August 25, 2025 • 45 mins
Thank you, Illinois! For once you beat out Gavin Newsom for the "First in the nation!" distinction... mandatory mental health screenings for all schoolchildren in Illinois? How much did the pharma lobby have to pay for that bill? Couldn't be any more obvious. This hour I break down this new what is sure to be a multi-trillion dollar pipeline at the expense of Illinois children. Yay.
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Speaker 1 (00:09):
The California Mama Bears have been forced out of hibernation.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Oh fierce guardians of our future.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
Mama Bear's fight for parents' rights, defense of the family,
and God given freedoms. Everywhere you're listening to Mama Bear's
Radio with your host, The New Normal, Kristin Hurley.
Speaker 3 (00:36):
Every day is a new normal. Welcome to Mama Bear's Radio.
Kristin Hurley. Here it's my son, Frank said the intro.
I meant to keep making a new intro for the
show New Horizons, but I end up kind of just
thinking that one's kind of cute. He could be like
a three year old saying something introducing me, and I
(00:57):
would think it was cute. But at any rate, Welcome
to Mama Bear's Radio. I was out last week, as
you will hear in a moment, my tale of woes,
slowly losing children to their own lives. It's a bittersweet.
More on that in a minute, but I'm back today
and for the foreseeable future, you're stuck with live Mama
(01:21):
Bear's Radio, The New Normal, Kristin Hurley, Safe and Effective Radio,
and it's Monday.
Speaker 4 (01:29):
School is in Sadly enough.
Speaker 3 (01:31):
For all the little kidlets out there, you know, the
beginning of the school year. I like Monday's. I like
the beginning of the school year. Back when I was
in school, I was always super stoked the first week
of class, even you know, especially high school and or
the many many college years I subjected myself to at
(01:57):
six different institutions, I might add before I actually finished
anything up. But at any rate, I was always jazzed
at the beginning. It's full of hope and promise, and
you're like, yes, I'm you know, I'm gonna do good
and learn cool stuff and new exciting horizons ahead.
Speaker 4 (02:13):
So at the.
Speaker 3 (02:15):
Very least, I hope that all kids out there in
school land, be it kindergarten through whatever the heck, are
stoked happens to be the first day of class for
the early child who was just dispensed of or whatever
the term is. Out in Salt Lake City. My middle
one is in Salt Lake. This is her thirty year
(02:36):
out there, and I had an interesting experience with that
because two years ago when we drove out there, it's
a family caravan out dropped her off.
Speaker 4 (02:48):
I was like, see.
Speaker 3 (02:50):
Yah, good luck, okay, cool, have fun, And we drove
off and It was just a very anti climactic experience,
the first of the kids to move away and go
do something. Of Course, she'd you know, been out of
high school for a couple of years. She had gotten
out a year early out of high school, and you
spent two years at excuse me, COVID Cabrillo Land, so
(03:13):
obviously not necessarily a normal early college experience or whatever,
even JC, but whatever. She was off in a way
doing her thing, and I literally was like, okay, cea
call me and you know, missed her, of course, but
was not nearly as knocked on my but as I
(03:34):
was this time around. Funny enough, it was like she'd
actually had not come home last summer because she was
getting her Utah residency, so she stayed in Salt Lake, YadA, YadA.
Of course I've seen her. Of course she's been home
for holidays, this, that and the other. But she was
home this summer for quite a bit, and so taking
her back this time around, I was like, oh no,
my little heart is breaking, probably also because I'm about
(03:57):
to lose the second one in a few weeks. We
will curt her off to her new adventure, and then
I will be very bereft, So I'm gonna cry on
the Mama bear audience's shoulders, your collective shoulders, bear with me.
Of course, there's joy and delight in each new season,
(04:20):
if I may be so cheesy, and I'm never one
to say, as you will find out later in this
hour as I talk about stuff mental health particularly, never
one to like go oh no, I can't possibly have
a sad feeling or possibly let my kids be upset
on any level. I just think the full breadth of
(04:42):
human experience, of course, the you know, the agony and
the ecstasy, right the good times, the super highs, and
then the times when you just are gut wrenched tragedy
or even just you know, something less disastrous, as you know,
dropping your kid off for their lives, adult lives at
(05:02):
any rate, the full complement of life here on planet
Earth as a human. And you know, I don't necessarily
shy away from any of that. I've had plenty of
grief and plenty of crap, as we all have, and
away we go. And so it's pointing to have those
moments and very cathartic to sit here on the radio
(05:25):
and talk about it.
Speaker 4 (05:27):
If you guys will pardon me.
Speaker 3 (05:28):
I will get onto the business of Mama Air's Radio
in just a second here, but just a little nod
out there. It's it is transition time for everybody, off
to new horizons, hopefully fun and good things to look
forward to. And as we cry in our soup over
some collective societal civilizational challenges that we do have with
(05:54):
respect to said children, as is the subject of Mama
Air's Radio in general. So at any rate, here I'm
back in action, claws out to a certain extent, I
really have found myself as as described and maybe at
the risk of repeating myself here uh to gold standard
broadcasting endeavors. I'm sorry if this is a faux pas,
(06:18):
but what what are we all doing here? And what
am I even doing on the radio anymore? Sometimes I
wonder there the hot and heavy years, excuse me of
the you know are excuse me, uh, rough COVID years,
many different labels you can affix to that.
Speaker 4 (06:35):
I have kept my.
Speaker 3 (06:36):
Little opinionated mouth shut there for just a minute. I'm
being generous. Rough couple of years really a national sort
of ripping band a the band aid off on a
number of levels, and coming to terms with where we
have taken some wrong turns, a nation at war with
(06:58):
itself incident.
Speaker 4 (07:00):
Now, I remember a number of.
Speaker 3 (07:02):
Weeks ago I went on and on and on in
some sort of strange rant about the ken Burns documentary.
I was watching The dust Bowl, and of course there's
you know, parallels every or whatever. Well, now I'm watching
the Civil War. I don't know how many episodes. There's
like eight episodes or something. I think am on number
three or four or something. And of course, okay, the
(07:23):
Civil War, and dang it, dang it if there wasn't
a lot of killing and mauling horrifically so, and we're
not there yet necessarily, although there's people looting and burning
cities or wishing they could. We are a nation at
civil war. On a number of other levels, I'm quite
(07:47):
gotten as physical as you know, as like the cold
steel of a bayonet stuffed in your neighbor's chests or whatever,
but skin could tip at any moment. It really is disheartening.
And I think my overall experience in all of this
is just feeling at odds with one's community, feeling at
(08:11):
odds with one's nation, losing that sense of we're all
in this together. Kind of thing is the world struggles on.
It's like America is just lost our little way with
one another. And I don't like the division and strife.
(08:32):
And I definitely coming back to Mama Bear's radio, definitely
do not want that for my kids. Sadly, they know,
they know it, they feel it. It's tangibly so, and
they don't feel that cohesive, sort of care free, foundational.
Speaker 4 (08:55):
Support of.
Speaker 3 (08:58):
A nation and life. I don't think is I did,
or you know, any of my gen X peer set
grew up with. And these kids know that, they see
it that the adults in the room are at constant
strife with one another, vicious viciously so and my kids,
(09:20):
you know, my kids hear me say something, they got
all bench and they're like, oh, there goes mom again.
Why do you have to be such a hater, mom?
And I'm like, I'm not a hater. I just am
really sort of open kimono about how we are just
a you know, a nation at odds with one another.
Speaker 4 (09:40):
And it kills me.
Speaker 3 (09:42):
It pains me, and I when I talk about people
that have a different sort of a different perspective on
things than I do politically speaking, or sort of awareness
h you know, of sort being aware that what's going
on sort of underneath the hood, in political world or
(10:02):
municipalities or government or even socially social conditions we've set
for ourselves super frustrating and any rate, at any rate
in my household, the kids, yeah, you know, I don't
know that that is their world to be determined. The
(10:23):
jury is out. As I say, how this affects everybody
long term. But I've got a lot of stuff to
cover today under all of that big umbrella again, you know,
we are here to remedy this, the muck that we
have found ourselves in. I for one, am not just
gonna idly sit around and oh, well, I guess this
(10:45):
is I guess this is the life we have. It
doesn't sit with me, and so I kind of am
constantly looking for understanding, looking for other people to come
up with a with a perspective that helps me along
in my ny and sort of my that excuse me.
