The Law for Homeschoolers: What CPS Won’t Tell You – Bradley Pierce of Heritage Defense - Schoolhouse Rocked: The Homeschool Revolution

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Over 90% of reports to CPS, CPS themselves ultimately deems as
unfounded. That means even CPS thinks, Oh
yeah, there's no actual abuse orneglect going on here.
That just gives you an indication that there's major
over reporting because we've effectively put a legal gun that
people said said you must report.
Hey everyone, this is Yvette Hampton.

(00:21):
Welcome back to the Schoolhouse Rock podcast.
I am excited to be back with youguys this week.
I have had so much fun listeningto our other hosts and it's
still weird for me when I turn on the Schoolhouse Rock podcast
and I hear someone else's voice,I'm like, wait, what?
What am I listening to right now?
But man, I have been so encouraged by them and I know
that you have been too because we are hearing from you guys and

(00:42):
you are loving it. We got an e-mail the other day
from a listener and she was like, at first I wasn't sure it
was a little bit different because it wasn't your voice.
But she said the content has stayed the same and she's so
encouraged by it. And so we're excited to hear
that from you. We've heard it from several of
you and we know that you are continuing to be blessed by the
Schoolhouse Rock podcast and we are so grateful for our team of
hosts that are part of this. But I am excited to be back with

(01:05):
you this week and I have a wonderful guest on.
I'm so excited to be on with Bradley Pierce this week.
He is from Heritage Defense and you guys are going to be so
encouraged. He's got lots to talk about.
We're going to talk about some like homeschool legal stuff this
week and next week and stuff that I don't think that we've
ever talked about on the podcast.

(01:25):
And so this is going to be a really fun conversation.
But before we get started, I first want to say thank you to
our sponsor, BJU Press Homeschool.
We love BJU Press Homeschool. You guys know it.
We've used them for many years. They are part of our homeschool
curriculum and they are dedicated to providing
homeschool families with academically strong curriculum
that is rooted in a strong biblical worldview.

(01:47):
And they offer complete curriculum from preschool
through 12th grade. They've got traditional
textbooks and video courses. So whatever works best for you
and your family, they've got something for you.
Check them out at bjupresshomeschool.com and they
will really help you on your homeschool journey.
bjupresshomeschool.com. Well, Bradley, I am so excited

(02:08):
to have you back with me. I know that you are often times
a speaker at different homeschool conventions and
conferences and homeschool things.
And Speaking of that really quickly, I forgot to mention
this, our family, Garrett and Lacey and I are going to be at
the Teach Them Diligently conference in Branson, MO, May
15th through 17th. So it's just a few weeks from
now. I know you guys, maybe you're

(02:29):
still on the fence as to whetheror not you're going to attend,
but we would love to meet you there.
So if you are going to be anywhere near Branson in May,
come and see us at Teach Them Diligently.
You can go to teachthemdiligently.net and you
can get 25% off of the family Pass, which is it's $100.
You could get 25% off of that with the code Sr. for

(02:49):
Schoolhouse Rocked. And you can use that code
actually for any of their conferences.
But we will be in Branson. You can find us at Ginger
Hubbard's booth. We are super excited to be
there. We're just going to be there
hanging out. You guys.
We're we're not, I'm not speaking.
Garrett's not speaking. We are just going there to hang
out with you and with Ginger. So if you're going to be there,
let us know and come and meet us.
Anyway, back to Bradley, I am excited to have you with us.

(03:12):
Bradley, for those who are not familiar with you or with
Heritage Defense, talk a little bit about who you are and what
Heritage Defense does. Yeah, well, thanks first of all
very much for having me on. It's great to be with you.
A little bit about me personally.
So first of all, I am a homeschool graduate myself.
I graduated in the year 2000. So I called my I'm like a senior

(03:34):
millennial homeschooler. And my wife is also a homeschool
graduate and we homeschool now we're expecting #12 so so I, I
say we're homeschooling all 12 because I like to say the
homeschooling begins at conception.
And so, so we're homeschooling all of our children second
generation. And we're very grateful for

(03:55):
that. And I'm a Christian, that's most
important thing about me is by the grace of God.
And so, yeah, that's about what about me person.
So I at Heritage Defense on the vice president and general
counsel here at Heritage Defense, we've been around since
2010 when we first launched this.
I've been practicing law since 2007.

(04:15):
And along with Don Hart, the president here, we launched
Heritage Defense 2010 and we just tried to, you know, defend
parental rights of Christian homeschooling families.
You know, other organizations out there like HSLDA that do a
great job of defending your right to home school.
But a lot of times parental rights come under attack in
other ways, right? Social workers knocking, not

(04:36):
knocking at your door, not because you're a homeschooler
per SE, but because of some other kind of false allegation
or overblown allegation. You know, someone you know has
some kind of suspicion, false, false or overblown that you
getting to get reported. Child Protective Services social
worker at your door. We're there for you, right?

(04:58):
You join here to defense before something arises and then you
have somebody to call 24/7 that can that can help you.
So that's what we do here. Yeah, love it.
I wish that it wasn't needed today.
You know, we'd like to think that we're free in every way.
But as we have seen over the last many, many years, there are
people and organizations and parts of our government that are

(05:19):
trying to take control over the things that we can and cannot do
with our children. And so I, I, you, you talked
about how there are social workers who might just show up
at your door. And, and I like to think, you
know, we live in Oklahoma, We live in a very Free State.
It's free to homeschool here. We don't report to anybody.
And so people take advantage of things like that.
And there are states that are not nearly as free as ours.

