![\"111019Tavris2\"](\"http:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/111019Tavris2.jpg\")
Aug. 10, 2012<\/p>\nAug. 10, 2012<\/p>\n
Carol Tavris:<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter the McMartin trial in 1986, I wrote an article for the Los Angeles Times about research that had been done on how to interview children in sex abuse cases. Evidence at the time suggested that sometimes you have to ask children leading questions or they will not tell you they have been molested.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor example, if you interviewed a child after a genital examination and you asked her just to tell what the doctor did, almost no child would volunteer that the doctor touched her genitals. But if you asked a leading question, such as, \u2018The doctor touched your private parts, didn\u2019t he?\u2019 the children would say \u2018yes.\u2019 The L.A. Times headlined this article, \u2018Do Children Lie? Not About This.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cOf course that was preposterous. Of course children lie \u2018about this\u2019 and lots of other things. But my essay, although based on research at the time, helped support the child advocates who were on a rampage against child molesters, and who were running around saying \u2018children never lie\u2019 and selling bumper stickers that said \u2018Believe the Children.\u2019\u2019 I didn\u2019t foresee that prosecutors and therapists would use these same studies to coerce the hell out of kids.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I think of my own embarrassment about that little article, and how hard it was to say, \u2018Boy, was I wrong about that research,\u2019 I realize how difficult it must be for all those \u2018believe the children\u2019 people to acknowledge they were wrong, too. In fact, most of them haven\u2019t. They are more entrenched than ever in their pernicious beliefs.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2013 From \u201c<\/em>The Measure of a Woman: An Interview with Social Scientist Carol Tavris<\/em><\/a>\u201d Aug. 10, 2012 Carol Tavris: \u201cAfter the McMartin trial in 1986, I wrote an article for the Los Angeles Times about research that had been done on how to interview children in sex abuse cases. Evidence at the time suggested that sometimes you have to ask children leading questions or they will not tell you […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-597","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/597","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=597"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/597\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":598,"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/597\/revisions\/598"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=597"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=597"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.littlerascalsdaycarecase.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=597"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nin\u00a0<\/em>Skeptic<\/em><\/a>\u00a0magazine (Feb. 9, 2011)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"