Description: In 1991, the National Commission on Children called attention to the fact that a small but significant number of parents are failing to fulfill their basic childrearing responsibilities. Dr. Jack C. Westman, an esteemed child advocate, systematically connects the damage caused to children by the failings of those parents to our society's educational, health, safety, and economic problems. A small fraction of the population has reduced public safety to unacceptable levels of danger and sapped the productivity of the nation. These dangerous and dependent individuals are increasing in numbers that drain public funds and erode the productivity of our workforce. Licensing Parents: Can We Prevent Child Abuse and Neglect? is a provocative work that points the way to reversing these alarming trends. Dr. Westman stimulates thought about the enormous waste of human and economic resources that results from incompetent parents who spawn our society's criminal and welfare dependency problems. He also shows how competent parenting can override the adverse effects of brain damage, malnutrition, and poverty. By focusing attention on the controversial but eminently logical act of licensing parents, Dr. Westman challenges the United States to translate pro-children rhetoric into action that would indeed make a difference in the lives of our children. Licensing parents would symbolically set a societal standard that parents may raise their children as they desire as long as they do not damage their children's abilities to become contributing members of society. It would convey the message to all elements of society that childrearing is an important and valued responsibility and would heighten awareness ofthe importance of competent parenting to all of us. Most importantly, it would recognize children as human beings with basic civil rights. The author describes a multi-level approach to families that demonstrates society's respect for parenting and also provides help for foundering parents. He calls for national policies that support rather than undermine parenting as they do now. He points to ways in which communities and neighborhoods can become places in which families and children can thrive. Licensing Parents urges concerned citizens, parents, professionals, and politicians to confront incompetent parenting before it is too late.

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