Winter 2000
Elian's Plight: The Best Interests of a Child
Forensic psychiatrist and Chairman of the San Francisco Foundation for Psychoanalysis Mark I. Levy recently visited Cuba and shares the following insights on the plight of six-year-old Elian Gonzalez.
"The general public of Cuba has a spread of opinions about what is best for Elian," says Levy. "Many feel that it is not legally or morally defensible for the United States to keep Elian here. Others confess to believing that the boy will enjoy a better material future in the U.S." However, Levy says that the overriding feeling of Cubans is that of disillusionment. They view Elian's plight as one in a long-standing series of political circuses between Cuba and the United States. When you live in a controlled society, asserts Levy, you feel a lot of cynicism. "A taxi driver summed up this crisis for the Cuban people best," says Levy. "'Enough already,' he said, 'There are kids in Cuba going hungry and all this effort is going on for Elian.'" Levy asserts that the United States is not taking into consideration the legal standard for child custody disputes; that is, the best interests of the child. "What a confusing message he must be receiving. Can Elian make sense of the disparate facts of his mother's death and the Miami "party" to which he has been feted?" asks Levy. "Elian's month at the circus needs rapid closure so that he can return to his homeland and heal with his father and his grandparents."
Who's Caring for Child Care Providers?
It is well documented that childcare providers are the lowest-paid teaching professionals in the United States. And yet dual-working parents leave their children in childcare for up to 12 hours each day.
"I ask you, who is raising the child?" says Phyllis Cath, M.D., chair of the Child Development Program at the San Francisco Psychoanalytic Institute. "A teacher can make a minor intervention that can make a world of difference in a child's life." SFPI's Child Development Program offers a series of courses for administrators, head teachers and family day care providers that focuses on helping child care providers look at children's behavior with a psychological perspective. Course titles range from "Separation Issues in Child Care" to "Observing Play from Peekaboo to Superheroes." "The Child Development Program helps us realize that learning happens in the context of relationships," says Lori Ottolini, Director of the Hover Youth Center at the Jewish Family Center in San Francisco and an instructor for the SFPI Child Development Program. "This program provides a safety net and support system for teachers who feel alone," continues Ottolini. "We help them understand that they have a wealth of intuitive knowledge and we provide the language they can use to approach parents when intervention is necessary." Rosie Kennedy, president of the San Francisco Family Day Care Association, appreciates the hands-on experience of these instructors. "When we attend courses at a local university, we may get a professor who's never had any actual experience with children," says Kennedy. "This creates a great chasm between the theory provided by educators and the daily practice of childcare by family day care providers. The SFPI program bridges this gap by employing mental health professionals who have helped families and their children." "It's gratifying to have someone with mental health credentials affirm that we are doing the right thing by prioritizing a child's emotional needs," says Kennedy. "There is such a push for academic success in our state now, but if the social-emotional part of a child is not working, the academics will fail, too," concludes Ottolini.
Symptons of Mental Illness in Children
Today's children have a lot on their minds. The following statistics show the importance of children's mental health:
· One in three San Francisco Bay Area children suffer from stress symptoms (e.g., eating disorders, sleep disturbances, ulcers, colitis, acting out, etc.)