The soap opera, the daily soap opera of all of
us struggling to get through, just to provide again a
(11:10):
nation to bequeath for our posterity, mine and yours ours
together as a nation and help them, you know, grow
up into some semblance of a collective national spirit, filled
with inspiration and good things in store for them, a
(11:33):
reason to get up in the morning and be productive
and enjoy life and have have faith for the future.
All of those, all of those wonderful endeavors. Is you
know why I comb through copious amounts of articles and
media and thinkers and speakers and media and podcasts just
(11:57):
to help myself along and then ideally, in turn help
pass that along to other people, either via Mama Bears
radio or the more immediacy of my household.
Speaker 4 (12:07):
My poor kids. I'm always like here, read this.
Speaker 3 (12:10):
Or here's a podcast, listen to this, and I don't
think any of that gets consumed, but I try.
Speaker 4 (12:17):
Okay, well, I'm up against my.
Speaker 3 (12:18):
First break here, everybody, when we come back, as usual,
I chitchat my way through a good, good portion of
my hours here. I want to read from a recent
Abigail Shreier piece again, specifically, stop asking kids if they're depressed.
This is absolutely aligned with my perspective of we're dwelling
(12:41):
too much on every darn stupid emotion. Our kids are
taught to think that they have a condition for everything,
instead of like, oh, This is the normal course of
the human experience. As I was just talking about, before
you get the good and the bad. Well, anytime there
is good or bad, the kids are told that they're
they've got something and they're labeled. And the state of
(13:05):
Illinois beware, beware, coming soon to a state near you,
has decided to have mental health screenings for all kids
in school. And I think it starts aged third grade
and up ah, Okay, we're gonna delve into that when
I get back here. Okay, everybody stay tuned Mama Bears Radio,
Kristin Hurley here.
Speaker 4 (13:26):
I'll be right back.
Speaker 5 (13:30):
Mama Bears Radio.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
We'll be right back.
Speaker 4 (13:56):
Music.
Speaker 3 (13:58):
Welcome back to Mama Bear's Kristin Hurley here. My new
normal is minus children in the household. Actually, my youngest
just hit eighteen, and that, of course compiled with taking
one to Salt Lake and then one the other one's
leaving soon. I'm like, oh no, they're going and they're
all adults.
Speaker 4 (14:18):
Now I have.
Speaker 3 (14:20):
Zero jurisdiction legally speaking.
Speaker 4 (14:24):
Oh good times.
Speaker 3 (14:25):
Well, anyways, everybody, welcome back here Mama Bears Radio. As
I said before the break, I was going to talk
a little bit about a piece by Abigail Schreier talking
about this brand spanking new law in Illinois. Again that
the monkey see and monkey doo of these states. So
(14:46):
I wouldn't put it past California to dream something up
like this. But a new law in Illinois makes mandatory
annual mental health screenings for all public school children third
through twelfth grades. The esteemed governor Pritzker says, Illinois.
Speaker 4 (15:08):
Now the first state in the nation.
Speaker 3 (15:10):
Oh darn it, Gavin Newsome, you didn't get to be
the first state in the nation. He loves getting to
be the first in anything, good old Gavin. Okay, anyways, sorry,
Prinsker says, Illinois the first state in the nation to
require mental screenings in its public schools. Our school should
be inclusive places where students are not just comfortable asking
for help, they're empowered.
Speaker 4 (15:28):
To do it. It's right.
Speaker 3 (15:29):
Depend on your school for everything you need.
Speaker 4 (15:33):
Little children, do not tell your parents.
Speaker 3 (15:37):
Translation there, Okay, months and months ago, possibly last year.
You know, the days and the months and the years
all blend together at this point. I did review quite
extensively Abigail Schreyer's recent book Bad Therapy. If you guys remember,
of course, more recently, than that I talked about on trunk.
Speaker 4 (15:59):
Lord Delano's book book.
Speaker 3 (16:01):
Abigail Schreyer covered more with respect to adolescence young adults,
American children and adolescents who are being diagnosed right and
left of mental health disorders and prescribed plenty of psychiatric
(16:21):
medication quote unquote medication. I use that lightly.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
So.
Speaker 3 (16:27):
The book was published in twenty twenty four, she writes
in a new piece that was published both in the
Free Press and on her substack here, many young people
without serious mental illness nonetheless spend years languishing without a diagnosis,
alternately cursing it and embracing it. Sorry, languishing with a diagnosis,
excuse me cursing it, embracing it, believing they have a
(16:50):
broken brain, and convincing themselves that their struggles are insurmountabi insurmountable.
Because of the disorders and straints, they meet regularly with
the therapist or school counselor, on whom they become increasingly reliant,
losing a sense of efficacy, unable to navigate on their
(17:11):
own or even minor setbacks and interpersonal conflicts, they begin
a course of antidepressants that carry all kinds of side effects,
including suppressed libido, fatigue, muffling of all emotion, increase in depression,
and I anxiety drugs and the stimulants given a kids
diagnosed with ADHD are both addictive and ubiquitously abused. And
(17:34):
Abigail Schreyer says, and this is true, She's often that
tragic descent begins with a simple mental health survey. She
did extensive research for her book Bad Therapy. It's really good,
and I encourage everyone to either revisit it or pick
(17:55):
it up for the first time. So she interviewed hundreds
of parents of such kids who were funneled into this pipeline,
and a good number of them, of course, had it experienced.
She chronicles this as well, a mental health survey given
to them either in their classrooms or at a doctor's
(18:19):
office when they were visiting for something completely unrelated to
an emotional well being. So Abigail Schreier says in her
article here she is by chance. While I was writing
the book, her book Bad Therapy, she said, my middle
school aged son returned home from a sleep away camp
with a persistent stomach ache. I took him to urgent care,
(18:40):
where nurse asked me to leave the room so he
could administer a mental health screening tool put out by
the National Institute of Mental Health that turned out to
be NIMH explicit protocol, which is this, ask parents to
leave so that you can minister the following questions to
(19:01):
kids who have not shown any signs of mental distress
aged eight and up. Thank you National Institute of Mental
Health for this protocol.
Speaker 4 (19:13):
For kids eight and up.
Speaker 3 (19:15):
Excuse me, who have not shown any signs of mental
distress yet here's a survey to ask them without their
parent in the room. Again, this is an innocuous visit
to a doctor's office that Abigail Shreer experienced. I've been
there too, of course, I just said, you know, my
children now are of age, but there were a number
(19:38):
of times with them prior years with a dog.
Speaker 4 (19:41):
I'm there for a normal.
Speaker 3 (19:42):
Stupid checkup back when we did such things, and I
was asked to leave the room, of which of course
me I refuse, But they had the goal to tell
me that I could I please leave the room. They
had some survey questions for my kids. But this happens.
(20:05):
How many times do the parents leave their kids alone
with the doctor because the doctor's in a white coat.
Okay here okay, So, Abigail Tryer requested a copy of
the survey and photographed it. Here, verbatim are the five
questions the nurse intended to put to my son in private.
Question number one, in the past few weeks, have you
wished you were dead? Question two? In the past few weeks,
(20:26):
have you felt that you or your family would be
better off if you were dead?
Speaker 4 (20:30):
Question number three?
Speaker 3 (20:31):
In the past week, have had have you been having
thoughts about killing yourself? Question number four, have you ever
tried to kill yourself? If yes, how and when? Question five?
Are you thinking of killing yourself right now? If yes,
please describe. Okay, I'm sorry to laugh. It's either laugh
or cry. This is bull honky, this is disgusting. Now,
(20:55):
if you read the book Bad Therapy, there's at least
an entire chapter, if not a couple, dedicated to discussing
these mental health surveys that are passed along in classrooms
unbeknownst to parents probably ninety nine percent of the time,
and students.
Speaker 4 (21:14):
Have to face these.
Speaker 3 (21:16):
Words on the paper that are incredibly suggestive and normalize.
Have you thought of killing yourself? If yes, please explain
and make it seem like it's totally incompletely normal. Now,
of course, that other surveys delve into your child's excuse me,
(21:38):
your eight year old child's sexual preferences and their gender
identity and all that kind of stuff. I'm not going
to deal with that necessarily right now. But of course
that's the flip side of the coin here, but specifically
with respect to the point at hand here that the
state of Illinois has decided that it's mandatory that every
(22:00):
public school child take a survey aged third grade and up,
a mental health screening survey that will absolutely guaranteed, hands down,
have questions, suggestive questions such as this, probably, in my opinion,
you can guess one can one can follow the dots right?
Speaker 4 (22:23):
You know? Are you?
