I just don't understand his moms' attitude. Before we were able to get my older son help for his Aspergers, ADHD and sensory issues he was out of control. Even though he was only 2 1/2 I was at times afraid of him. When he was angry he would sometimes rush at me out of control with a rabid, animal look in his eyes. It's amazing how much early intervention has helped. My son is now a smart, funny, sweet and friendly who literally won't hurt a fly. If a beetle gets stuck in our house he will carefully catch it and let it free in in the grass.
I don't know if Adam Lanza would have had such a dramatic turn around but he was never given a chance since his parents never got him the help he needed. Sometimes I wonder how my son would be if we hadn't gotten him help at a young age but I'm glad I don't have to find out.
I have a friend whose son was a horror show by the time he was 12. The entire neighborhood was afraid of him and his destructiveness, he'd stabbed other students with pencils, attacked teachers, attacked his mother, broken windows, punched holes in walls, etc. The police were at their house many times. My friend, the mother, devoted her life to trying to get her son the help she knew he needed. I can tell you that the medical establishment from their HMO to the public mental health facility to the assigned social workers to several psychiatrists were a HINDRANCE rather than a help in her quest. She was literally begging for him to get committed and get the treatment she knew he was not getting. Everyone kept saying she was a bad mother and that was why the kid was violent. She knew better and devoted her life to getting him help. Eventually, thank the lord, she was able to get him help after hiring a lawyer and suing her HMO and the public mental health facility. Today after TONS of therapy and hard work and with the help of one medication, he is a very nice young man, works full time at a regular job, and is doing well. He'll never be completely "normal", but he's doing super. All thanks to the amazing efforts his mother put in to save him (and the rest of us).
Her husband, the boy's father, who lived in the home with this boy? Did NOTHING. Not one thing. He never went to one doctor's appointment or therapy session or school appointment. He didn't even go to court for the lawsuit. He was and is to this day in total denial about his son. "He's just a boy being a boy!" Even when seeing the evidence in his own home of the boy's violence, he would ignore it. Even when the police were up in his grill about the boy's behavior, he'd just shrug. Worse than that, when the mother was out of the house, he would put violent movies on for them to watch together or pull out violent video games -- even though the mother had forbidden it because she saw that watching violent movies/playing violent games vastly increased her son's violent behavior. He denies the diagnosis and treatment (including the one medication the son takes that made the 180 degree turnaround). To this day, he insists that there was nothing wrong with his son.
I have every belief that if the father were given free reign over this son, an Adam Lanza situation would have happened. I have every belief that if the mother dies, the father is going to encourage the son to stop taking his medication and I am scared of what will happen then.