(05:40):
But whether you live in Oklahomaor New York, it doesn't really
matter. We still need to protect those
freedoms, but we also need to beprepared and ready.
So talk about like, let's start there where you know, a, a
social worker shows up at your door.
And I would love to think that this is never going to happen,
but it could, it's not likely, but it could happen.

(06:01):
What are some things that we cando to prepare ourselves and our
families as homeschoolers? And, and really quickly, I want
to back up because you said yourhomeschool grad, you, I don't
know what it was like when you were growing up, but when you
were a kid, I'm assuming it was a little bit more secretive
homeschooling. You didn't probably go out to
the grocery store in the middle of the day like I do with my

(06:22):
kids now. People would question you,
question your mom, you know, whyare you not in school?
So maybe back up a little bit, talk about what it used to be,
talk about what it is today, andthen why we need to protect
those freedoms and how we can prepare ourselves.
Well, it was illegal for the first few years.
So. So that made it to where, Yeah,
you weren't really advertising it very broadly, you know, keep

(06:43):
the window shades closed and things like that until school
lets out. You know, actually the first
time I ever went to court was when I was, I believe, I think I
was 10 years, 9 or 10 years old.My mom woke my brother and I up
and our neighbor who also homeschooled and her son, and we

(07:05):
drove to the Texas Supreme Courtin the middle of the night to
get there. You know, it was like 4 or five
hours away. Drove there to go to the Texas
Leaper case that was being argued there, which was a case
to determine whether or not homeschooling would be legal or
not. And thankfully.
So that was great to go and listen to that case as a child.

(07:26):
And and now, you know, the courtultimately did decide that, yes,
homeschooling is legal in Texas.But yeah, it was very different
world, you know, back then and even after it was legal, people
still, you know, looked at you sideways.
And it's very odd, you know, that, you know, children being
out and about with their parents, you know, during school

(07:47):
hours was still kind of a curiosity at the very least to a
lot of people. So.
So it's a very different world we live in now, you know, on the
subject of parental rights, kindof beyond homeschooling, you
know, what's interesting is thatit's it's you, you think, well,
I live in Texas or you live in Oklahoma or other folks live in

(08:07):
these red states, conservative states.
And like, well, I don't have to worry about that here.
Just like we have, you know, we sometimes go to Florida for
different homeschool conferencesand, and people, they're like,
well, I don't need, I don't, I don't need, you know, parental
rights defense. I have DeSantis as my governor
and, you know, or people are like, oh, well, Trump is now the
president. So we don't have to worry about
that. And, and what's interesting is

(08:29):
that the states that are actually the most aggressive on
CPS issues are, are often times the most conservative States and
the states that are the most, the least aggressive or
sometimes the most liberal states.
And so it's very, I think, I mean, obviously the more
conservative states are going tobe more law and order.

(08:50):
We hate child abuse and that's great, but that ends up a lot of
times meaning that way too much discretion and authority is
given to CPS and they end up, you know, getting involved in
people's lives that they really shouldn't.
And it's, it's why across the country, studies show that 37%
of children will be part of CPS investigation by the time they

(09:13):
turn 18. That's, that's the data in
America as a whole. So more than one out of three
children, you know, will be partof CPS investigation.
A lot of people, you know, you think that number may be high.
But the issue is the reason you don't hear about a lot of those.
And I think most people do hear about some of those things.

(09:33):
But, you know, people aren't advertising that.
They're not like, hey, guess what?
I got accused of going on socialmedia, like, hey, I'm being
investigated for child abuse. So people aren't really open and
advertising it. But it's it's happening across
the country. And the other odd thing about
that is, you know, when someone gets arrested for something, you
think, yeah, they probably did it.
Yes, there's a presumption of innocence till they're proven

(09:55):
guilty as far as legally. But we all think like, yeah,
they probably did it with CPS allegations.
It's actually the opposite. By their own data, over 90% of
reports are unfounded. Over 83% of investigations are
unfounded. So you have a lot of innocent
families that end up with socialworkers knocking at their door

(10:15):
that haven't done anything wrong.
So that's that's why it's a big issue.
Yeah, I, we, we have a friend who she delivered her baby at
home. She's a homeschool mom.
She delivered her third child athome and had a family member
call CPS on her because she didn't like that she had
delivered her baby at home, you know, without having, you know,
a doctor there and that she was homeschooling her kids and

(10:37):
taking control of her family. So right.
And so one day, I mean, she's had ACPS worker show and it was
completely unfounded. Of course, you know, they, I
mean, the CPS worker came in andwas like, you're, you're fine.
I mean, there's absolutely nothing to be concerned of here.
But but it was so shocking to that family and and really
traumatic for them because it just makes you somewhat fearful,

(10:59):
you know, So if say, perhaps youhave ACPS worker, you might have
a family member, you know, unfortunately, who would do
something like that. Or maybe you have a nosy
neighbor who just doesn't like that you homeschool or they
don't like the way that you're living your life.
They don't like that your kids are playing out in the backyard
at noon instead of sitting at the table doing their school
work. If you have something like that

(11:19):
happen, how do we prepare ourselves as parents for that
knock on the door? Yeah, well, I mean, obviously
we, we would say, you know, joinHeritage defense, you know, so
you can have an attorney, but ifyou're not a member of heritage
defense, you know, just get get an attorney that you know, that
you can call quickly because, you know, there's a different
responses if if ACPS social worker comes to your door,

