Children's Rights vs Parent's Rights
By Kathy Reynolds

     My personal views on Children's Rights are simple. The children, because they are the innocent ones, should have the rights. Not their parents, or the grandparents, or the state. 

Children have the right to proper food, shelter, clothing, education, and and loving care. 

Children have the right to know their roots by having relationships with extended family members such as grandparents, aunts, uncles cousins and siblings.

Children have the right to be protected from abuse and neglect whether it be from parents, grandparents, teachers, clergy, etc. 
It is the responsibility of the adults caring for the child to see that those basic rights are not infringed upon. 

Parents should be compelled to provide the necessities of life.

Parents should be compelled to encourage and foster relationships with extended family  members no matter their personal likes or dislikes of those family members as long as to do so would not endanger the child. 

Parents must put the physical and emotional safety of their child above all else.

Parents have the right and responsibility to decide who is a danger to their child and deny  access to the child, BUT the burden of proof must always be the responsibility of the parent to show what that danger is.

Grandparents have the responsibility to see that their grandchildren are safe from harm.

Grandparents have the responsibility to intervene on a child's behalf if that child's rights are being compromised. 

Grandparents have the responsibility to respect the views of the parents in raising their own child, UNLESS there is a clear and present danger of REAL harm to the child.

The State has the responsibility to see that the child is free from harm physically, and mentally caused by the adults entrusted with their care.

The State has the responsibility to see that the rights of the child are compromised by no one.