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About Portland observer. (Portland, Or.) 1970-current | View Entire Issue (Oct. 1, 1981)
Portland Observer, October 1,1981 Page 7 Our children: Where will they go? G ra u ro o l Ntw a, N. IF .— “ In the p a it y e a n 10 much emphasis has been placed on women’s rights, the elderly and minority affairs, and a lot o f this concern has been properly placed. But there is a population o f people that we have been neglecting. N ot so much the runaw ays and dro p -o u ts, but the adolescent pop ulatio n as a w h o le .” Lee M adison, a treatm ent coordinator o f H a rry ’s M o th er, a youth treat ment center, describes the forgotten children o f our com m unity whose environm ent w arrants flig h t, and those so-called p roblem students placed in exile because they fail to conform to a set o f standards. These children are m ore than a statistic because each one represents another Dr. Charles Drew, Harriet Tubman or Langston Hughes. Rance Spruill, director o f one o f the most effective support structures th a t’s open to the forgotten child, the A lb in a Y o u th O p p o rtu n ity Schoo, believes that the root o f the problem stems from the tran s fo r mation from child to adult. “ I guess it starts in the 4th or 3th grade. His or her mind moves to d iffe re n t things and they start to lose them in the schools. The school carries on; the kids go one way and the school goes another. Maybe the two meet up som etime by g ra d u a tio n , however, in the m eantim e, the student is lost. They have lost whatever they gained in those first four years.” “ When you enter high school, the system expects you to survive on your own and in many cases these youth aren’ t prepared. They need n u rtu rin g and a tten tio n that the high schools can't give them because they have 1,000 other kids to deal with. So therefore, they find it somewhere else and generally it ’s going to be in unacceptable ways. So you got .hese kids running around two steps below the gang mentality. These groups are running around getting into problems. Sometimes you see more kids out side the school than inside. School just becomes where everybody’ s at.” " I t wasn’ t any d ifferent when I was going to school but we d id n ’t have the alternatives. We w ouldn’t dare have a crap game across the street from school. The kids today are very inform ed but they are not making wise decisions.” “ A m ong the problems is one o f chronic nonattendance. When they aren’ t in school, they are either at home or walking up and down the streets. The kids that were here in *71 generally came to school because there wasn't any options open. I f they were in the streets they ended up getting into trouble. Nowadays there’s a lot o f neighborhood com petition. I call it program hopping. They w ill move fro m whoever is paying the buck. They run around in a circle but they really are at a standstill. It creates a dependency. M an y program s concentrate on volume and cost-effectiveness and the m ental part o f that person is last. This needs to be turned around. ” 1 don’t think any child goes bad. There are some things you d o n ’ t have anybody else that you can hold responsible for, like the judge or the courts, so you hold that child. Is it the k id ’ s resp o n sibility to have something to eat or clothes to wear? And a lot o f kids are put in that s itu a tio n . By the tim e th e y ’ re IS years old they are adults having gone through things that most 23 year olds haven’ t. By the time they’re 20, they have done everything. W hat then is there to look forward U»T They are lost in the shuffle and they don’t see how they fit in so they just survive. They go from whatever and whoever is going to satisfy their immediate needs. “ They don’t develop any skills to plan their life by because they are in the habit o f just existing. You do w hatever you have to do and I ’ m not saying that it's a bad way, but you have to be able to change with the times. Later on, if you have to get up early and you have got in the habit o f sleeping late, it ’ s going to be hard. N ow there are a lot o f 23 year olds who think from hand to mouth like a 13 year old. They just get lost and then they do whatever they have to d o .” Another way to drop out is to run away. “ There are about one million R A N C E S P R U ILL child ren w ho run away each family structure isn’t set as such.” year— 6,000 in the Portland a rea.” Since children have nowhere to Madison begins. “ Between the ages go, they run directly to the streets o f 12 and 18 they break away from and its institutions. The curriculum the