Speaker 3 (22:24):
Do you ever find yourself sad? Have you ever had
a bad feeling? Have you ever been mad? Have your
parents ever told you no? I mean, I could go
on and on and on what we can imagine what
these surveys may include, but case some points, is an
actual survey. Abigail Schreyer goes on to say kids are
(22:46):
wildly suggestible, especially where psychiatric symptoms are concerned. Ask a
kid repeatedly if he might be depressed. How about now,
are you sure?
Speaker 4 (22:56):
And he just might decide that he is. Excuse me
that they is.
Speaker 3 (23:05):
Z is introduce, says Abbiel Schreier. She goes on to say,
this piece into a peer group, and a swath of
seventh grade girls, sorry, introduce gender dysphoria into a peer group,
and a swath of seventh grade girls are likely to
decide they were born in the wrong body. Introduce quote
testing anxiety or quote social phobia or quote suicidality to them,
(23:29):
and many teens are likely to decide why I have
that too.
Speaker 4 (23:33):
There's a reason.
Speaker 3 (23:34):
Clinicians keep anirexia patients from socializing unsupervised in a hospital ward.
Anarexia is profoundly socially contagious, and that is well known
for decades, and no one's connecting the dots about the
social contagion of every other diagnosis out there known to man.
(23:55):
I'm going to have to take a break here, guys.
But the point being in you obviously see her. Where
I and Abigail Schreyer are going with is they're going
to take an entire state full of kids. Now, granted,
these types of surveys are probably already pretty fairly prevalent
(24:16):
in the classrooms. They're ubiquitous as actually, as the research
shows they're ubiquitous in classrooms today. But the fact that
the state has decided mandatory mental health screenings for all children,
all public school children, guarantees they're going to be getting
many of these and ooh, I wonder what they're gonna find.
Speaker 4 (24:37):
All right, we're going to continue with this article.
Speaker 3 (24:39):
It's very very horrifically unsettling and very informative, though, so
I want to keep reading. In the meantime, we take
our break. This is Mama Bear's Radio. Kristin Hurley here.
Speaker 4 (24:51):
I'll be right back.
Speaker 5 (24:55):
Mama Bear's Radio.
Speaker 2 (24:58):
We'll be right back.
Speaker 4 (25:39):
Welcome back to Mama Bear's Radio.
Speaker 3 (25:41):
Kristen Hurley here, Safe and effective radio. Not so much
on the mental health screenings for school children children in Illinois.
Speaker 4 (25:52):
Which is the topic this hour.
Speaker 3 (25:53):
If you're just joining in, we are here at AM
thirteen forty k O M Y and Mama Bears Radio
is got my claws out about this. This is actually
seriously upsetting. I talk a lot about kids and slapping labels.
(26:16):
Slapping labels on anyone, excuse me, kids or adults. We
are a labeling society, and I just always think it's
the biggest kicker in the pants, where like the people
are like, well, she is a racist, but they're the
ones that are like, they're the You're the ones looking
at someone's skin color and calling people out for what
(26:37):
category they fall into just drives me nuts. And it's
the same thing with kids. And again the kids. Kids
are so incredibly malleable, suggestible.
Speaker 4 (26:54):
They try everything on for size.
Speaker 3 (26:57):
If you've raised a kid, you know that one day
they've got one attitude and the next day they've got
the next, and weeks go by that there's phases galore.
Speaker 4 (27:08):
And your kids are meant to.
Speaker 3 (27:12):
Broaden their broad in their horizons, broaden their understanding of
the world around them, test things out, run into walls,
right they you know that, as we say in the
Early Household, the burnt hand is the teaching hand. I
am a strong believer, and of course I've talked a
(27:32):
lot about your free range kids, right, letting your kids
roam and grow and explore, not boxing them in. And
I feel like the social emotional part of society, everybody's like,
oh you have a feeling, Oh no, can't have that,
(27:52):
Or if you do, there's something wrong with you. Drives
me that as crazy.
Speaker 4 (28:00):
I open the show.
Speaker 3 (28:01):
Talking about, you know, the course of human events. You
get every dang emotion under the sun, and it's a
beautiful thing. It is the full scope of experience here.
And we are limiting our kids. We are hammering them down.
We are absolutely clipping their little wings and excuse me,
(28:23):
causing them harm by allowing them to think that they
are somehow defective or there's something wrong with this picture.
Speaker 4 (28:33):
If you are.
Speaker 3 (28:34):
Going through a phase, or you're going through a tough time,
or you're struggling on some level behavior issues or emotional state,
maybe something really it is wrong in your life, and
how do you grow and overcome that without the the
(28:55):
you know, just the this is hard to say, but
like the full embrace of facing the facts about stuff
or having, you know, coming through something that's really emotionally
difficult builds substance within you. And anyways, so this is
just killing me that this is what it's coming to.
(29:15):
And now it's official law in the state of Illinois
that every single kid is going to get mentally health
screened with very suggestive surveys mandatory in school. This is
from doctor Alan Francis Duke University professor of psychiatry, incidentally enough,
author of the DSM Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.
(29:39):
Thank you, excuse me, The DSM four widely known as
the psychiatric Bible. Excuse me, which is part of half
our problems here in the first place, making these things up.
Speaker 4 (29:53):
Okay, excuse me.
Speaker 3 (29:55):
But doctor Allen Francis says, mandatory school screenings for kids
and this is the at one one of the authors
of the DSM.
Speaker 4 (30:01):
Excuse me.
Speaker 3 (30:01):
Listen to this, Mandatory school screenings of kids for mental
illness are great in theory and terrible in practice. Most
kids who screen positive will have transient problems, not mental disorders.
Mislabeling stigmatizes and subjects them to unnecessary treatments, while misdirecting
(30:22):
very scarce resources away from kids who desperately need them.
I wholeheartedly concur Abigail Schreier, and I'm quoting here from
her article.
Speaker 4 (30:33):
Her substock says, a certain.
Speaker 3 (30:35):
Amount of anxiety and low mood is not only a
normal part of every life. They are almost a signal
feature of adolescents, reflecting dramatic periods of psychosocial and psychosexual change.
What might look like depression in an adult is very
often just a phase and a teenager, But informing a
teen that he has shown signs of quote depression is
(30:55):
no neutral act. Handing a mental diagnosis to a child
or teen, even if accurate, is an enormously consequential event.
It changes the way a young person sees himself, creates
limitations for what he believes he can achieve, encourage treatment,
dependency on a therapist, and empties out his sense of
(31:18):
agency that he can on his own achieve his goals
and improve his life. And unlike the alleged benefits of
mental health screeners, there is solid evidence on the harms
produced by receiving a mental diagnosis, harms that are pure
tragedy in the case of misdiagnosis.
Speaker 4 (31:38):
In fact, at Schreier goes on to say.
Speaker 3 (31:40):
There is no proof that mental health screeners have ever
shown to improve mental health outcomes. Nor are screeners capable
of identifying who the next school shooter will be. They
are poor at identifying which kids have depressions, since they
are not sensitive enough to distinguish it from normal periods
of sadness. They do not even reliably indicate which kids
(32:02):
are risk of suicide. What mental health surveys reliable, reliably
produce is false positives. Screening for low probability diagnosis diagnosses
like suicidality or clinical depression will inevitably generate a surf
of misdiagnoses. It isn't hard mathematically to see why, she says,
(32:24):
whenever you screen very large numbers of people for very
low incidence conditions, even with good tests, false positives will
overwhelm accurate diagnoses making reasonable assumptions about the suicide rate
in an adolescent population, the overwhelming majority of students flagged.
Speaker 4 (32:41):
For suicidality will be false positives. Quote.
Speaker 3 (32:46):
If you do the statistical calculation, you discover that the
false positive rate is about ninety seven percent, says Stephen Morse,
professor of lawn psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania. That's
a lot of kids whose lives and self conceptions the
state will have altered with false alarms. Illinois State Senator
(33:07):
one of the esteemed representatives in Illinois, who cooked up
excuse me, that's a Mama Bear's editorial here. Who cooked
up this scheme? Laura Fine, she's the chair of Prisker's
Mental Health committee. She indicated last week that the state
may harbor broader ambitions and the quote the screenings will
be designed to catch the early signs of anxiety, depression
(33:29):
or trauma.
Speaker 4 (33:31):
Whoops, what did she just say?
Speaker 3 (33:33):
They'll be designed to catch the early signs of anxiety.
Speaker 4 (33:38):
Depression, or trauma.
Speaker 3 (33:43):
Abigail Schreyer goes on to say, trauma is not a
recognized mental health diagnosis, as I encountered during my investigation.
