You Have A Dangerous Child: Now What?

Even if you recognize your child’s a threat, then what?

That was the question posed to me by a mother during a long telephone talk, most of which I won’t repeat today.

There’s a child involved, and I only got one side of the story. So before going into this, let’s apply the biggest grain of salt there is. Let’s assume this lady fl at-out lied when she told me of her adoptive child tormenting an animal, making cold threats repeatedly, showing no remorse over endangering others and attacking another child.

I submit if this lady was not telling the truth then she is one dangerously paranoid parent. Either way, somebody scary lives in that house.

The lady involved called the newspaper in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook Elementary School slayings in Newtown, Conn. She wanted to say something about all people’s comments that the killer’s mother should have done something with her clearly disturbed child. This local lady wanted to point out a couple of things. First, it’s not easy to do anything, or at least anything eff ective.

Second, mother Nancy Lanza was killer Adam Lanza’s first victim. She was found shot in the head four times, still in bed, still in her pajamas. The last time she ever woke up, if she woke up at all that morning, was quite brief.

So, ladies and gentlemen, what should she have done - besides buy a good quality gun safe andkept the combination to herself? Nancy Lanza was a millionaire who received $284,000 in alimony and child support last year, according to news reports.

She lived in a house reported to be worth $1.4 million dollars. She lived in Connecticut, within commuting distance of New York City. Quality mental health care wasn’t exactly hard to find in the region.

So, what is a parent - especially one who is not a millionaire - supposed to do when he or she has a child believed to be dangerous?

The local mom and I went down the checklist - counseling, calling the police over overt threats, contacting the courts for aid through Families in Need of Services.

Check, check, check. She’d been there, done that.

“People think ‘I can love this out of (him or her),” the mom said. “That’s the hardest thing, to realize that you can’t.”

People notice when you take precautions like never letting the child out of your sight, the mom said. “People tell me I’m being too strict with the child,” she said. “I can’t talk to my neighbors about all this. You do and they think you’re a horribleperson, but I have to protect everybody else.”

Nancy Lanza lived alone with her son. The safety of others, including small children, was not something she had to worry about around the house. The mother I talked to didn’t have that. For instance, when she has a baby grandchild in the house, she doesn’t go to the bathroom without taking that baby with her for fear of what might happen, she said.

With the safety of others at issue, the local parents considered the ultimatestep: Going to court and legally terminating the parent-child relationship.

She couldn’t eff ectively describe the type of agony a decision like that would inflict. They’ve raised this child. Beyond that, even if a termination was successful, it would lessen their danger at the cost of passing the risk to someone else, she said.

Or would it? How would the child in question react to such an action, anyway, to being cut off and being sent to a foster home? I asked. Not well;

that was the answer. Thenthere’s the added risk of being vulnerable to getting charged with child abandonment, which is a criminal off ense.

Our talk included other particulars of the costs, emotional and fi nancial, of having a child you perceive as dangerous. I won’t go into detail for reasons I’ve explained already. Suftce it to say the toll’s been heavy.

Let’s assume again that there’s more to this story than I’ve been told. That still doesn’t give a clear path for this family.

David raised Absalom.

Judas Iscariot was an apostle. If you think the real answer here is to be found in religion, ask yourself: If Jesus himself was betrayed, what could you have done diff erently?

Not everyone can be saved. Even if the options were more ample and better than what they are, what do you do with the hard cases?

It’s something to think about.

DOUG THOMPSON IS A POLITICAL REPORTER AND COLUMNIST FOR NWA MEDIA.

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