Parenting can already be tough enough. But what happens when you have a school board and possibly medical board standing against you?
Mom and TikToker Alicia McQueen found herself in an impossible, and honestly eerie, situation when a dental consultant showed up at her kids' elementary school, offering free teeth cleanings and consultations.
The school explained that the cleanings were highly recommended, and encouraged parents to give consent for the services. So, believing that the school had her children's best interests at heart, McQueen signed off.
The dental cleanings went off without a hitch, but then McQueen was contacted by the associated dental facility, telling her that her children had obvious signs of tooth decay and other problems and they would need root canals and general anesthesia, or "laughing gas."
The person also said that McQueen would not be allowed to attend the surgeries with her children, and that McQueen could not have access to her children's dental medical records.
This immediately put McQueen on a red alert, as her children had always had positive experiences at the dentist, and to her knowledge, her children's teeth showed no signs of even cavities, let alone tooth decay. Because of this, she declined the offer for the surgery and booked appointments for her children at their standard dental office.
As usual, they had a positive experience at the dentist, who gave the children a "clean bill of health."
But when the school-associated dental program called again, they started to threaten the mom for neglecting her children's health, despite her reference to the appointment they'd just had at the dentist. The person McQueen spoke to also said they could use her consent form from the dental cleanings to schedule multiple appointments, which would place the family in truancy for missing too much school.
By the end of her first TikTok video, McQueen was unsure of who to contact next, as the school and the dental program refused to accept her lack of consent, and they refused to give her more information about the dental program, including its name.
You can watch the video here:
Fellow TikTokers reassured McQueen that they wouldn't have given consent, either.
@aliciajoymq/TikTok
@aliciajoymq/TikTok
@aliciajoymq/TikTok
@aliciajoymq/TikTok
In the second video in the series, McQueen was visibly upset and unsure of what to do next. After talking to her medical insurance and to multiple people at the school, she was unable to obtain more information about the medical program the school was connected with or how to stop the medical program from giving her children these surgeries without her consent.
McQueen was set to receive copies of her kids' medical records, showing that she was properly taking care of them and that they did not need the dental procedures the school was pushing on to them, hopefully keeping threats of neglect charges and Child Protective Services at bay.
But the greater problem was that McQueen's primary care dentist and her medical insurance could not "go after" the school-associated dental program, because the school would not release the name of the program or the school faculty who were involved.
You can watch the second video here:
Fellow TikTokers encouraged McQueen to keep pushing for answers.
@aliciajoymq/TikTok
@aliciajoymq/TikTok
@aliciajoymq/TikTok
@aliciajoymq/TikTok
@aliciajoymq/TikTok
@aliciajoymq/TikTok
@aliciajoymq/TikTok
In the third, but surely not the last, video in the series, McQueen seemed less concerned about obtaining information just for her children but for all families who had signed off on the dental cleanings, basically out of good faith.
McQueen was picking up the dental records from her primary dentist to show that her children were healthy and did not need the sketchy procedures to prepare for the meeting with Child Protective Services when her dentist confided to her that she was not the first parent who had to show medical evidence for not needing these procedures done.
McQueen explained that other parents over the years had to come in for the same paperwork to get around child neglect charges and to attempt to avoid these unnecessary procedures.
You can watch the third video here:
Since McQueen is now pushing to advocate for families who went through similar experiences, and to sever the connection between the school and this questionable dental program, she will likely share more videos as she connects with more people.
Based on the support found in the comments section, hopefully this practice will receive the attention it deserves.