(11:41):
right, you could just say ignoreit.
You know, like, you look, look on your, you know, your doorbell
camera and like, oh, oh, you know, I'm not going to answer
the door. You could do that.
That's an option. Or you could open the door, find
out who they are and then say, no, get off my lawn kind of
thing. The problem with both of those

(12:03):
is that, yeah, they could go around now and start talking to
your neighbors and asking them questions about you.
And now all your neighbors know that you're being, you know,
investigated for child abuse. That's not anything that anybody
really would want. They could also go get a court
order to come into your home. And so you may have temporary

(12:26):
reprieve there, but they may come back in a few hours with
law enforcement with a court order.
And now you have to let them in and you have to let them
interview your children alone and maybe even many other things
that the court order says that now you have to do or you're
getting arrested and they're going to do it anyway.
And so, you know, typically it'snot not the best practice to

(12:47):
just say no or to ignore them. It's best to go ahead and open
the door and find out who they who they are and what they want.
But that's when, you know, once they kind of say, well, here's
what the allegations are, or maybe they're not willing to
tell you what the allegations are, even though they're legally
required to. Many times they don't want to
tell you. That's where that's when you
need an attorney because you could start talking, could start

(13:09):
trying to defend yourself. But just like in a criminal
situation, anything you say can and will be used against you.
And even if you just say no, youcan't come in my home, well now
you're the one who's being the bad guy.
You're being uncooperative, as looks like.
You're having an attorney. Exactly.
And so having an attorney, you know, just gives you that
advocate who can run interference for you.

(13:32):
You can be you can be cooperative, but the attorney
can be the one to say, you know,no, we're not going to do that
or let's let's reschedule or that sort of thing.
And then the attorney can be there with you every step of the
way, you know, advocating for you.
Yeah. So have you gotten some of those
phone calls yourself? What does that look like?
You have a parent who might callyou up and say, hey, I've got

(13:53):
CPS standing at my door. Oh yeah.
What do you do as the attorney? Hundreds, lots of those phone
calls. I mean, that's what we, that's
what we do. We have people call all the
time. I have CPS at my door, like
that's what we're here for. So, you know, it depends on the
case. As far as what we do, there's
not a exact playbook. It just, you know, what we'll do

(14:18):
is the we'll, we'll tell our members, you know, if CPS does
come to your door, just say excuse me one moment while I get
my attorney on the phone, step back inside and then call US
24/7. So you'll call, get connected
with one of our attorneys and then we then we kind of you'll
say CPS is at my door and we'll ask, you know, OK, well, what's

(14:38):
do you know why they're there orwhat's going on?
And then from there we'll figureout, you know, do we just go
ahead and all right, put it on speakerphone and let me talk to
them. Or, you know, if it's more low
key, maybe just say, hey, my attorney says for me to just get
your business card and he'll reach out to you, something like
that. So it just kind of depends on

(14:59):
what the case is. But then we, you know, we're,
we're involved, you know, again,not just there at the door, but
all the way to the resolution ofthe case.
If we need to go to court, if weneed to hire, you know, I'm in
Texas, but we have attorneys allaround the country that we work
with. So what if you're not in Texas?
We, you know, are organizations all across the US.

(15:19):
So we then hire an attorney in your area.
We cover that. And that's, you know, part of
your membership that's in that attorneys that are with you
every step of the way. Have you tried CTC Math yet with
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(15:41):
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That's ctcmath.com. We are back with Bradley.

(16:04):
Let's talk about laws because you mentioned that a little bit.
You know, and I mean, I'm not anattorney, so I have no idea
really what the laws are. If somebody came to my door, you
know, I, I would answer it because I wouldn't want it to
look like I was hiding anything.But at the same time, like, I
don't really know what my rightsare.
And I know that these are different state to state.
You know, some states, again, are really super free in this

(16:25):
regard, some are not. So how do we know what our laws
are and what our rights are as parents from state to state?
And is there a kind of a generallike, here's what's legal
everywhere, here's what's illegal everywhere?
And then some of the details aredifferent depending on the
state. Yeah, Well, obviously it depends
on the issue. I'm going to give you, let me

(16:48):
give you the shortcut and then we can kind of talk about some
of these as we go here. The the shortcut for everybody.
And you don't even have to be a member of Heritage Defense for
this, but you can just go to ourwebsite.
We have something called our Lawand Policy Vault where we have
done the legal research for all 50 states on dozens of issues
facing parental rights or that relate to parental rights relate

(17:10):
to parents like vaccine laws or newborn laws.
Like, you know, when you go to the hospital and you have a
newborn, you know, all kind of laws there about different kind
of things that, you know, vaccinations and eye ointments
and all kind of things that go along tests and genetic testing
and this and that they go along there, You know, or laws about

(17:31):
car seats or can I leave my child home alone or when can my
child when I can't leave them inthe car while I run in the store
and all kind of other issues, you know, when my child make
medical decisions on their own, even though they're a minor and
a lot more. I'm just listing, you know, kind
of hitting highlights here, but people can go find that on our
website. You don't have to be a member of

(17:51):
Heritage Defense. It's totally free.
You just go, you know, give us your e-mail address and create a
login and then you'll get accessto all of that totally free.
So that's our law policy vault at our website,
heritagedefense.org. And so, you know, we can kind of
talk about the highlights and kind of what what things look
like generally around the country on some of those.

