Well said.

She didn't like the school's plan for him. (Whatever that was.)

How are states going to deal with home-schooled children?

could be approached & asked to intervene, or at least keep an eye out for potential trouble

I doubt that home-schooled kids are as much of a problem with gun-violence on innocent bystanders..

Adam was disabled and it's not unusual to hear his mom didn't like what the school planned for him. I've had more than a few disabled kids (usually with mental illnesses) be removed from school to be home schooled. It's pretty common.

I know two mothers who are terrified of their sons.

but as a parent of a special ed child (who's in his second year of college and has plenty of friends) what do you do when the parent dismiss this issue? When they think sure, they are different but they will outgrow it OR you don't know what works best for my child because you don't know them.

You're talking about one of the hardest issues a parent has to face and you're strangers to them. You have to have a parent who is not in denial work with you first. If they won't see what you see, then do you have a second step ? Do you allow a parent to take their child out of school to home school them and you're off the hook until 15 years later when this same child appears in the crime section of a newspaper ? This is where we have to do something, we have to figure out a way to get between parent protection bond but not destroy it.

There were schools for Adam, private schools that cost over 50 thousand a year. With all types of medical and academic attention, so why didn't the parent's try? They, unlike most could afford these schools but I haven't, yet heard of word about specialized care for him when he was young. Was it a us vs them thing?

So many questions on this child upbringing but lets all learn something from this.

from parents, so they usually do not want to rock the boat, lest the parents take the kid out of their school.

I too had a child with special needs (his was due to a physical birth defect that required him to wear a diaper until he was almost 9 yrs old,) and he endured teasing and he did not like school much at all. He could not trust many kids, and learned the hard way that some kids were just plain mean. He did form friendships and of course he had good psychological counseling for a lot of his growing up years..

His best friend he has had for almost 30 years (met his as a kid on the same soccer team). Their wives are best of friends too

Even parents in denial, know there is a problem. There needs to be a DE-stigmatization of mental health care..and for it to become common for people to seek counseling. We cannot know it all all the time, and we all need help now and then.

often suffer from the same afflictions/disabilities as their children and may be ill equipped to help their child. Often they will resist efforts of educators or psychologists in the belief that they are protecting their children. Thorny.

I have mothered three teen-aged boys..and have lived through the drug issue with one of them..It was no secret to me..

We also got several years of family counseling and individual counseling to help us all through the difficulties.

Only a parent who is not paying attention, does not notice that the kid is skipping school, sneaking out at night and generally F-ing up.

Rebellious/risky behavior is also part of teen years for many kids, and 99.9999% of them do outgrow it

Thankfully, our "bad boy" did and is about to be a first time Dad at 35 next month. He has thanked us many times for hanging in there with him while he figured things out.. We had no interest in guns and luckily our buys did not seem to be that interested either, but we always prayed that he would live long enough to grow up.. and he did.

We never were fooled by his secretive ways or his lies.. We always "knew".. But we acted and intervened big-time.

That said, he was never friendless/sullen/quiet/withdrawn/etc.. He was just a rebellious kid who grew out of it.

something. There was also a report of something she told a babysitter when he was small that sent shivers up my spine.. Apparently she said that he was to always be watched even when he went to the bathroom..... eyes on him at all times.

He had a condition where he was unable to feel physical pain. He didn't burn himself to "feel", he physically COULDN'T feel pain IF he got burned or cut, etc. And yes, he had to be watched closely when he was young exactly because of this condition... so he didn't inadvertently injure himself and not know it because he physically couldn't feel it. Of COURSE she would tell this to the babysitter because she was a concerned mother who rightfully worried about his injuring himself and not even him knowing it. He was watched as school for the same reason. The head of security at Adam's school, Robert Novia, was interviewed and said that part of his job was to watch Adam because of his condition that made him impervious to physical pain. He was also the one that said "If that boy would've burned himself, he would not have known it or felt it physically," in part of his explanation as to why he had to watch out for Adam, so it's apparent where that twisting of words came from.

http://www.nbcdfw.com/news/national-international/NATL-School-Adviser-Gunman-a-Loner-Who-Felt-No-Pain--183658211.html

or have differing definitions or experiences or personal defenses or medication issues...legal or illegal etc., can really become a Gordian Knot. Divorce conditions often impose a Dad's House-Mom's House internal split.

