To my right is the decision we received by the Family Court in Calgary, Alberta. This decision was read to us in open court on Feb. 9, 2001
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Page 5: The Decision
5
Michelle Hoffman
Mother is 32 years of age and is a Registered Nurse who specializes in critical care. She said that at her work she keeps people alive with medications, recognizes problems before they happen and does intensive counseling of faro/lies. She helps people deal with loss and grief and often runs an entire unit of 22 beds. She previously worked in a women's shelter, took suicide
prevention training, etc. She worked as a nurse's aide from the age of 15 until she was 21 and took her nursing training. She is also the mother of twin 5 year old girls, whose father is Allan Radke. She has never been married.
Mother says that the Child was a very awake baby who didn't like to cuddle. His difficult behavior started when he was three years old. He threw temper tantrums and they (I assume she was referring to herself and Allan Radke) couldn't teach him fight from wrong. She did a great deal of self-teaching from a number of books in order to "fix him up". In any event, his behavior just continued to get worse no matter what she did. She did not consult a doctor because she didn't want the Child to be labeled. He had terrible problems in school, including being very aggressive.
She finally took the Child to a psychologist when he was "eight or seven" because she wasn't able to control him while he was in school. She didn't want him medicated because she didn't believe in Ritalin, but she was very concerned that he wasn't going to grow up properly or be a normal adult. She worried that he was going to be dysfunctional because he couldn't concentrate and couldn't learn and it was very important to her for him to get an education. She said the Child knows that he will go straight from high school into university and that this is not a matter of choice.
When the Child was prescribed Ritalin, he went from being a self-conscious, really troubled angry Child with no self esteem at all to being happy and pleased with himself about having done well in school and managed to sit still. She feels that he is finally getting some good morals and he has done the best in his class on his provincial exams, which makes her very proud. She attributes this to the hard work of his family, his community, his school - everyone working together.
She described in great detail the regime by which the Child lives every day. She exhibited charts showing his daily chores for which he earns privileges, rules that he is not to break, including lying, stealing and fighting, for which he is spanked. She said it is important that he follows the chart because he can't think for himself. She communicates with his teachers every day so she
knows exactly what behavior he has exhibited. The Child and his twin half-sisters are disciplined in accordance with a program entitled 1-2-3-Magic.