She's talking about writing her book that therapy and the
hands of school counselors. Quote trauma can and does mean
any hurt suffered in childhood, as your parents ever spained
to you, yelled at you, forced you to attend church.
(34:05):
Do they offer enthusiastic affirmation of your chosen gender identity?
Speaker 4 (34:08):
Or are they skeptical?
Speaker 3 (34:10):
All of these are routinely identified as sources of childhood
quote trauma. And because teachers and school mental health staff
are all quote mandatory reporters, anything they learn about a
family's private life that carries even a whiff of quote
trauma may occasional call to child services. Okay, I'm going
to pause here for my next break. Here, my the
(34:33):
minutes pass right on by here on live radio. I
do want to finish this up though, before the end
of the hour, because I have a lot more to
get to.
Speaker 4 (34:43):
Next hour as usual, and we.
Speaker 3 (34:47):
Get through just a teen ski a little bit, but
again this kills me hits home.
Speaker 4 (34:54):
I just cannot.
Speaker 3 (34:55):
See how it is the state's business what soever to scream,
excuse me give your kid a survey that is quote
designed to screen for any sign of anxiety or depression
or mental illness. How is that the state's business. I'm
(35:20):
gonna leave it there, all right, everybody, Kristin Hurley, Mama
Bear's Radio.
Speaker 4 (35:25):
I am pinched. I will take my veryk and be
right back.
Speaker 5 (35:28):
Stay with me, Mama Bear's Radio. We'll be right back.
Speaker 3 (36:00):
The time is on my side.
Speaker 4 (36:02):
All the stove to my life wide.
Speaker 2 (36:07):
As long as the wheels deponing round.
Speaker 3 (36:12):
I will live all the groove till the sun goes
All right, everybody, Welcome back to Mama Bear's Radio. Kristen Hurley,
here safe, an effective radio.
Speaker 4 (36:25):
Here we go.
Speaker 3 (36:26):
I'm finishing out the hour here with the Abigail Shrier's
recent piece. It was in the pre Press, one of
my favorite outlets, and also her substack, especially in the
last generation. Right it's Abigail Shriyer. Adolescent mental health has
leaped off cliff all while we have doubled and redoubled
(36:49):
resources spent on adolescent mental health. Mama Bear's aside, I
wonder why that is. Let's pour billions of more dollars
endo the problem and only exacerbate it.
Speaker 4 (37:02):
I'm sorry.
Speaker 3 (37:03):
Back to the article, she says, the NonStop diagnosis and
treatment of American kids has not made a dent in
the prevalence of mental illness. The two have risen in parallel.
You can't give kids an unhealthy life and expect mental
health resources to fix it. That much should now be obvious,
(37:23):
and she ends this article like this, The vast majority
of our kids and teens are not mentally ill, but
they are lonely, worried, scared, and bummed out. Schools ought
to supply them with reliable bolsters to the human spirit,
high expectations, greater independence and responsibility, far far less screen time,
(37:46):
more recess, exercise, art, music, involvement, and goal oriented activities
that lure them out of their own minds and force
them to think about something anything other than themselves. And
I super super appreciate that those words and as incomplete
concurrence with everything I believe in. The more we talk
(38:11):
about the crap, the more it gets embraced again.
Speaker 4 (38:15):
The people that the labeling, the bucketing.
Speaker 3 (38:20):
The endless, endless introspection is such an inhibitor to enjoying
the fulfillment of life, and it's really handicapping our kids
and as best as job as you can possibly do,
you know, And I'm not, I'm definitely not an award
winning gold standard parent for sure has tripped up over
(38:42):
the years, but you know that in our household we
do talk about these types of things like I just
am unafraid to everything I share here on the radio
bring home with me to the kids, and even they,
you know, they will just pop out just off the
cuff with some sort of label about somebody or some
(39:05):
something something you repeat the again, the sort of the
zeitgeist of the social world that they're immersed in, where
this language.
Speaker 4 (39:17):
Is just pervasive.
Speaker 3 (39:20):
Oh I have this, Oh she's that, Oh her such
and such as acting up.
Speaker 4 (39:27):
I can't tell you how many times I hear that.
Speaker 3 (39:28):
And it's just such a blinder's way of looking at
life and oneself.
Speaker 4 (39:38):
And again to be told that you are.
Speaker 3 (39:41):
Ex when you are whatever you're years old, right, I mean,
how how many times is through the ages of we've
been like, well, if you tell tell your kids they
can't achieve anything and they're you know, no goodnicks? How
often and then do they grow up embracing that for themselves.
Speaker 4 (40:02):
Oh, you're never going to amount to anything.
Speaker 3 (40:04):
Of course, this is the you know, the parent of old.
It's internalized by very suggestible young kids. And again, you
want to label a kid and give them a reason to,
as Trier points out in her in her article, give
(40:27):
them a reason to.
Speaker 4 (40:30):
Label themselves it's.
Speaker 3 (40:32):
Not my fault, or embrace sort of a victimhood mentality
and not have the self satisfaction and again the you know,
the inner fortitude to believe in themselves to be able
to overcome something, or again understand which is part of
maturity and adulthood. Understand that you adapt, persevere and overcome
(40:58):
your hardships and life and those achievements, whether there you've
walked across the street for your very first time by yourself,
or you're you know, you've complete a college degree, kay
or whatever it is that you have gone out and
clawed your way through and you get the jew the
(41:21):
good juju juices reward internally, a feather in your cap
of like, hey, I can do that, and what's next
on my horizon? Again, we are woefully limiting our kids
by endlessly talking about are you gonna kill yourself?
Speaker 4 (41:40):
Oh? You might?
Speaker 3 (41:41):
Oh, we're probably thinking about it. Did you know you're
thinking about it? Maybe you didn't know you were thinking
about it. Well, maybe you should start thinking about it.
Speaker 4 (41:50):
Oh. Anyways, you can opt out.
Speaker 3 (41:53):
And this is another point brought up in this article.
Parents can opt out of this stuff now. Of course,
thank you Illinois. This is mandatory. The actual constitutionality of
this I would doubt, but it didn't until it's fought
in courts whatever.
Speaker 4 (42:12):
In California.
Speaker 3 (42:14):
You can opt out of these types of things, these surveys. Definitely,
you can opt out of topics as we just thank
you Supreme Court, what had to go through with Mamou
versus Taylor. The schools cannot overwrite your autonomy as a
family for your beliefs in your household and what you
(42:34):
want your kids to be exposed to you in school
or not. And there are many, many resources for you
even if you don't want any survey to touch your
kid's desk that touches on these types of topics that's
against your beliefs or even excuse me, and I know
I've covered this before. It shouldn't even have to be
(42:56):
really against your personal beliefs. It should just be your
choice as a free human, sovereign being, you can reject this,
and I encourage everyone to do so. Specific Justice Institute
has endless resources. Informed Parents of California endless resources. If
you look for it, you can find plenty of legal,
(43:18):
legally sound resources to help you have the tools to
get after your schools and disallow these this type of
material from coming in front of your kids.
Speaker 4 (43:31):
So I encourage everyone in that.
Speaker 3 (43:34):
Again, can we just get back to fortifying our kids
with the good things that actually will help them in life,
such as, oh, mathematics, great literature, the joys of physics
and chemistry and mechanics, the wonderful things that you can
(44:00):
do and build with your hands or create and imagine artistically.
It can we help our schools get back to the
things that are gonna uplift our kids and propel them
into a hopeful, exciting, wide open future where they feel
(44:21):
like they can achieve anything and they've got the foundation
and the tools in their tool belt to believe that
they can.
Speaker 4 (44:30):
I hate this breaking everyone down.
Speaker 3 (44:32):
Okay, well, this has been the first hour of Mama
Bear's Radio. I'm back up in about six or seven
minutes for another hour. We're going to tackle a few
more topics and we'll see where the winds take us.
Speaker 4 (44:44):
At any rate, Mama Bear's Radio.
Speaker 3 (44:47):
Kristen Hurley here, you guys, hang on with me through
the top of the hour.
Speaker 4 (44:50):
Break. We'll be back in just a bit.
Speaker 2 (44:53):
Eavy Generation throws a hero up the pop chars let icine.
Speaker 3 (44:57):
As magical and magical as odd the boy in the
bubble and the baby with the battle.
Speaker 4 (45:02):
In the hard and I believe these are.
Speaker 1 (45:04):
Days Lasers in the jungle, Blazers in the jungle, somewhere.
