Description:Reviewed by Deirdre Conway Rand, Mann Psychological Services, Mill Valley, California.

Jolanda I have read you blogs a long time You never said anything other than your kids were marked down. I studied in my own time and I think YOU need to be make aware that YOU are destroying your kids lives and made Accountable. Iam nottrying to be unkind but I AM concerned at the DEPT should act you require help dear.

MUNCHAUSEN SYNDROME
Hurting for Love is the first book ever about a complex form of child abuse called Munchausen syndrome by proxy; heretofore discussed primarily in medical journals. The authors use a precise, narrow definition of Munchausen by proxy syndrome as they call it, abbreviated (MBPS). The parents they describe, usually mothers, masquerade as perfect caretakers while secretly it is the parent causing the child's illness. The first of the book's three parts elaborates on commonly accepted features of the syndrome. The mother/perpetrator often has an unusual grasp of medical terminology and may be in a medical or quasi-medical field. Because these mothers blend in well with the medical environment, they generally do not seem unusual to doctors, staff, or neighbors, although sometimes they claim that dramatic and unverified incidents such as fires and burglaries have happened to their families while they were in the hospital. They are likely to be married but to men who are emotionally distant or physically absent much of the time. The husbands are not involved with the children's medical problems and often react with disbelief when presented with clear evidence of what their wives have been doing. Occasionally, a father has been found to collude with the mother in the MBPS abuse or to be the lone MBPS perpetrator.

Co-morbidity in siblings is discussed. It appears that Munchausen by proxy parents may carry out this form of abuse with more than one child, simultaneously or serially.
Reluctant to share his feeling of inadequacy with others who might help him gain perspective, the pediatrician tries harder to work with the mother in discovering what is wrong with her child.

Annoyed parent. In May 2003 I wrote to the District Office and advised them that a letter I received from the Minister for Education had said that I would receive a letter from them in respect to our formal complaints about the neglect of the education of our children and the bullying treatment by some teachers towards our children. We had written to the Department on 15 November 2001. It was 2003 and we still hadn't received a response.

In my letter I advised them that I thought it was unforgivable given what my children have had to go through that not once had anybody from the Department asked my children whether they were coping okay with the situation and whether they needed any help or support.

A few weeks later their response was to target my son. They do this so as to create another situation and move the attention away from the situation at hand and confuse things. This wasn't the first time they targeted my son, my children have been targeted relentlessly. If people believe that I have caused this to my children then I welcome the Department to organise for a psychologist/psychiatrist to talk to them. The DET have never offered them anything, no counseling, no support only consistent bullying, victimization, harassment and manipulation of their test scores and school applications so as to cause them psychological distress and to deny them access to the schools that they not only deserved, that they desperately needed to meet their identified educational needs.

The school kept changing their story. The boy said to have been harrassed did not make the complaint. The school first said that some girl in some other class made a complaint then they said it happened during class. The school and the DET are one, they talk.

Taryn your idea falls short in all places with regard to me. Also my husband and I are very happily married, he is the most supportive and wonderful father and husband and he is as committed as I am to get justice and protection for our children.

Accountability in Government ?
Jolanda,
Personally I can't imagine that possible.

Jolanda,

What do you mean by "target"?

Taryn,
Munchausen by proxy parents most often felt neglected by their own parents, siblings or peers rather than a spouse particularly.

This case sounds more like some kind of obsessive compulsive disorder. OCD sufferers are driven to do things they do because they believe that if they don't something catastrophic will happen.

Chainsmoker - it could be just an extreme case of overprotectiveness coupled with an inability to know when to let go.
I mean, it's only in recent history that the web has made it possible for this kind of thing to become very public.
In which case, I'd imagine that this kind of thing will become more common as more parents are web savvy.
I guess it'll be up to the public to discern where the legitimate grievance began, and where the overprotectiveness/need for vindication blew it out of proportion.