ERIC Number: ED266876
Record Type: RIE
Publication Date: 1986-Mar
Pages: 10
Abstractor: N/A
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: N/A
EISSN: N/A
A Troubled Society: Children in Crisis.
Fontana, Vincent J.
America's children and their families are in trouble, trouble so deep as to constitute a serious threat to the future of our society. The major source of that threat is bureaucratic "benign neglect." We have failed to recognize that the problems of the multitroubled family in a changing society are the problems of the entire society in the midst of moral and economic crisis and cannot be solved except in that context. Unless government and the people join child and family advocates the well being of American families will continue to decline and the forces that produce alienation of our youth will increase. Within the larger issue of families in trouble, we have the ravages of child abuse, wife battering, alienated, troublesome, and troubled adolescents, epidemic divorce rates, teenage pregnancies, drug and alcohol abuse--all of which are adding to the difficulties of a multitroubled fragmented family. These outward expressions of violence and unrest are truly symptomatic of the much larger and deeper problem of family dysfunction. Many government-supported programs are necessary, but let us not forget that the prevention of child abuse and neglect ultimately depends on the restoration of a sense of family and a healthy community life. (RH)
Publication Type: Opinion Papers; Speeches/Meeting Papers
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A
Note: Paper presented at the New York Public Library's "Steller Month: Distinguished Speakers Series" (New York, NY, March 1986).