Speaker 2 (45:10):
Ros the cable signals, consant.
Speaker 1 (45:13):
Information, a lous affiliation of millionaires and billionaires, and baby,
you're listening to kom wy Selva Beach, home of Schoolhouse Radio.
The California Mama Bears have been forced out of hibernation.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Oh fierce guardians of our future.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
Mama Bear's fight for parents' rights, defense of the family,
and God given freedoms. Everywhere you're listening to Mama Bear's
Radio with your host, The New Normal, Kristin Hurley.
Speaker 3 (00:36):
Every day is a new normal. Welcome to Mama Bear's Radio.
Kristin Hurley. Here it's my son, Frank said the intro.
I meant to keep making a new intro for the
show New Horizons, but I end up kind of just
thinking that one's kind of cute. He could be like
a three year old saying something introducing me, and I
(00:57):
would think it was cute. But at any rate, Welcome
to Mama Bear's Radio. I was out last week, as
you will hear in a moment, my tale of woes,
slowly losing children to their own lives. It's a bittersweet.
More on that in a minute, but I'm back today
and for the foreseeable future, you're stuck with live Mama
(01:21):
Bear's Radio, The New Normal, Kristin Hurley, Safe and Effective Radio,
and it's Monday.
Speaker 4 (01:29):
School is in Sadly enough.
Speaker 3 (01:31):
For all the little kidlets out there, you know, the
beginning of the school year. I like Monday's. I like
the beginning of the school year. Back when I was
in school, I was always super stoked the first week
of class, even you know, especially high school and or
the many many college years I subjected myself to at
(01:57):
six different institutions, I might add before I actually finished
anything up. But at any rate, I was always jazzed
at the beginning. It's full of hope and promise, and
you're like, yes, I'm you know, I'm gonna do good
and learn cool stuff and new exciting horizons ahead.
Speaker 4 (02:13):
So at the.
Speaker 3 (02:15):
Very least, I hope that all kids out there in
school land, be it kindergarten through whatever the heck, are
stoked happens to be the first day of class for
the early child who was just dispensed of or whatever
the term is. Out in Salt Lake City. My middle
one is in Salt Lake. This is her thirty year
(02:36):
out there, and I had an interesting experience with that
because two years ago when we drove out there, it's
a family caravan out dropped her off.
Speaker 4 (02:48):
I was like, see.
Speaker 3 (02:50):
Yah, good luck, okay, cool, have fun, And we drove
off and It was just a very anti climactic experience,
the first of the kids to move away and go
do something. Of Course, she'd you know, been out of
high school for a couple of years. She had gotten
out a year early out of high school, and you
spent two years at excuse me, COVID Cabrillo Land, so
(03:13):
obviously not necessarily a normal early college experience or whatever,
even JC, but whatever. She was off in a way
doing her thing, and I literally was like, okay, cea
call me and you know, missed her, of course, but
was not nearly as knocked on my but as I
(03:34):
was this time around. Funny enough, it was like she'd
actually had not come home last summer because she was
getting her Utah residency, so she stayed in Salt Lake, YadA, YadA.
Of course I've seen her. Of course she's been home
for holidays, this, that and the other. But she was
home this summer for quite a bit, and so taking
her back this time around, I was like, oh no,
my little heart is breaking, probably also because I'm about
(03:57):
to lose the second one in a few weeks. We
will curt her off to her new adventure, and then
I will be very bereft, So I'm gonna cry on
the Mama bear audience's shoulders, your collective shoulders, bear with me.
Of course, there's joy and delight in each new season,
(04:20):
if I may be so cheesy, and I'm never one
to say, as you will find out later in this
hour as I talk about stuff mental health particularly, never
one to like go oh no, I can't possibly have
a sad feeling or possibly let my kids be upset
on any level. I just think the full breadth of
(04:42):
human experience, of course, the you know, the agony and
the ecstasy, right the good times, the super highs, and
then the times when you just are gut wrenched tragedy
or even just you know, something less disastrous, as you know,
dropping your kid off for their lives, adult lives at
(05:02):
any rate, the full complement of life here on planet
Earth as a human. And you know, I don't necessarily
shy away from any of that. I've had plenty of
grief and plenty of crap, as we all have, and
away we go. And so it's pointing to have those
moments and very cathartic to sit here on the radio
(05:25):
and talk about it.
Speaker 4 (05:27):
If you guys will pardon me.
Speaker 3 (05:28):
I will get onto the business of Mama Air's Radio
in just a second here, but just a little nod
out there. It's it is transition time for everybody, off
to new horizons, hopefully fun and good things to look
forward to. And as we cry in our soup over
some collective societal civilizational challenges that we do have with
(05:54):
respect to said children, as is the subject of Mama
Air's Radio in general. So at any rate, here I'm
back in action, claws out to a certain extent, I
really have found myself as as described and maybe at
the risk of repeating myself here uh to gold standard
broadcasting endeavors. I'm sorry if this is a faux pas,
(06:18):
but what what are we all doing here? And what
am I even doing on the radio anymore? Sometimes I
wonder there the hot and heavy years, excuse me of
the you know are excuse me, uh, rough COVID years,
many different labels you can affix to that.
Speaker 4 (06:35):
I have kept my.
Speaker 3 (06:36):
Little opinionated mouth shut there for just a minute. I'm
being generous. Rough couple of years really a national sort
of ripping band a the band aid off on a
number of levels, and coming to terms with where we
have taken some wrong turns, a nation at war with
(06:58):
itself incident.
Speaker 4 (07:00):
Now, I remember a number of.
Speaker 3 (07:02):
Weeks ago I went on and on and on in
some sort of strange rant about the ken Burns documentary.
I was watching The dust Bowl, and of course there's
you know, parallels every or whatever. Well, now I'm watching
the Civil War. I don't know how many episodes. There's
like eight episodes or something. I think am on number
three or four or something. And of course, okay, the
(07:23):
Civil War, and dang it, dang it if there wasn't
a lot of killing and mauling horrifically so, and we're
not there yet necessarily, although there's people looting and burning
cities or wishing they could. We are a nation at
civil war. On a number of other levels, I'm quite
(07:47):
gotten as physical as you know, as like the cold
steel of a bayonet stuffed in your neighbor's chests or whatever,
but skin could tip at any moment. It really is disheartening.
And I think my overall experience in all of this
is just feeling at odds with one's community, feeling at
(08:11):
odds with one's nation, losing that sense of we're all
in this together. Kind of thing is the world struggles on.
It's like America is just lost our little way with
one another. And I don't like the division and strife.
(08:32):
And I definitely coming back to Mama Bear's radio, definitely
do not want that for my kids. Sadly, they know,
they know it, they feel it. It's tangibly so, and
they don't feel that cohesive, sort of care free, foundational.
Speaker 4 (08:55):
Support of.
Speaker 3 (08:58):
A nation and life. I don't think is I did,
or you know, any of my gen X peer set
grew up with. And these kids know that, they see
it that the adults in the room are at constant
strife with one another, vicious viciously so and my kids,
(09:20):
you know, my kids hear me say something, they got
all bench and they're like, oh, there goes mom again.
Why do you have to be such a hater, mom?
And I'm like, I'm not a hater. I just am
really sort of open kimono about how we are just
a you know, a nation at odds with one another.
Speaker 4 (09:40):
And it kills me.
Speaker 3 (09:42):
It pains me, and I when I talk about people
that have a different sort of a different perspective on
things than I do politically speaking, or sort of awareness
h you know, of sort being aware that what's going
on sort of underneath the hood, in political world or
(10:02):
municipalities or government or even socially social conditions we've set
for ourselves super frustrating and any rate, at any rate
in my household, the kids, yeah, you know, I don't
know that that is their world to be determined. The
(10:23):
jury is out. As I say, how this affects everybody
long term. But I've got a lot of stuff to
cover today under all of that big umbrella again, you know,
we are here to remedy this, the muck that we
have found ourselves in. I for one, am not just
gonna idly sit around and oh, well, I guess this
(10:45):
is I guess this is the life we have. It
doesn't sit with me, and so I kind of am
constantly looking for understanding, looking for other people to come
up with a with a perspective that helps me along
in my ny and sort of my that excuse me.
The soap opera, the daily soap opera of all of
us struggling to get through, just to provide again a
(11:10):
nation to bequeath for our posterity, mine and yours ours
together as a nation and help them, you know, grow
up into some semblance of a collective national spirit, filled
with inspiration and good things in store for them, a
(11:33):
reason to get up in the morning and be productive
and enjoy life and have have faith for the future.
