :)

[August]

I think she deleted those entries. She frequently goes back to edit entries. How authentic.

I spent a long time on the wayback machine trying to find evidence that she edits posts. The only post that was different was when she posted a pic in NZ without consent then deleted it. The comment asking for deletion is still there.

[heidi]

It's heartbreaking (and ironic) that the girls aren't allowed to be authentic with their grief. Instead they have to put aside their grief and live up to the sparkly life their mother's decided for them.

[Flossie]

This woman is not well, and those children are not safe. I really hope that someone can do something, because I don't think a call from me in America will do much to help them.

[2xx1xy1JD]

Here's the post where B. was lost overnight on the mountain with a man they barely knew

sparklingadventures.com/index.php?id=1474

OMG.

In Australia, Christmas is the beginning of summer. How safe is it to light a fire in a wooded area, when you don't have water? I'm thinking they are lucky that they didn't cause a forest fire.

I can understand the value of keeping calm during a crisis in order to think clearly - but Lauren clearly put a priority on her own serenity and feelings that nothing is ever anybody's fault. I don't see anything about channeling panic into action to find your child, or reviewing what happened in order to use better sense in the future.

Our last experience with losing Brioni and Aisha in the bush in Carnarvon Gorge was an emotional train-wreck. Although we found the girls within several hours and they were unharmed, during our separation from them, David and I spent the whole time arguing about how we would discipline them when they came back to us! Upon reflection, we’ve definitely progressed since then, and during most of the ordeal, I found myself at peace about everything. Instead of creating imaginary scenarios in my mind, I kept telling myself that everything was fine. Perfect love casts out fear, and I believe in a perfect Love ruling the universe.

No. Progress is not feeling calm about losing your kid in the wilderness, AGAIN. Progress would be taking better precautions and making sure that your kids don't get lost due to your negligence.

Throughout the night, we kept reminding ourselves that there was no personal fault in the situation, and it was a good thing that was happening, planned by God since before time began. It’s times like this that our faith in Divine goodness is tested. Do we and can we really believe that losing our 6yo daughter in the bush is a good thing, and can we be thankful while we’re still uncertain of the future? Yes, we do and yes we can!

WTF???

Oh well, if it was all a divine plan before time began, then I guess there's no point taking basic precautions before taking the kids on a long hike. No need to make sure that people have flashlights, or to realize that after the sun sets, it's going to get dark, or to pay attention to where the trial is. This is basic stuff - hiking 101. I can think of plenty of times that we've said, "it's getting late, it will be getting dark soon and we don't want to be caught hiking in the dark."

Can those girls ever process normal feelings, or will they ever be able to articulate the thought, "our parents were careless with our safety and could have done more to protect us"? For all the lip-service to free thought, those kids are being brainwashed. They aren't allowed to see getting lost, when you are small and scared, as a bad thing. If they were scared or in danger, they can't ever think that it was the fault of a parent, or that there was some other choice that an adult could have made which would have involved more thought and planning and care. If a baby dies, and a parent that they had loved and trusted disappears, they can't think that this is a bad thing. Right now, nobody is giving them any alternate view and they are likely seeing things Lauren's way - but I can imagine a breaking point when they get older. Either they will meet someone normal who, quite properly, reacts with horror and makes it clear that responsible parents don't lose kids repeatedly due to bad planning and neglect, and they certainly don't drown children. At that point, the girls will either react by defending the crazy thinking (sort of like the Pearl children defend the plumbing line) or they will face to suddenly confront the fact that what they had considered to be a wonderful childhood and parenting was actually hideous.

[happy atheist]

For me it's not just the fact that Aisha was lost in bush in the dark, it's that she was missing at night with a man her parents had just met. They had absolutely no way of knowing that Luke was not a pedophile, or a murderer. For all they knew, he kidnapped their daughter, or raped her, or killed her, or all of the above. They should never have let Aisha go off alone with a stranger in the first place.

[chaotic life]

Ever read where they lost Del at the Chinese New Year last year? It's horrifying. I just want to scoop that baby up and take her somewhere safe, and Lauren blogged about how she had to let go of her fear and trust her TODDLER to explore as she desired and not get hurt.

She left David in NZ and hiked out with the baby. It was right after comments o her blog were talking about how if she loved David, then she should be strong enough to let him follow his desire to sleep with other women. The NZ truck was broken down at Johnny's house, where Johnny left but several women were staying there. Lauren left while David was asleep and told Aisha she was leaving so David could find righteousness. The women staying at Johnny's promptly told David he was not welcome there and he holed up in a hotel with the girls. Lauren got to the city and her own hotel, apparently decided to not run away per se and suddenly it was all happening because she went to buy them a working car.......right.

[pikachu]

This is the video David made after she took E. and left when they were in NZ

youtube.com/watch?v=47Ou5xuB8bo

His voice...

[ladyaudley]

This is the video David made after she took E. and left when they were in NZ

youtube.com/watch?v=47Ou5xuB8bo

His voice...

How messed up is it that Lauren had her seven year old daughter deliver the message to her father?? Poor Aisha really has the worst of it.

I notice that the girls seem to call her Lauren rather than mum, at least that's what it seems like. Now my sister and I called our mother by her first name frequently because she taught us to. Her reasoning was that she was an individual with an identity other than Mum, too, and she wanted us to know and respect that. She also felt yelling her first name in a shop when we got lost would be much more effective than " muuum!" ^^ but she is and was very loving. I wonder what Lauren's reason for this is, esapcially given how frequently she changes her daughters' names.

[salex]

Literally every time I see the heading "Sparkling adventures in Child Neglect: Now with Rats"

I think of a local (non fundie) case where a local 4 month old lost 7 fingers to the family ferret while his parents were out partying....

http://www.ksla.com/story/22495889/grai ... r-in-court

[chaotic life]

According to Lauren, the girls call them Lauren and David when they are walking in righteousness and mum and dad when they are being brought down by their own immaturity. I believe that means when they feel well, they will follow her rules on names but when they feel sick, sacred or general just feel they need to be parented, they forget and call her mum.