(18:12):
But if people really want the details for their state, we have
for each state, we have the grade that your state gets.
So like New York State get an A or an F or AD or kind of
compared to other states. And then, and then what's the
what's the summary of the law onthat state?
We even have citations for that law.
If you want to go actually go look at that law for yourself,

(18:33):
then you can go grab that and gogo enjoy legal research with
people like me. Enjoy.
But but yeah, you can do all that for yourself.
OK, so yeah, let's let's talk about kind of an overview of of
what it looks like across the nation.
Yeah. So you know, the there's lots of

(18:53):
different laws that impact personal rights.
I normally kind of run through eight that that people just most
people kind of think about or should be thinking about.
One of them is laws about vaccines.
You know, I think every parent should make an educated decision
about whether they're going to vaccinate, what vaccines, if
they are, what vaccine schedule,what vaccines, all of that

(19:14):
really, you know, think that through.
And our, our position as an organization, we're not, you
know, pro or anti what we, what we are is pro parental rights.
That's your decision to make foryour children.
It's not the government's decision to make, you know,
what, what vaccines your child gets.
So we're here for your, you and your parental rights, whatever
decision you make on that front.And so you can go to that, that

(19:37):
website law and policy fall on our website and, and see what's
the vaccine laws in your state? Because every state has some
kind of vaccine mandate and thensome kind of exemption to that
mandate. What a lot of people don't
realize though, is that in lots of states, the mandate doesn't
even apply to homeschoolers in the 1st place.
So you don't even have to worry about while do I need to claim a

(19:59):
religious exemption or medical exemption or philosophical
exemption because it doesn't even apply to you.
But there are a lot of states where it does apply to
homeschoolers. So you just need to go see, you
know, kind of what's the law in my state?
Does it apply to homeschoolers? And then if it does, all right,
what exemptions are available? So that's, that's a big one that
you know that every parent should, you know, look into that

(20:21):
issue. Yeah.
OK. Can I, can I pause you there
really quickly? When it comes to vaccinations
for kids, people often say, you know, just do the research,
which absolutely, I mean, we, we're, our family really
believes in. Do your research when it comes
to vaccine, vaccinating your kids.
Is there, do you have a place onyour website that shows some of

(20:41):
the of the research regarding vaccines or do you have a place
that people can go for that thatwe can link to?
Not as far as the actual vaccine, you know, all the kind
of medical information that's not really, we're not doctors or
and we're that kind of researchers.
And I mean, I'm a parent, so I do my own research.
But as far as being able to advise other parents on that,

(21:03):
I'm not really, yeah, that's notreally what we do.
And so, you know, I encourage parents to kind of do their own
research on that. But as far as finding out what
the laws are, that's that's whatyou can definitely do on our
website. If we can find some good
research on that, we'll pop thatinto the show notes so that you
guys can can make an educated decision for your kids.

(21:24):
But OK, so we're looking at vaccines and we can look at what
our our laws are for that. And we'll put a link to the to
your website, itsheritagedefense.com.
Is that the website? Heritagedefense.org.org.
Ok.org and then we'll put a linkto that so people can find out
what what other things should weknow?
I. Mean another one that comes up

(21:45):
is the subject of mandatory reporters.
So a lot of people, you know, a lot of people are again,
somewhat familiar with this, that there are mandatory
reporters in every state that they have to report any
suspicion of child abuse, neglect to, you know, Child
Protective Services. And but that differs by state.
They're actually, I think I believe in 19 states where

(22:09):
everyone is a mandatory reporter, not just doctors and
you know, teachers and the people you would expect, but
every single person in the stateis a mandatory reporter.
But then there's, you know, it'sin other states, it's kind of
who you would expect doctors, nurses, teachers, law
enforcement, psychologists, therapists, that that kind of

(22:29):
fool who are mandatory reporters.
And you know, at at first, when you first hear that you're like,
oh, well, of course everyone should, everyone should be
reporting child abuse. What's what's the problem with
that? The problem is that when you
when you make it a legal mandate, you end up getting
major over reporting. You know if someone can lose

(22:52):
their license to practice. It's only if it's a crime, if
you don't report, if you can be fired, if you can be legally
liable for the injuries to that child even if you had nothing to
do with causing them, simply fornot reporting.
What that's going to result in and what it does result in is
major over reporting. Just like I talked about

(23:12):
earlier, over 90% of reports to CPS, CPS themselves ultimately
deems as unfounded. That means even CPS thinks, Oh
yeah, there's no actual abuse orneglect going on here.
So that's that just gives you anindication that there's major
over reporting because we've effectively put a legal gun to

(23:32):
people said said you must report.
And so that's what happens is you end up like in the medical,
the medical, you know, the top two sources of reports is the
school personnel and law enforcement.
You know, most homeschoolers arenot having too many interactions
with those. So number one for homeschoolers
is the medical community, doctors, hospitals, nurses and

(23:55):
you know, and, and then even beyond that, kind of the mental
health psychologist, therapist, that's the number one source of
reports. I would say number one source is
unfounded reports. And so a lot of people need to
know kind of what that is. And you can also see that on our
website, who's who's, who's mandatory reporter and who's not