All of those, all of those wonderful endeavors. Is you
know why I comb through copious amounts of articles and
media and thinkers and speakers and media and podcasts just
(11:57):
to help myself along and then ideally, in turn help
pass that along to other people, either via Mama Bears
radio or the more immediacy of my household.
Speaker 4 (12:07):
My poor kids. I'm always like here, read this.
Speaker 3 (12:10):
Or here's a podcast, listen to this, and I don't
think any of that gets consumed, but I try.
Speaker 4 (12:17):
Okay, well, I'm up against my.
Speaker 3 (12:18):
First break here, everybody, when we come back, as usual,
I chitchat my way through a good, good portion of
my hours here. I want to read from a recent
Abigail Shreier piece again, specifically, stop asking kids if they're depressed.
This is absolutely aligned with my perspective of we're dwelling
(12:41):
too much on every darn stupid emotion. Our kids are
taught to think that they have a condition for everything,
instead of like, oh, This is the normal course of
the human experience. As I was just talking about, before
you get the good and the bad. Well, anytime there
is good or bad, the kids are told that they're
they've got something and they're labeled. And the state of
(13:05):
Illinois beware, beware, coming soon to a state near you,
has decided to have mental health screenings for all kids
in school. And I think it starts aged third grade
and up ah, Okay, we're gonna delve into that when
I get back here. Okay, everybody stay tuned Mama Bears Radio,
Kristin Hurley here.
Speaker 4 (13:26):
I'll be right back.
Speaker 5 (13:30):
Mama Bears Radio.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
We'll be right back.
Speaker 4 (13:56):
Music.
Speaker 3 (13:58):
Welcome back to Mama Bear's Kristin Hurley here. My new
normal is minus children in the household. Actually, my youngest
just hit eighteen, and that, of course compiled with taking
one to Salt Lake and then one the other one's
leaving soon. I'm like, oh no, they're going and they're
all adults.
Speaker 4 (14:18):
Now I have.
Speaker 3 (14:20):
Zero jurisdiction legally speaking.
Speaker 4 (14:24):
Oh good times.
Speaker 3 (14:25):
Well, anyways, everybody, welcome back here Mama Bears Radio. As
I said before the break, I was going to talk
a little bit about a piece by Abigail Schreier talking
about this brand spanking new law in Illinois. Again that
the monkey see and monkey doo of these states. So
(14:46):
I wouldn't put it past California to dream something up
like this. But a new law in Illinois makes mandatory
annual mental health screenings for all public school children third
through twelfth grades. The esteemed governor Pritzker says, Illinois.
Speaker 4 (15:08):
Now the first state in the nation.
Speaker 3 (15:10):
Oh darn it, Gavin Newsome, you didn't get to be
the first state in the nation. He loves getting to
be the first in anything, good old Gavin. Okay, anyways, sorry,
Prinsker says, Illinois the first state in the nation to
require mental screenings in its public schools. Our school should
be inclusive places where students are not just comfortable asking
for help, they're empowered.
Speaker 4 (15:28):
To do it. It's right.
Speaker 3 (15:29):
Depend on your school for everything you need.
Speaker 4 (15:33):
Little children, do not tell your parents.
Speaker 3 (15:37):
Translation there, Okay, months and months ago, possibly last year.
You know, the days and the months and the years
all blend together at this point. I did review quite
extensively Abigail Schreyer's recent book Bad Therapy. If you guys remember,
of course, more recently, than that I talked about on trunk.
Speaker 4 (15:59):
Lord Delano's book book.
Speaker 3 (16:01):
Abigail Schreyer covered more with respect to adolescence young adults,
American children and adolescents who are being diagnosed right and
left of mental health disorders and prescribed plenty of psychiatric
(16:21):
medication quote unquote medication. I use that lightly.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
So.
Speaker 3 (16:27):
The book was published in twenty twenty four, she writes
in a new piece that was published both in the
Free Press and on her substack here, many young people
without serious mental illness nonetheless spend years languishing without a diagnosis,
alternately cursing it and embracing it. Sorry, languishing with a diagnosis,
excuse me cursing it, embracing it, believing they have a
(16:50):
broken brain, and convincing themselves that their struggles are insurmountabi insurmountable.
Because of the disorders and straints, they meet regularly with
the therapist or school counselor, on whom they become increasingly reliant,
losing a sense of efficacy, unable to navigate on their
(17:11):
own or even minor setbacks and interpersonal conflicts, they begin
a course of antidepressants that carry all kinds of side effects,
including suppressed libido, fatigue, muffling of all emotion, increase in depression,
and I anxiety drugs and the stimulants given a kids
diagnosed with ADHD are both addictive and ubiquitously abused. And
(17:34):
Abigail Schreyer says, and this is true, She's often that
tragic descent begins with a simple mental health survey. She
did extensive research for her book Bad Therapy. It's really good,
and I encourage everyone to either revisit it or pick
(17:55):
it up for the first time. So she interviewed hundreds
of parents of such kids who were funneled into this pipeline,
and a good number of them, of course, had it experienced.
She chronicles this as well, a mental health survey given
to them either in their classrooms or at a doctor's
(18:19):
office when they were visiting for something completely unrelated to
an emotional well being. So Abigail Schreier says in her
article here she is by chance. While I was writing
the book, her book Bad Therapy, she said, my middle
school aged son returned home from a sleep away camp
with a persistent stomach ache. I took him to urgent care,
(18:40):
where nurse asked me to leave the room so he
could administer a mental health screening tool put out by
the National Institute of Mental Health that turned out to
be NIMH explicit protocol, which is this, ask parents to
leave so that you can minister the following questions to
(19:01):
kids who have not shown any signs of mental distress
aged eight and up. Thank you National Institute of Mental
Health for this protocol.
Speaker 4 (19:13):
For kids eight and up.
Speaker 3 (19:15):
Excuse me, who have not shown any signs of mental
distress yet here's a survey to ask them without their
parent in the room. Again, this is an innocuous visit
to a doctor's office that Abigail Shreer experienced. I've been
there too, of course, I just said, you know, my
children now are of age, but there were a number
(19:38):
of times with them prior years with a dog.
Speaker 4 (19:41):
I'm there for a normal.
Speaker 3 (19:42):
Stupid checkup back when we did such things, and I
was asked to leave the room, of which of course
me I refuse, But they had the goal to tell
me that I could I please leave the room. They
had some survey questions for my kids. But this happens.
(20:05):
How many times do the parents leave their kids alone
with the doctor because the doctor's in a white coat.
Okay here okay, So, Abigail Tryer requested a copy of
the survey and photographed it. Here, verbatim are the five
questions the nurse intended to put to my son in private.
Question number one, in the past few weeks, have you
wished you were dead? Question two? In the past few weeks,
(20:26):
have you felt that you or your family would be
better off if you were dead?
Speaker 4 (20:30):
Question number three?
Speaker 3 (20:31):
In the past week, have had have you been having
thoughts about killing yourself? Question number four, have you ever
tried to kill yourself? If yes, how and when? Question five?
Are you thinking of killing yourself right now? If yes,
please describe. Okay, I'm sorry to laugh. It's either laugh
or cry. This is bull honky, this is disgusting. Now,
(20:55):
if you read the book Bad Therapy, there's at least
an entire chapter, if not a couple, dedicated to discussing
these mental health surveys that are passed along in classrooms
unbeknownst to parents probably ninety nine percent of the time,
and students.
Speaker 4 (21:14):
Have to face these.
Speaker 3 (21:16):
Words on the paper that are incredibly suggestive and normalize.
Have you thought of killing yourself? If yes, please explain
and make it seem like it's totally incompletely normal. Now,
of course, that other surveys delve into your child's excuse me,
(21:38):
your eight year old child's sexual preferences and their gender
identity and all that kind of stuff. I'm not going
to deal with that necessarily right now. But of course
that's the flip side of the coin here, but specifically
with respect to the point at hand here that the
state of Illinois has decided that it's mandatory that every
(22:00):
public school child take a survey aged third grade and up,
a mental health screening survey that will absolutely guaranteed, hands down,
have questions, suggestive questions such as this, probably, in my opinion,
you can guess one can one can follow the dots right?
Speaker 4 (22:23):
You know? Are you?
Speaker 3 (22:24):
Do you ever find yourself sad? Have you ever had
a bad feeling? Have you ever been mad? Have your
parents ever told you no? I mean, I could go
on and on and on what we can imagine what
these surveys may include, but case some points, is an
actual survey. Abigail Schreyer goes on to say kids are
(22:46):
wildly suggestible, especially where psychiatric symptoms are concerned. Ask a
kid repeatedly if he might be depressed. How about now,
are you sure?
