I read two interesting articles in the newspaper this morning. The first was about the original mass murderer, Howard Unruh, who in 1949 walked down a street in Camden, New Jersey, and killed 13 people in 20 minutes. Psychiatrists at the time tried to find out why he did it by giving him “truth serum.”
On Oct. 20, 1949, Camden County Court Judge Bartholomew A. Sheehan signed the final order of commitment for Unruh after a team of four psychiatrists classified him as a case of “dementia praecox, mixed type, with pronounced catatonic and paranoid coloring.”
In modern parlance, he was a paranoid schizophrenic, a classification that would appear again and again in Unruh’s records.
Read Inside the mind of a killer, on Philly.com.
The other article discusses an unintended consequence of many criminals receiving life sentences—a growing population of prisoners with dementia. The California Men’s Colony is teaching some inmates to care for the elderly prisoners—and they are succeeding.
Heriberto G. Sanchez, chief psychologist of the California Men’s Colony, said prisoners “were appreciative that someone from the outside world thought they could do this.” One wrote in an evaluation, “Thank you for allowing me to feel human.”
Read Life, with dementia, on NYTimes.com.
Donna Andersen
MiLo – what a terrible tragedy. Our thoughts are with you and your community.
witsend
MiLo,
Does Grand have a IEP at his school? If he does maybe it needs some tweaking. If he doesn’t have an IEP, he should have one. Because there can be specifics in an IEP that cover what the school wants to call “behavior problems” (to cover their butts…..But what you know to be emotional problems.
I had a terrible time with the school district when my son entered into high school. In our district if a child wasn’t set up with an IEP in elementary grades…You had to jump through hoops to get one. I had many heated discussions with school officials…Ugh!
MiLo
Thank you Donna.
Yes, Grand has had an IEP since he started school. This is where the problem is coming from though. He sees and it is true, that because he is “special needs” he is constantly watched and gets into trouble for any misstep. Other kids get away with the same actions.
Also, a group of kids have realized that by “tattling” on Grand, gets Grand in trouble (even if he has not done anything) So, they will tell on him and then later say – ha-ha, I got you in trouble. Just last week, Grand was working on a computer, doing a report (he is a straight A student) and a girl threw a pencil, hitting him in the head. He picked up the pencil. The girl walked over and nastily demanded it back. He said No, I don’t want it hitting me in the head again. She went and “tattled” to the teacher that he stole her pencil and would not give it back. Because the teacher had not seen the flying pencil, Grand had to write his name on the board as misbehaving. That kind of stuff, non stop.
Also, when he brought home his last report card, something he should have been so proud of, there was a comment from the art teacher “does not get along with peers, has no friends.” He was in tears. He said, I have friends, a lot of kids like me. How cruel of that teacher.
witsend
MiLo,
This just breaks my heart. Kids can be so mean. I don’t even have WORDS for the teacher. Shame on her.
Bullying is such a huge problem in the schools nowdays more than ever because of the internet. Now kids can’t even escape from the bullying once away from school. The internet also brings this same bullying into the home.
Ox Drover
That teacher should be fired for writing that kind of a thing on the report card of any kind, much less a special needs kid. I would take that to the superintendent or the school board MiLo! UGH (grinding teeth here)
skylar
Milo,
that is really aggravating to hear about.
There are ways to “catch” bullies in the act…
But, remember that Grand lied when he got in trouble with the basketball coach. You will need to be very careful when stepping up to defend him. In fact, maybe it’s best to let him learn to handle these things without expecting justice because that’s life. You can’t always fight his battles and there are going to be jerks everywhere he goes. He’s going to have to learn to let little things like stupidity in people run off his back. It’s hard. I’m still learning.
MiLo
Yes, Oxy ~ we are following up on the comment from the art teacher. Seeing he is in special ed., any concerns she had should have gone directly to the special ed teacher – NOT ON THE REPORT CARD
And, this is not the first time she has made comments similar to this on the card. I told the special ed. teacher to tell her to STOP last time.
Another kid, a couple of weeks ago, had a laser pointer and was shining it in Grand’s eyes. Grand told teacher and she took it away – BUT no punishment to the kid. IF that would have been Grand, she would have notified Special Ed. who would have notified principal and Grand would have been suspended for using a “weapon” – DOUBLE STANDARDS and Grand notices this. I think this is the school district “bullying” Grand.
MiLo
Sky ~ Oh, I do remember Sky. These things have ALL been checked out and verified. I have even witnessed some of this stuff and the special ed. teacher is now looking beyond the surface and is also noticing the same.
Problem with him handling things himself is I don’t want him to be so overwhelmed HE resorts to violence. A lot of little things went on recently that had him completely overwhelmed and with a feeling of “Why bother?”. I kept him home for a day, before the long weekend, just to talk and get some good interactions here in the neighborhood. It is so hard.
witsend
MiLo,
I totally agree. He is still so young and although life isn’t fair & people DON’T act right…He needs you to help give him the tools of the right way deal with these things.
High functioning autism is one of those Dx that is hard to actually define. If he has trouble engaging or if he is withdrawn in different aspects of dealing with his peers…
The end result of this can always be huge frustration on his part.
And frustration can turn into anger….And anger can turn into violence.
I know what you mean about fearing this. Kids hold alot of stuff inside of them. Boys especially.
Does he have a “safe place” to go if he does become overwhelmed at school? Guidance counselor or someplace like this? This is something that could be in his IEP.
MiLo
He can go into the special ed room if he needs to get away. Only problem is he feels embarassed going in there. He just very recently started “telling” somone when he was having trouble with another child. He did feel he could handle it himself, but not very well, I’m afraid.
Because of complicated custody issues, he was put in a position to have to “handle” things on his own. This was so unfair and that is when he started to “handle” things at school too.
Knowing him, we will not be able to talk to him about this shooting. He will shut down at first. We will have to take it slow and wait for him to want to talk.
Luckily, this past week, he has had many positive things happen at school and at basketball. He made his first basket and had 8 rebounds. All the kids on the team were giving him high fives and cheering him. It is funny how a little thing like that makes SUCH a difference.