(24:16):
because it's, it's a big problem.
Yeah, yeah, I can see that that would be an A huge problem.
And partly people, I mean, people might think that, again,
going back to, you know, you might have a neighbor who thinks
that it's terrible and illegal even for you to homeschool your
kids. And so they're going to call CPS
on you and say, hey, these people are, you know, terrible

(24:36):
parents. They're not putting their kids
in school. All the while their kids are
learning everything they need tolearn plus more, you know, being
discipled by their parents at home.
But that neighbor or family member might not agree with
that. And so if they're a mandatory
reporter, then that would be theperson who would jump on board
there and say, Oh yeah, I've gotsomething to report.
They would even feel legally required to report, you know, so

(24:59):
they've kind of really illustrated this for folks like
the the problem with this, you know, because obviously everyone
should report, you know, children being harmed.
Actually, Yeah, that's, that's like all law enforcement, That's
their jurisdiction. They should get involved and and
stop that. But what ends up happening is
like in a hospital context, a lot of hospitals end up putting

(25:22):
in, you know, they have lawyers that are there to protect the
hospital. And the lawyers tell them, hey,
let's put in policies that we'regoing to end up erring on the
side of over reporting, but it'sgoing to protect you legally.
So we've seen hospital policies that say if a child has more
than one recent injury, it's an automatic report.
Even if there's zero suspicion of abuse or neglect, if a child

(25:44):
has a certain kind of, you know,if they break a bone, it's a
certain kind of brake spiral fracture or oblique fracture,
automatic report CPS. Or if a child under 2 has a
suspected head injury, then it'san automatic report, CPS.
And this is, this is what I'm describing is a policy at most
hospitals and, and even urgent carriers as well.

(26:06):
So what for example, we have onecase where moms at the park park
with their children carrying around I believe 5 month old
baby and she slipped on some gravel and fell and she cradled
him to try to protect him as shefell.
And she thinks that she did, butshe wasn't sure.
So she decided to go to the ER, get him checked out, make sure

(26:26):
he was OK went there, they checked him out, said yeah, no
head injury, he's fine. You know, you did right?
You, you, you protected them. Good job.
By the way, we're we are reporting you to CPS and the
mom's like, why did you, do you think I, you know, abuse or
neglect my child? They're like, no, no, no, no,

(26:46):
no. We think you're a great mom.
I mean, you brought your child in you, you're wonderful.
Good job. But we have a policy that if a
child under 2 has a suspected head injury, then we report it.
And the mom's like, well, but it's but there's not a head
injury. Right.
Yeah. Yeah, but there was a suspected.
That there could. Be so they're suspected that

(27:08):
we've ruled it out, but we suspected that there was so we
had to report under our policy. So that's the sort of things
that you see and and you know, that leads a major over
reporting and leads to people having to deal with CPS, you
know, whenever CPS should be focusing on cases that are much
more serious. Yeah.
It's so scary, you know, going, going even to the doctor.
I mean, we've had several instances.

(27:29):
We had one with my youngest daughter when she was three.
I took her in just for her regular well, baby visit check.
And they, I remember this was atKaiser in California.
And they handed me a list of it was a questionnaire.
And, you know, usually they'll ask questions, you know, are
they getting enough play time outside?
Are they eating enough fruits and vegetables?
Are they getting enough sleep? All those questions.

(27:50):
And so, you know, I'm checking off the list.
And then it came down to some questions that I was like, whoa,
wait, hold the brakes here. Because one of the questions
was, do you ever yell at you? It said, do you or anyone in
your household ever yell at yourchildren?
Well, I'm by nature, I'm not a yeller.
I, I typically don't ever yell at my kids.
I, I just, that's not, you know,my personality.

(28:13):
But there had been times where, you know, my, I mean, literally
1 where my daughter almost got hit by a car because she jetted
out in the street on her bike. And so I yelled at her, you
know, I screamed at the top of my lungs.
And there have been other times where I've had to yell at them
for things that could harm them,but not in a way that was
abusive at all. It was a like, I'm going to save
your life right now. So I have to yell so that you

(28:35):
can hear me. And I just as I was reading
through that list and some otherquestions that were on there, I
was like, they are either going to make me a liar or they're
going to make me a criminal. There's no other in between.
There was no place for explanation.
OK, well, if you yell at your kids, why?
Well, because she almost got hitby a car and because she almost
drank the the bottle of Windex because it looked like kool-aid,

(28:56):
you know, I mean, like, there are things that are really
important reasons to yell at your children in the in the
time. And so anyway, but I just
remember I folded up the piece of paper because I thought, I'm
not giving this to them because I don't want to be a liar or a
criminal. So I'm just not even going to
answer these questions. And we went back for a visit
with the doctor. You know, the nurse took us back
and she said, oh, do you have the questionnaire?