Speaker 4 (22:56):
And he just might decide that he is. Excuse me
that they is.
Speaker 3 (23:05):
Z is introduce, says Abbiel Schreier. She goes on to say,
this piece into a peer group, and a swath of
seventh grade girls, sorry, introduce gender dysphoria into a peer group,
and a swath of seventh grade girls are likely to
decide they were born in the wrong body. Introduce quote
testing anxiety or quote social phobia or quote suicidality to them,
(23:29):
and many teens are likely to decide why I have
that too.
Speaker 4 (23:33):
There's a reason.
Speaker 3 (23:34):
Clinicians keep anirexia patients from socializing unsupervised in a hospital ward.
Anarexia is profoundly socially contagious, and that is well known
for decades, and no one's connecting the dots about the
social contagion of every other diagnosis out there known to man.
(23:55):
I'm going to have to take a break here, guys.
But the point being in you obviously see her. Where
I and Abigail Schreyer are going with is they're going
to take an entire state full of kids. Now, granted,
these types of surveys are probably already pretty fairly prevalent
(24:16):
in the classrooms. They're ubiquitous as actually, as the research
shows they're ubiquitous in classrooms today. But the fact that
the state has decided mandatory mental health screenings for all children,
all public school children, guarantees they're going to be getting
many of these and ooh, I wonder what they're gonna find.
Speaker 4 (24:37):
All right, we're going to continue with this article.
Speaker 3 (24:39):
It's very very horrifically unsettling and very informative, though, so
I want to keep reading. In the meantime, we take
our break. This is Mama Bear's Radio. Kristin Hurley here.
Speaker 4 (24:51):
I'll be right back.
Speaker 5 (24:55):
Mama Bear's Radio.
Speaker 2 (24:58):
We'll be right back.
Speaker 4 (25:39):
Welcome back to Mama Bear's Radio.
Speaker 3 (25:41):
Kristen Hurley here, Safe and effective radio. Not so much
on the mental health screenings for school children children in Illinois.
Speaker 4 (25:52):
Which is the topic this hour.
Speaker 3 (25:53):
If you're just joining in, we are here at AM
thirteen forty k O M Y and Mama Bears Radio
is got my claws out about this. This is actually
seriously upsetting. I talk a lot about kids and slapping labels.
(26:16):
Slapping labels on anyone, excuse me, kids or adults. We
are a labeling society, and I just always think it's
the biggest kicker in the pants, where like the people
are like, well, she is a racist, but they're the
ones that are like, they're the You're the ones looking
at someone's skin color and calling people out for what
(26:37):
category they fall into just drives me nuts. And it's
the same thing with kids. And again the kids. Kids
are so incredibly malleable, suggestible.
Speaker 4 (26:54):
They try everything on for size.
Speaker 3 (26:57):
If you've raised a kid, you know that one day
they've got one attitude and the next day they've got
the next, and weeks go by that there's phases galore.
Speaker 4 (27:08):
And your kids are meant to.
Speaker 3 (27:12):
Broaden their broad in their horizons, broaden their understanding of
the world around them, test things out, run into walls,
right they you know that, as we say in the
Early Household, the burnt hand is the teaching hand. I
am a strong believer, and of course I've talked a
(27:32):
lot about your free range kids, right, letting your kids
roam and grow and explore, not boxing them in. And
I feel like the social emotional part of society, everybody's like,
oh you have a feeling, Oh no, can't have that,
(27:52):
Or if you do, there's something wrong with you. Drives
me that as crazy.
Speaker 4 (28:00):
I open the show.
Speaker 3 (28:01):
Talking about, you know, the course of human events. You
get every dang emotion under the sun, and it's a
beautiful thing. It is the full scope of experience here.
And we are limiting our kids. We are hammering them down.
We are absolutely clipping their little wings and excuse me,
(28:23):
causing them harm by allowing them to think that they
are somehow defective or there's something wrong with this picture.
Speaker 4 (28:33):
If you are.
Speaker 3 (28:34):
Going through a phase, or you're going through a tough time,
or you're struggling on some level behavior issues or emotional state,
maybe something really it is wrong in your life, and
how do you grow and overcome that without the the
(28:55):
you know, just the this is hard to say, but
like the full embrace of facing the facts about stuff
or having, you know, coming through something that's really emotionally
difficult builds substance within you. And anyways, so this is
just killing me that this is what it's coming to.
(29:15):
And now it's official law in the state of Illinois
that every single kid is going to get mentally health
screened with very suggestive surveys mandatory in school. This is
from doctor Alan Francis Duke University professor of psychiatry, incidentally enough,
author of the DSM Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.
(29:39):
Thank you, excuse me, The DSM four widely known as
the psychiatric Bible. Excuse me, which is part of half
our problems here in the first place, making these things up.
Speaker 4 (29:53):
Okay, excuse me.
Speaker 3 (29:55):
But doctor Allen Francis says, mandatory school screenings for kids
and this is the at one one of the authors
of the DSM.
Speaker 4 (30:01):
Excuse me.
Speaker 3 (30:01):
Listen to this, Mandatory school screenings of kids for mental
illness are great in theory and terrible in practice. Most
kids who screen positive will have transient problems, not mental disorders.
Mislabeling stigmatizes and subjects them to unnecessary treatments, while misdirecting
(30:22):
very scarce resources away from kids who desperately need them.
I wholeheartedly concur Abigail Schreier, and I'm quoting here from
her article.
Speaker 4 (30:33):
Her substock says, a certain.
Speaker 3 (30:35):
Amount of anxiety and low mood is not only a
normal part of every life. They are almost a signal
feature of adolescents, reflecting dramatic periods of psychosocial and psychosexual change.
What might look like depression in an adult is very
often just a phase and a teenager, But informing a
teen that he has shown signs of quote depression is
(30:55):
no neutral act. Handing a mental diagnosis to a child
or teen, even if accurate, is an enormously consequential event.
It changes the way a young person sees himself, creates
limitations for what he believes he can achieve, encourage treatment,
dependency on a therapist, and empties out his sense of
(31:18):
agency that he can on his own achieve his goals
and improve his life. And unlike the alleged benefits of
mental health screeners, there is solid evidence on the harms
produced by receiving a mental diagnosis, harms that are pure
tragedy in the case of misdiagnosis.
Speaker 4 (31:38):
In fact, at Schreier goes on to say.
Speaker 3 (31:40):
There is no proof that mental health screeners have ever
shown to improve mental health outcomes. Nor are screeners capable
of identifying who the next school shooter will be. They
are poor at identifying which kids have depressions, since they
are not sensitive enough to distinguish it from normal periods
of sadness. They do not even reliably indicate which kids
(32:02):
are risk of suicide. What mental health surveys reliable, reliably
produce is false positives. Screening for low probability diagnosis diagnosses
like suicidality or clinical depression will inevitably generate a surf
of misdiagnoses. It isn't hard mathematically to see why, she says,
(32:24):
whenever you screen very large numbers of people for very
low incidence conditions, even with good tests, false positives will
overwhelm accurate diagnoses making reasonable assumptions about the suicide rate
in an adolescent population, the overwhelming majority of students flagged.
Speaker 4 (32:41):
For suicidality will be false positives. Quote.
Speaker 3 (32:46):
If you do the statistical calculation, you discover that the
false positive rate is about ninety seven percent, says Stephen Morse,
professor of lawn psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania. That's
a lot of kids whose lives and self conceptions the
state will have altered with false alarms. Illinois State Senator
(33:07):
one of the esteemed representatives in Illinois, who cooked up
excuse me, that's a Mama Bear's editorial here. Who cooked
up this scheme? Laura Fine, she's the chair of Prisker's
Mental Health committee. She indicated last week that the state
may harbor broader ambitions and the quote the screenings will
be designed to catch the early signs of anxiety, depression
(33:29):
or trauma.
Speaker 4 (33:31):
Whoops, what did she just say?
Speaker 3 (33:33):
They'll be designed to catch the early signs of anxiety.
Speaker 4 (33:38):
Depression, or trauma.
Speaker 3 (33:43):
Abigail Schreyer goes on to say, trauma is not a
recognized mental health diagnosis, as I encountered during my investigation.
She's talking about writing her book that therapy and the
hands of school counselors. Quote trauma can and does mean
any hurt suffered in childhood, as your parents ever spained
to you, yelled at you, forced you to attend church.