parents. Things aren’t black and o f the street o fte n leads them to white. There’s shades o f gray. There are environm ental factors such as conflict with the law . A nd there is no running away from the streets. problem s in school, parents, and The concluding thoughts to peers. And o f course the economic. rem ind us o f these fo rg o tten C h ild re n who come fro m broken children are p rovided by D ista homes are more likely to run away. Caldwell. “ It is the underprivileged “ Kids that run really have no child about whom we are concer place to go. They may go to a peer ned. For it is this child upon whom or another parent whom they feel is the u ltim a te success o f our race the best. But few run to the social depends. We must salvage from the agencies. From what I can see, black wreckage this down and out group children have a tendency not to run and lift it to a higher plane o f because o f the extended fa m ily civilization if we as a group are to structure. This is a natural part o f survive and live on into the future.” the Black fa m ily , and the w hite Ground Beef *1.39 FRESH Dental school seeks child patients “ W A N T E D : M o re Young P a tients.” I f the School o f D entistry’ s chil dren’s clinic could post a classified ad, so it would read. According to the American Soci ety o f Dentistry for Children, more than half the youngsters in the U n i ted States have never been to a den tist. F ifty per cent o f all two-year olds have one or m ote decayed teeth. These statistics are confirmed by Dr. Arthur Retzlaff, chairman of the department o f pediatric dentis try at the School o f Dentistry. Why the neglect? “ Two basic rea sons,” said D r. R e tz la ff. " F r e q u en tly, parents* own anxieties about visiting a dentist keep them from scheduling checkups for their youngsters. Then, there is (he popu lar notion that baby teeth fall out anyw ay, so why not postpone ap pointm ents u n til the permanent teeth come in? Both reasons con spire to keep children out o f dental chairs.” According to D r. R e tz la ff,.p re vention o f tooth decay should be on every parent’s mind from the mile stone moment when the child’s first tooth emerges. He cites "nursing bottle m outh” as a common dental malady among infants. “ Unsuspecting parents who allow their babies a bottle, especial ly one filled with juice or Kool-Aid, are creating a great bacterial me dium for tooth decay.” D r. R e tz la ff recommends that dental visits begin at three years o f age, or sooner if suspected problems exist. He suggests that parents con sider the School o f Dentistry when making that first appointment. “ Here at the clinic, we emphasize the virtues o f prevention as well as on m aking visits to (he dentist a pleasant routine experience for the child . The c o m b in atio n o f early checkups, a proper d ie t, flu o rid e supplement, and good oral hygiene at home can mean the difference be tween a mouth full o f troubles and a happy smile,’ ’ he said. At the School o f Dentistry’s chil d re n ’ s c lin ic , 160 undergraduate dental students and eight pediatric dental residents see approximately 700 children each month. “ Yet, we are always in need o f more young patients,” D r. R etzlaff said. “ A p pointm ents w ith many children give the dental students a broad base o f experience.” C are at the c h ild ren 's clin ic is hightly supervised and makes use o f the latest equipment and advanced techniques. “ Undergraduate dental students treat the less complicated dental p ro b lem s,” D r. R e tz la ff said. "Residents do the specialized w ork.” C hildren as young as 13 months have been treated at the clinic. "O u r cut-off age is around 12 years,” Dr. R e tz la ff added, “ and we are equipped to treat both mentally and physically handicapped young sters." The clinic charges for treatment at about half the rate o f private fees. “ There arc no special re q u ire ments to visit the c ln ic ,” Dr. Retz la ff emphasized. “ I f a child needs dental care, we are available.” For more information on the ser vices provided by the clinic and the hours they are open to treat c h il dren, the parents o f prospective pa tients can call either 223-8880 or 225-8871. Flori Roberts SE 20th b DIVISION SE 72nd b FLAVEL ME 15th f t FREMONT 1 BURNSIDE at 21st I RAFAEL - H10 NE 122nd Forest Grove - 2329 PACIFIC Oregon City -8 7 8 MOLALLA C a n d y -1051 SW 1st LLOYD CENTER TIR A S ElW 'EiL'L O ut of the past com es a legacy o f c o m p e llin g , d ra m a tic beauty made new by Flori R oberts: C leopatra C olors fo r eyes, lip s and fin g e rtip s . 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