(29:17):
And I said, oh, yeah, they gave it to me.
I said, it's in my purse. And she said, can I have it?
And I said, oh, no, thank you. I'm opting out of that today.
And the look on her face, I mean, she said, well, you know,
I have to make a note of that inyour file.
And I said, OK, well, that's fine.
But I think often times parents don't even know that they can
opt out of things or that they should opt out of things.
They're just asked questions andthey just answer the questions

(29:38):
that are asked to them. And again, often times it it
makes you a criminal without anycriminal activity.
And that's a really scary place for a parent to be.
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(30:01):
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(30:22):
So I I'd love to talk about as you have spent many, many years
dealing with CPS cases and different families, CPS workers,
what are some of the things thatyou've learned?
Just maybe you can give us a fewtips from the cases that you've
dealt with on how we can can navigate through this as
parents. Yeah, well, there's the I I kind

(30:43):
of like 2 sets of tips. Yeah, one is the like how not to
have a CPS case in the 1st place.
Not that there's any guarantees you can be a perfect parent if
such a thing exists and still have CPS cases.
I mean, that's why that's why weexist, because we don't
represent actual child abuse, right?
We exit represent innocent parents who've been falsely

(31:04):
accused or overblown accusations.
And, you know, we're plenty busywith that, but there's, you
know, there's definitely things that parents can do to lower the
likelihood that they're going tohave a case.
So that's kind of one set of tips I give people into another
set is, you know, all right, if you do have a case, you know,
what are some things that that you know how to handle that?

(31:25):
And of course, that's what we'rehere for heritage fences to, you
know, be be attorneys for people, walk them through that
and help them with that. So on the first set, you know,
one thing that I again, there's a lot of very specific tips I
can give. But yeah, so some things are,
you know, but the medical community is a frequent source

(31:45):
of, you know, disagreements, yeah, between parents and, and
medical community. And you can go to one hospital
and get one answer and go to another and get a different
answer. And, and it's hard to know
always, you know, most of the time it's, it's pretty clear
what, how your child should be, you know, the medical treatment
they should get. But it's not always right.
It's not always perfectly cut and dry.

(32:07):
He had to make decisions. And sometimes you have
disagreements with doctors or hospitals and how do you
navigate those? So that's something that that we
have families that call us regularly, you know, like, hey,
I'm at the hospital having a potential disagreement here
about treatment. How should I navigate this?
So even if it's not ACPS case, yeah, we can help still help

(32:28):
people navigate through that whoare members of Heritage Defense.
But one thing though, that we dotell people is that does come up
is, is people leaving the hospital AMA, that means against
medical advice. So if you leave the hospital
without being formally discharged, then you know what

(32:49):
they're like. No, no, no, we don't think you
should leave. I mean, we can't like, you know,
imprison you or tie you down, although in some cases they can
perform what's called medical detention of minors.
And there's actually laws in some states that allow them to
basically arrest children that we have that in our law and
policy vault. People go see what the law is on

(33:10):
your state on that. But aside from that, you know,
they say, hey, we're just not approving of you leaving, so you
leave AMA. And so that's something that if
you do that, if you leave a hospital AMA, the odds are very
good that you will have ACPS worker that, that comes to your
home, you know, within the next 24 hours.

(33:33):
If not, they're waiting at your house when you get there.
And so we do recommend folks be careful about leaving a hospital
AMA and, and, and don't do it unless there's actually
something harmful that the hospital's, you know, insisting
on doing to your child right then that you that you need to
remove them and go to another hospital to avoid that.

(33:55):
Obviously protect your child that that you know, that comes
first. But but if you do have to leave
a hospital AMA, it gets medical advice.
Our recommendation is go straight to another hospital,
right? Because if you go home and then
go to another hospital the next day or a few hours later, but in
the meantime CPS shows up, then it kind of undermines your

(34:16):
claims that you were going to gosomewhere else.
So it's best to go straight to another hospital, go get that
second opinion right away instead of going home.
So that's, that's one too, because we see a number of cases
that that do arise from that. So that's definitely something
that people can do to to hopefully help avoid those.

(34:36):
You know, another thing, again, a lot of some of this is just
medical because that's the number one source of reports
for, for, you know, people that aren't, aren't, you know, having
frequent interactions with school personnel or, or the, you
know, police is have a good relationship.
You know, if I have a good relationship with a
paediatrician, I think sometimespeople can get, you know, just

(35:00):
feel like, wow, you know, when Igo to the paediatrician, I just
feel like, you know, they don't like me.
I opt out of vaccines and, and so I'm just not going to take my
child to the paediatrician ever.I'm just not going to have a
pediatrician for my child. We're just going to do urgent
care or go to the hospital if wehave issues.
Are, you know, and I, I certainly understand where

(35:22):
that's coming from. Our recommendation is that folks
do have a good relationship witha pediatrician, even if it means
you have to drive an hour or twoto find somebody who is
respectful of your parental rights.
You don't have to find somebody who agrees with you 100%, but
they do need to, to, to agree that you are the parent, you are
the primary decision maker for your child and they defer to

(35:44):
you. They're there to provide advice.
And as long as you're not recklessly endangering your
child or purposely harming them,then hey, that's, it's your,
your call to decide you know what, what treatment your child
gets and what they need. So, you know, find somebody like
that who's respectful of parental rights and and have a
relationship with them because that can go a long ways.