(34:05):
Do they offer enthusiastic affirmation of your chosen gender identity?
Speaker 4 (34:08):
Or are they skeptical?
Speaker 3 (34:10):
All of these are routinely identified as sources of childhood
quote trauma. And because teachers and school mental health staff
are all quote mandatory reporters, anything they learn about a
family's private life that carries even a whiff of quote
trauma may occasional call to child services. Okay, I'm going
to pause here for my next break. Here, my the
(34:33):
minutes pass right on by here on live radio. I
do want to finish this up though, before the end
of the hour, because I have a lot more to
get to.
Speaker 4 (34:43):
Next hour as usual, and we.
Speaker 3 (34:47):
Get through just a teen ski a little bit, but
again this kills me hits home.
Speaker 4 (34:54):
I just cannot.
Speaker 3 (34:55):
See how it is the state's business what soever to scream,
excuse me give your kid a survey that is quote
designed to screen for any sign of anxiety or depression
or mental illness. How is that the state's business. I'm
(35:20):
gonna leave it there, all right, everybody, Kristin Hurley, Mama
Bear's Radio.
Speaker 4 (35:25):
I am pinched. I will take my veryk and be
right back.
Speaker 5 (35:28):
Stay with me, Mama Bear's Radio. We'll be right back.
Speaker 3 (36:00):
The time is on my side.
Speaker 4 (36:02):
All the stove to my life wide.
Speaker 2 (36:07):
As long as the wheels deponing round.
Speaker 3 (36:12):
I will live all the groove till the sun goes
All right, everybody, Welcome back to Mama Bear's Radio. Kristen Hurley,
here safe, an effective radio.
Speaker 4 (36:25):
Here we go.
Speaker 3 (36:26):
I'm finishing out the hour here with the Abigail Shrier's
recent piece. It was in the pre Press, one of
my favorite outlets, and also her substack, especially in the
last generation. Right it's Abigail Shriyer. Adolescent mental health has
leaped off cliff all while we have doubled and redoubled
(36:49):
resources spent on adolescent mental health. Mama Bear's aside, I
wonder why that is. Let's pour billions of more dollars
endo the problem and only exacerbate it.
Speaker 4 (37:02):
I'm sorry.
Speaker 3 (37:03):
Back to the article, she says, the NonStop diagnosis and
treatment of American kids has not made a dent in
the prevalence of mental illness. The two have risen in parallel.
You can't give kids an unhealthy life and expect mental
health resources to fix it. That much should now be obvious,
(37:23):
and she ends this article like this, The vast majority
of our kids and teens are not mentally ill, but
they are lonely, worried, scared, and bummed out. Schools ought
to supply them with reliable bolsters to the human spirit,
high expectations, greater independence and responsibility, far far less screen time,
(37:46):
more recess, exercise, art, music, involvement, and goal oriented activities
that lure them out of their own minds and force
them to think about something anything other than themselves. And
I super super appreciate that those words and as incomplete
concurrence with everything I believe in. The more we talk
(38:11):
about the crap, the more it gets embraced again.
Speaker 4 (38:15):
The people that the labeling, the bucketing.
Speaker 3 (38:20):
The endless, endless introspection is such an inhibitor to enjoying
the fulfillment of life, and it's really handicapping our kids
and as best as job as you can possibly do,
you know, And I'm not, I'm definitely not an award
winning gold standard parent for sure has tripped up over
(38:42):
the years, but you know that in our household we
do talk about these types of things like I just
am unafraid to everything I share here on the radio
bring home with me to the kids, and even they,
you know, they will just pop out just off the
cuff with some sort of label about somebody or some
(39:05):
something something you repeat the again, the sort of the
zeitgeist of the social world that they're immersed in, where
this language.
Speaker 4 (39:17):
Is just pervasive.
Speaker 3 (39:20):
Oh I have this, Oh she's that, Oh her such
and such as acting up.
Speaker 4 (39:27):
I can't tell you how many times I hear that.
Speaker 3 (39:28):
And it's just such a blinder's way of looking at
life and oneself.
Speaker 4 (39:38):
And again to be told that you are.
Speaker 3 (39:41):
Ex when you are whatever you're years old, right, I mean,
how how many times is through the ages of we've
been like, well, if you tell tell your kids they
can't achieve anything and they're you know, no goodnicks? How
often and then do they grow up embracing that for themselves.
Speaker 4 (40:02):
Oh, you're never going to amount to anything.
Speaker 3 (40:04):
Of course, this is the you know, the parent of old.
It's internalized by very suggestible young kids. And again, you
want to label a kid and give them a reason to,
as Trier points out in her in her article, give
(40:27):
them a reason to.
Speaker 4 (40:30):
Label themselves it's.
Speaker 3 (40:32):
Not my fault, or embrace sort of a victimhood mentality
and not have the self satisfaction and again the you know,
the inner fortitude to believe in themselves to be able
to overcome something, or again understand which is part of
maturity and adulthood. Understand that you adapt, persevere and overcome
(40:58):
your hardships and life and those achievements, whether there you've
walked across the street for your very first time by yourself,
or you're you know, you've complete a college degree, kay
or whatever it is that you have gone out and
clawed your way through and you get the jew the
(41:21):
good juju juices reward internally, a feather in your cap
of like, hey, I can do that, and what's next
on my horizon? Again, we are woefully limiting our kids
by endlessly talking about are you gonna kill yourself?
Speaker 4 (41:40):
Oh? You might?
Speaker 3 (41:41):
Oh, we're probably thinking about it. Did you know you're
thinking about it? Maybe you didn't know you were thinking
about it. Well, maybe you should start thinking about it.
Speaker 4 (41:50):
Oh. Anyways, you can opt out.
Speaker 3 (41:53):
And this is another point brought up in this article.
Parents can opt out of this stuff now. Of course,
thank you Illinois. This is mandatory. The actual constitutionality of
this I would doubt, but it didn't until it's fought
in courts whatever.
Speaker 4 (42:12):
In California.
Speaker 3 (42:14):
You can opt out of these types of things, these surveys. Definitely,
you can opt out of topics as we just thank
you Supreme Court, what had to go through with Mamou
versus Taylor. The schools cannot overwrite your autonomy as a
family for your beliefs in your household and what you
(42:34):
want your kids to be exposed to you in school
or not. And there are many, many resources for you
even if you don't want any survey to touch your
kid's desk that touches on these types of topics that's
against your beliefs or even excuse me, and I know
I've covered this before. It shouldn't even have to be
(42:56):
really against your personal beliefs. It should just be your
choice as a free human, sovereign being, you can reject this,
and I encourage everyone to do so. Specific Justice Institute
has endless resources. Informed Parents of California endless resources. If
you look for it, you can find plenty of legal,
(43:18):
legally sound resources to help you have the tools to
get after your schools and disallow these this type of
material from coming in front of your kids.
Speaker 4 (43:31):
So I encourage everyone in that.
Speaker 3 (43:34):
Again, can we just get back to fortifying our kids
with the good things that actually will help them in life,
such as, oh, mathematics, great literature, the joys of physics
and chemistry and mechanics, the wonderful things that you can
(44:00):
do and build with your hands or create and imagine artistically.
It can we help our schools get back to the
things that are gonna uplift our kids and propel them
into a hopeful, exciting, wide open future where they feel
(44:21):
like they can achieve anything and they've got the foundation
and the tools in their tool belt to believe that
they can.
Speaker 4 (44:30):
I hate this breaking everyone down.
Speaker 3 (44:32):
Okay, well, this has been the first hour of Mama
Bear's Radio. I'm back up in about six or seven
minutes for another hour. We're going to tackle a few
more topics and we'll see where the winds take us.
Speaker 4 (44:44):
At any rate, Mama Bear's Radio.
Speaker 3 (44:47):
Kristen Hurley here, you guys, hang on with me through
the top of the hour.
Speaker 4 (44:50):
Break. We'll be back in just a bit.
Speaker 2 (44:53):
Eavy Generation throws a hero up the pop chars let icine.
Speaker 3 (44:57):
As magical and magical as odd the boy in the
bubble and the baby with the battle.
Speaker 4 (45:02):
In the hard and I believe these are.
Speaker 1 (45:04):
Days Lasers in the jungle, Blazers in the jungle, somewhere.
Speaker 2 (45:10):
Ros the cable signals, consant.
Speaker 1 (45:13):
Information, a lous affiliation of millionaires and billionaires, and baby,
you're listening to kom wy Selva Beach, home of Schoolhouse Radio.
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