Every Child in Scotland to Be Supervised by State-Appointed Busybody

Imagine
the very worst home a child could grow up in: No food in the
fridge, parents strung out on drugs, the children covered with
scabs and beaten regularly. You would want someone to step in and
save the kids.

And then there’s Scotland.

Scotland wants to treat all families as potentially abusive and
appoint a “named person” (that is, a guardian) as soon as the child
is born and up through age 18 to oversee the parenting. This
“shadow parent” would be empowered by the government under the
Children and Young People (Scotland) Act, which will take effect in
2016.

As Josie Appleton, founder of the U.K.’s Manifesto Club, writes
in SpikedOnline:

It is based on the idea that a person who has
been named by the state, touched on the shoulder, has
a superior authority and insight to others. Those who have been
‘named’ are seen as better qualified to ‘safeguard’ the wellbeing
of a whole nation’s children. Therefore, concern for children’s
wellbeing becomes a state-appointed position.

…This is a new kind of parenting-by-surveillance.

The day-to-day role of a named person is to follow ‘reports’
about a child, to keep an eye on their files. They will have rights
to see private medical reports, and to request information about
that child from other agencies (there is a legal ‘duty to help
named person’)…. The other aspect of a named person’s role is to
propose ‘interventions’. They will have a role in drawing up a
‘child’s plan’ if a child is found to have a ‘wellbeing need’: this
plan will outline the ‘targeted intervention which requires to be
provided… in relation to the child’.

Therefore, in substance, the role of the named person is not
actually to supplant the family, to state-raise children, but
rather to insert a surveying, coercive authority – a spy – in the
midst of every family.

This idea grows out of the conviction that Free-Range Kids
(my book, blog, and
movement), exists to extinguish: That all children are in danger at
all times, and hence need constant oversight. Sometimes it’s the
police arresting
a dad for letting his kids play outside, sometimes it’s
the police
arresting a mom for letting her children walk to the pizza
shop, and sometimes it’s even the local library reporting a mom
who let her kids, 12 and 15, walk
home without coats on a night the authorities deemed too
cold.

True danger lies in the notion that the state should decide if
you are parenting your kids correctly. The care of your own
children is not up to you.

For more stories like this one, check out Lenore
Skenazy’s Free-Range
Kids blog.