(36:05):
If you ever do have a situation with the hospital, have a
disagreement, having a paediatrician that you have a
history with will be very helpful to help you advocate for
you in that situation. Or if you ever have ACPS case,
having that paediatrician there that can say, you know, write a
quick letter on their letterheadthat says, you know, I've been
treating this child since, you know, for years and I've never

(36:27):
had any concern of abuse and neglect.
You know, that can go a long wayto getting cases shut down.
So there's just, I could go on and on with lots of other tips,
but this just gives, gives you afew.
But I, yeah, whatever, wherever you want to go.
We can talk more if you want. I do have a question this this
might sound like kind of an odd question.
And this is more in regards to heritage defense, because you
said a few minutes ago that you,of course you, your job is to

(36:50):
represent the good parents, the parents who are actually doing
what they're supposed to be doing.
They're not abusive to your, to their kids at all, but you know,
the world that we live in, thereare families who are truly
abusive to their kids in one wayor another.
How do you discern as an attorney who's representing the
families that are part of Heritage Defense, How do you

(37:10):
discern the the families who aredoing the right things versus
those who maybe there is some abuse going on there?
And and if So, what do you, well, I guess first, how do you
discern that? Second, if you see that there
actually is some sort of abuse going on, what do you do at
that? Yeah.
I mean, we just use our best judgement.
You know, basically we've handled lots of these cases over

(37:32):
the years. And so, you know, we can
typically tell. And sometimes it's a lot of
times, in fact, the way that it comes in is there's actually one
parent that calls and says, Hey,my child just said something,
you know, that my spouse, you know, has committed some kind of
active abuse. And then we're like, you know,
what do you, is it credible? Do you think that that's
actually happened? And you know, this the spouse is

(37:55):
well, yes, I actually, I think it did.
I think it is true, you know, that at that point, what we, we,
we have kind of a conflict of interest, right, because both
parents are members of heritage defense.
So, so that in that instance, you know, we have to say, you
know, well, you definitely need to, you know, report this and
get, get an attorney and, and, but unfortunately we're not

(38:17):
going to be able to help you with it.
So, you know, definitely the stuff comes up and, and that's
kind of how we have to handle itthat yeah, we're just, we don't
exist to defend child abusers. And so, and unfortunately, even
if there's an an innocent, you know, spouse in the home and the
children are innocent, you know,that's something that, you know,

(38:38):
they have to get another attorney to help with that sort
of thing. Yeah, Yeah.
That would be hard, you know, sohard to to discern that and then
to know how to help that family because they do exist.
And that would be an absolutely really hard thing to navigate.
Let's talk really quickly about medical consent for preteens and
teens. I know this is a really big

(38:58):
issue today. You know, we had this happen
several years ago. My oldest was, I think she was
about 14. And I don't even remember why we
went to the doctor. It wasn't for a regular checkup.
But you know, for some reason wehad gone to the doctor and the
doctor started asking my daughter all of these very
personal questions. I mean, she was asking her if

(39:19):
she was physically active with boys.
I mean, she was literally like, I think she was 14 and she's
asking her these questions in front of me.
But before she started asking these questions, she asked her,
she said, do you want your mom to step out of the room while I
ask you some questions? And Brooklyn just looked at me,
she was like, no, my, my mom canstay.
I want my mom to be in here. And then she proceeded to ask
her these very, very personal questions.

(39:41):
And, and it was, it was so uncomfortable.
And we finally, I was like, OK, we're, I think we're good here.
But I was, I was so in shock because I did not expect that I,
one, didn't expect her to ask meto leave.
And two, I did not expect that she was going to ask my 14 year
old these very personal questions, talk through this
whole mess of medical consent inthem asking our preteens and

(40:03):
teens for parents to leave theirlike, what do we do with that?
I mean, it's just such a hard situation to be in.
Yeah. I mean what you just described
is what I, I often tell people, you know, here the children are
kind of just getting to that preteen, you know, 11/12/13, you
know, time frame. Tell them to expect exactly what
you encountered, and that is, you know, that they'll try to

(40:26):
ask you, you know, all right, your mom, would you step out of
the room while I talk to your child or dad?
Step out of the room. And, you know, and typically
what they're wanting to ask about is questions related to
sexual activity and related to mental health and, you know,
things like drug use, those are kind of the, the most, you know,

(40:48):
substance abuse. Those are the things that
they're, they're normally askingabout.
And it's not because they necessarily have any suspicion
of those things. It's just they just ask all
children those questions becauseit's pervasive enough that
people children, you know, do have issues with those around
that age that they go ahead and start talking to them about it.
And, you know, obviously you're just like, wait a second, I

(41:09):
brought my child in for, you know, a sports physical or
something. You know, why, why do, why do we
need to get into all this? You know, I can talk with my
child about those things. Thank you very much.
So generally, it's something that, you know, we, they're
actually laws. One reason why why they start
asking about these sorts of things is that there are laws in

(41:30):
every state that actually allow children at a certain age to get
medical treatment even without parental consent or parental
notice on some of those issues, kind of depending on the state
and perhaps even other issues. Again, that's on our law policy
fall for free on our website. People can visit and see kind of
what's the law in your state, you know, on when children can

(41:51):
actually actually get treatment without parental consent on
those things. But those, you know, it's a very
common thing that they ask. And what we recommend is when
your child is, you know, gettingnear that age and you need to go
to the doctor for whatever reason, go ahead and talk to
them before you go and just say,Hey, listen, they're probably
going to ask for me to step out of the room.

(42:15):
I, you know, I'm your parent, I'm paying for this, you know,
I, I need to be in there. I know your whole history better
than you do. And so I, I need to be in the
room. And, you know, are you good with
that? And hopefully your child says
yes. If your child says no, then
that's a whole other conversation.
But if your child says yeah, of course, then generally what we

(42:37):
say is, you know, it's best if the child, you know, speaks up
and says like, no, I want my momin the room or no, I want my dad
in the room. It just comes across a little
bit better coming from the childthen from the adult can.
An adult step in and say no, I don't want to leave, I want to
stay in the room. Absolutely.
I mean, it's your. It's your child, so you can.