There is a lot of blame here on the mother, but it's a pretty good bet the parental dynamics weren't ideal as Dad has a new wife where they likely both work, and Mom is home 24/7 with the problem. What were her options, exactly? Leave him home and go to work?

And to assume her guns were not locked up? I don't think we know that. She may have been killed because of that.

I don't think this particular family had financial issues where Mom was "forced" to work outside the home.

It's impossible to after-the-fact diagnose just where it all went off the rails, but there were signs...signs probably ignored or downplayed.

Locks are no impediment to a determined teen/young adult.

care. He had possibly been in counseling and/or medicated for years which definitely causes marital problems.

Awareness does not solve the problem. Other than talk therapy, it leaves psychotropic medication which is not very sohisticated brain chemistry guess work, especially with young children/teens. They were kind of stuck with each other...how could he work or do anything other than video games and tv, etc. and how could she go to work...and do what with no work history...and leave him home alone.

She had the fewest choices and none of them very good, as I see it.

$250k per year in alimony....no job...time to spare....How about the working Mom with limited time and resources?

she did not have the choice to go to work. Imagine interviewing the prospective child care professionals so she could go try and find a job. Or better yet, imagine the turnover. Then again, there is Juvenile Hall.

This is not class warfare here. Think about it. If she had been working or had to work and this happened, we'd be all ... oh, she deserted her developmentally challenged son to pursue her own selfish career...when she didn't even need to work.

It's tough to be a Mom...any Mom.

but I'd rather be a rich Mom, living in a $1.6M mansion with resources coming outta my ass than a Mom living in a $550 a month rat trap with no insurance, working 50 hours a week to put food on the table for the kids.

She sure seemed to have the resources....but we will all have to wait and see.

Very powerful and yes, it IS possible to "not know".

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022003251#top

the rest of us do.

Families, mothers, ignore all kinds of problems. Rape, incest, spousal abuse, drug abuse. All problems mothers and fathers turn a blind eye to.

How many times have I heard a mother on the news say, when their kid is caught doing something, "not my little Johnny"?

How often do DU'ers bemoan today's parents blaming teachers for the misbehavior or failure of their own offspring?

I think it makes a lot of DU'ers feel good to believe that mother's just "know". But it doesn't comport with the reality.

But as someone with serious mental illness in her family I absolutely agree with the need to make it available to all with no stigma. And I'd like to see more behavioral therapy used in conjunction with the ubiquitous drugs.

For peace of mind each of us needs to believe and know "things" that really may not be so.

At this time peace of mind is a pretty high priority.

But I still believe that deep down they do know that something is just not right. and denial is different from not knowing. Rape/incest in families is a totally different thing because it's usually a breadwinner (father/step-father), so impoverishment of the entire family, if he is brought to justice, enters the equation.... not knowing is morphed into ignoring .. Ignoring is not necessarily denial.

Families who claim to not have known when pushed in front of a camera are kind of forced into claiming they had no idea. To admit they "saw something" but did nothing would be unthinkable for them at that time.

It's like when soldiers killed in a bullshit war are automatically called heroes. Parents have to suspend disbelief to cling to that notion.

To think that their soldier died for nothing would be unthinkably cruel to admit.

We all use coping mechanisms when we have to, but that does not mean that there is not a real "something" that needs to (or needed to) be dealt with.

But may not have the support or means to get the help.

At one time I was dealing with a 12 yrs old that was dealing with ADHD and Central Auditorium Processing Disorder...both are on the artistic spectrum. He was pretty much a loner with 1 or 2 friends. We live in an inner-city neighborhood and that brought other issues into play.

