i’m very happy this is all being brought to the limelight.
I just want to add from my own experience. I was a “normal” “regular” good kid who never had a thought about going OTD, i was respectful, studious, did well, yes had a few run ins with teachers or kids in class occasionally, all normal. But i had a few REALLY bad teachers who should have never stepped foot into ANY classroom. I suffered TERRIBLY but b”h i was always very close to my parents and tehy backed me all the way. (don’t worry i got “petch” too sometimes) It is a HUGE achrayis to be in chinuch. Funny enough when the time came for me to go to work a lot of people kept on saying i should go into chinuch. i wam SO reluctant about it. It’s sooo frightening.
I also want to mention here (i’ve mentionned it in another post too) that there can be very “frum” kids who seem totally normal, part of the fold and everything but have HUGE major questions thta MUST be addressed. Many times they themselves are scared to ask there questions bacause they know it “shouldn’t be a question”, they’re scared of the response and their teacher and fellow classmates acceptance. Once a child already is showing outer signs of “bumming out” (boy -colored shirts, denim colored kappel…girls- gets more… untznius…)it has already gone VERY VERY far. They’ve already gone through LOTS of inner turmoil when they were very “yehsivish” and “frum”.
i see that here again some are saying you can’t give excuses for going off and others that it’s because of x,y, and z. Its neither. You can’t say that it’s totally not their fault they were abused… whatever and they went off. Yes there is reasoning and great causing factor but they had bechira. It’s both.
For ALL kids one huge “remedy” is UNCONDITIONAL LOVE . note i said ALL. kal vechomer for kids that are at risk and OTD.