(42:58):
I mean, I would say that, yeah, absolutely.
You can certainly, certainly, yeah.
Just kind of say like, Nope, notleaving.
And and I think that's what parents should do.
I mean, this is your child. There's, there's, they're not an
adult yet. They still need guidance.
That's what you're there for. And, you know, so yeah, I think
you should still be in the room.Yeah, what a weird thing to be

(43:20):
asked as a parent, you know? But.
But again, I mean, you look at at our society, you know, public
schools are trying to take control of parenting our
children for us. And so why would doctors not try
to take control of that same thing?
You know, it just, it doesn't even make sense.
I mean, God put us in charge of our kids.
And like you said, we know them better than they know themselves
in most cases. And so we need to be the ones

(43:41):
there to advocate for them, to answer questions for them, to
protect them. And man, it's such a such a
strange, such a strange time that we're living in.
So do you have anything else on that?
I mean, I think that's amazing, yes.
We need to just be aware that that's happening and be willing
to step in. Sometimes they even make it

(44:02):
where you can't even access yourchild's medical records, you
know, after a certain age, you know, and that's something that
your child can actually sign, something that gives you access
to that. And so we encourage families to
do that. We even have a form in our
members only section of our website for folks to download
that form and that in the file to make sure that they still
have access, you know, even oncethe child crosses a certain

(44:25):
threshold. And again, it kind of depends on
the state on that. Yeah, it's shocking.
Once your kid turns 18, everything changes.
I mean, we learned this. Our oldest is 19 now.
And I cannot believe how quicklythings changed.
It was like, as soon as we wouldgo to a doctor's appointment or
anything, you know, I mean, her,the bank called.
And they were like, OK, we got to switch her account over.
She's now an adult. And I mean, it was just, like,

(44:46):
everything flipped upside down. And it was so weird that all of
a sudden, like, I had no controlover anything because she's now
a legal adult, but she's still akid.
She still lives in my home. You know, it was just really
weird. And so, you know, thankfully we
have a great relationship and and she she didn't care to have
me apart from her in every way. But it is it's crazy that once

(45:08):
that that 18 mark hits, all of asudden the parent in the eyes of
the world is no longer necessary.
And it's a scary place to be. So, Bradley, tell our listeners
again where they can find out more about you and Heritage
Defense. Yeah, they can.
Visit our website, heritagedefense.org.
Again, we'd love for everybody to go there.
Check out the Law and Policy Vault, get some information, and

(45:30):
if you want to follow me, I'm onX Bradley W Pierce.
OK. What is the cost of becoming a
member of Heritage Defense? It's $19.00 a month or if people
will do the want to do the wholeyear at one time, it's $190.00
for the year. At least you know currently.
OK. And that's per family.

(45:50):
Yeah, it doesn't matter what size.
Yeah, it doesn't matter what size.
The family is the same, same price.
OK, so if you have two kids likeme or 12 kids like Bradley, it
doesn't matter. It's the same cost.
So OK, we'll put those links in the show notes.
Thank you guys so much for listening and for being with us
today. Again, we will be in Branson,
MO, May 15th through 17th. We would love to see you there.
And if you have not visited our website, we have a new website.

(46:13):
You guys, Garrett worked really hard on this.
It's been months of blood, sweatand tears as he has worked to
update our website. You can still watch the movie
for free through the website, and we've got all sorts of other
great stuff on there. Go see us there at
schoolhouserock.com. I've told you before, you are
our marketing team, so if you would do us a favor and share

(46:33):
this episode with your friends, we would be so grateful for
that. Make sure that you're subscribed
to this on whatever podcast platform you're listening to it
on or on YouTube. I know lots of you watch the
videos. You know, it's funny, I never
ever watch these videos like never ever.
Sometimes I see them pop up, butbut I don't usually ever watch

(46:53):
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We love seeing your comments andsend them to your friends.
Let them know why they should listen to the Schoolhouse Rock
podcast. Have a great rest of your week.
Stay tuned at the very end to hear what's coming up next week

(47:14):
and we will see you back here then.
Bye. You're listening to the Biblical
family network. Hey, I'm Miki and I'm Will and
we're the Co host of the cultureProof podcast.
We want to invite you to join usevery week as we discuss what's
happening in the world and then filter those happenings through
a decidedly biblical lens. There are many questions,

(47:38):
especially when we see what's happening in our culture today,
but the answers are found withinthe word of God.
So that's where we want to look.Amen.
When we resist those cultural trends that rival the truth, we
remain culture proof. Anything that's worthwhile is
hard work. But our culture for the last
several generations has pretty much said value and meaning only

(48:02):
comes if money comes with it. You know, if there's a paycheck
or if there's a grade or some kind of external pat on the
back, you know, mostly tied to paychecks and income.
And so to come home and not havethat and to not have any kind of
external grade or Gold Star on the back is really disorienting.

(48:27):
You know, I just came to realizethat all the work in tending a
house is life giving work. And it all matters because life
matters and it's all fostering life.
If there was no life in the home, then none of that work
would exist. But that isn't better.
So the work is good work becausewe're tending and keeping and

(48:51):
promoting and growing life in all these different ways.

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The Law for Homeschoolers: What CPS Won’t Tell You – Bradley Pierce of Heritage Defense

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}The Law for Homeschoolers: What CPS Won’t Tell You – Bradley Pierce of Heritage Defense