When he hit 7th grade, his former best friend brought a gun to school. He told me about and I reported him right away, nothing was done. My child threatened suicide again nothing. I was at my white end as my son was attacked again and again with no intervention, in fact he was often blamed for "causing" these attacks. I finally pulled him out of school only to have Children Services come in and say they were removing him because I wasn't responsible enough. Really?!?!? Wow.

I am proud to say he is 20 and is doing well. He graduated high school and has taken some Criminology course and is working full-time. We got through it...but there were days I was worried I could be "that mother" xdnigrayed as in past.

Don't judge unless you have walked in our paths.

CraftyGal

and when our son was a drug addict we spent many agonizing years seeking, paying for and getting help..

My shoes are pretty worn

As much as parents "know", they also have an amazing capacity to blind themselves to things. Facing up to the fact that your kid is seriously fucked up is difficult, and it is not unheard of for parents in such a situation to attempt to minimize the problem and maintain a fantasy that their kid is just a little strange instead of deeply disturbed.

reason we don't treat friends or family members. Our objectivity goes out the window for those we love.

when hormones and brain chemicals change. At that age, they are experts at hiding their feelings from their parents. How many of our parents knew what we were thinking at that age?

My bro and I were adopted and much loved.

He had his demons and died in his sleep at the age of 35....due to heart failure and cirrhosis. His 16 yr old daughter found him in his bed. He left 3 kids, a wife, my Dad and me, his sister. None of us were ever the same.

My Mom KNEW. But she died from cancer 2 yrs. earlier. But she knew he needed help....and with our middle class income and insurance and community help she tried her best.

I still think to this day, if she would have lived, my bro would still be alive today. I remember the day she marched to the police dept and dropped off his pot and bong on the counter and told them to keep it. Brave lady.

I am of the thought that people see "what they want to see". I don't know the circumstances, but believe that this Mother dropped the ball.

My bro was as normal as they came. I still can smell his boy hair and see his impish blue eyed grin and still see it in his namesake. But once he hit his teenage years, something changed, drastically.

Don't know what I'm trying to say....miss my bro and wish something would have helped. Maybe some tough love.

We took our "bad-boy" to the police dept once when he was high as a kite, and we asked them for help.. The cop we saw that night laughed at us.. told us it was a family matter.. The kid was 14, had climbed out his window, "borrowed" Dad's keys and was driving around in our car.. The cop shined it on.. We were stunned.

I don;t think cops are that blase anymore.. at least I hope not.

The sneaking out started when she was 14, escalating to prostituting herself for drugs, dealing and being a drug mule at her high school within a year. A year! She tells us the only people who really "get" her are her drug dealers.

Now I long for when it was simply (my) stolen vehicle and some sneaking out anymore....

Hang tough SoCalDem.

It is possible to escape to the other side.. Best wishes to you and your daughter.. We always said that if he lived long enough to grow up, he;d be fine..and it came to pass.. Hope for you and yours too

Things have probably changed now. But my Mom wouldn't have. She was one tough 5'4" lady.

Good luck with your son. At least you are mindful of his actions.

Miss my bro everyday...do what you can, without driving yourself crazy.

With all the Politically correct BS here on Du, why should women "know" better than men?

It's like after Columbine where every Goth kid was all of a sudden a suspect.

We don't know the story around this kid, this family. "Mom" was apparently a survivalist who collected high powered guns and liked to go out drinking and talking about them. I don't know how many survivalist gun nuts you know, but usually that comes with a particular worldview. Paranoia, Alex Jones.. shit, you even see it on DU, the armchair commandos who "Need" their AR-15s to "protect them from teh gurvnurmunt"

This kid certainly seems to have had some issues, and being in a single parent house where the only other person was a presumably paranoid anti-government survivalist who had lots of big guns, couldn't have helped.

But the bottom line, to my mind, are a few things; One, the easy access to rapid-fire weapons, and two, this crazy paranoid streak in some corners of the American population. That we don't do enough for kids with emotional or mental issues, too, is part of it, to be sure.