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A Child’s Deadliest Walk: Home from and to School
Englewood Cliffs, NJ
Saturday, October 24, 2009
Dr. Patricia A. Farrell
ENGLEWOOD CLIFFS, NJ: On a spring morning in 1979, a little six-year-old boy left his New York City home, alone for the first time, to walk to the school bus stop on the corner. The corner, on a busy city street, was just two blocks from his home in a Manhattan apartment building.
Etan Patz was never seen, nor heard from again. In 2001, he was declared legally dead. The story gripped the nation for decades with repeated "sightings" and wishful thoughts about the child who wanted to walk to the bus stop by himself like a big boy. Now all that is left of him are charming photographs taken by his parents and a few chilling comments from a prisoner who claimed to have killed the boy. The father, by some accounts, sends a copy of the boy's missing poster to the alleged killer, a convicted child sexual abuser, in prison asking him what happened to Etan.
In 1924, little Bobby Franks was walking along the street in his neighborhood when he was lured into a car and became the victim of "the perfect crime." It was concocted by Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb, two bright, wealthy young men who wanted to kill someone and get away with it; they didn't. Both were caught, tried, defended by the famous Clarence Darrow and sent to prison for life where both died.
Recently, little Somer Thompson, a 7-year-old girl who walked one mile to school, was killed and her body found in a landfill. An innocent disagreement with a playmate and a rebuke from her sister led the little girl to run ahead of the group—into the arms of her killer at some point. Seventy registered sex offenders live in the little girl's area. It may not have been one of them, but it was an opportunity for someone to snatch a lone child.
The Price of Independence
But, you say, children need to learn independence and they need to learn not to trust strangers and not to allow themselves to be lured into harm's way. Do you realize how easy it is for a child to be snatched or tricked? If you have family information seminars in your community where you teach parents to educate their children and to play games to reinforce safety, how many people in the audience may misuse the information?
Are strangers always the people who snatch our children or sexually abuse them? Statistics would seem to indicate that's not the case. It's family, friends and neighbors or even classmates who do the harm. How do you teach a child not to trust those people when you think your neighbors are the very people who will protect them?
A little two-year-old boy in England was snatched by two young boys at a Liverpool, England, shopping center. Thirty-eight people either admitted to seeing the abduction or saying something to the boys, but none attempted to stop them. He was murdered by them. Sounds stunningly like the Kitty Genovese murder in New York City where several dozen neighbors heard her screams and did nothing. It happened again 10 years later in the same area to another woman. No one responded to her cries for help.
How do we protect our children? Yes, we teach them "good touch, bad touch," and we encourage them to run away or scream when approached by a stranger, but is that enough? How do we teach them independence when it brings with it so much danger? It seems each parent has to be vigilant, watchful from afar and always available; a lot to keep in mind. We need to enlist everyone in this quest for child safety and each of us must become a guardian of sorts or our kids won't be safe and neither will a lot of other people in our society.
http://www.drfarrell.net
Etan Patz was never seen, nor heard from again. In 2001, he was declared legally dead. The story gripped the nation for decades with repeated "sightings" and wishful thoughts about the child who wanted to walk to the bus stop by himself like a big boy. Now all that is left of him are charming photographs taken by his parents and a few chilling comments from a prisoner who claimed to have killed the boy. The father, by some accounts, sends a copy of the boy's missing poster to the alleged killer, a convicted child sexual abuser, in prison asking him what happened to Etan.
In 1924, little Bobby Franks was walking along the street in his neighborhood when he was lured into a car and became the victim of "the perfect crime." It was concocted by Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb, two bright, wealthy young men who wanted to kill someone and get away with it; they didn't. Both were caught, tried, defended by the famous Clarence Darrow and sent to prison for life where both died.
Recently, little Somer Thompson, a 7-year-old girl who walked one mile to school, was killed and her body found in a landfill. An innocent disagreement with a playmate and a rebuke from her sister led the little girl to run ahead of the group—into the arms of her killer at some point. Seventy registered sex offenders live in the little girl's area. It may not have been one of them, but it was an opportunity for someone to snatch a lone child.
The Price of Independence
But, you say, children need to learn independence and they need to learn not to trust strangers and not to allow themselves to be lured into harm's way. Do you realize how easy it is for a child to be snatched or tricked? If you have family information seminars in your community where you teach parents to educate their children and to play games to reinforce safety, how many people in the audience may misuse the information?
Are strangers always the people who snatch our children or sexually abuse them? Statistics would seem to indicate that's not the case. It's family, friends and neighbors or even classmates who do the harm. How do you teach a child not to trust those people when you think your neighbors are the very people who will protect them?
A little two-year-old boy in England was snatched by two young boys at a Liverpool, England, shopping center. Thirty-eight people either admitted to seeing the abduction or saying something to the boys, but none attempted to stop them. He was murdered by them. Sounds stunningly like the Kitty Genovese murder in New York City where several dozen neighbors heard her screams and did nothing. It happened again 10 years later in the same area to another woman. No one responded to her cries for help.
How do we protect our children? Yes, we teach them "good touch, bad touch," and we encourage them to run away or scream when approached by a stranger, but is that enough? How do we teach them independence when it brings with it so much danger? It seems each parent has to be vigilant, watchful from afar and always available; a lot to keep in mind. We need to enlist everyone in this quest for child safety and each of us must become a guardian of sorts or our kids won't be safe and neither will a lot of other people in our society.
http://www.drfarrell.net
Patricia A. Farrell, Ph.D.
Licensed Psychologist
Patricia A. Farrell, Ph.D., LLC
Englewood Cliffs, NJ
