<p>I get that some here say that for some, going to school doesn’t make things better, and for some it makes things worse. Personally I think more eyes, and more input is better, but this evening I will take your word for it, and I am glad that in spite of years of training and experience, and feeling responsible, I still don’t have the final word. Sometimes there is just no way to know. Often times no matter what is done, or not done, someone says things are worse. Many days I tell parents a good day is when I don’t make anything worse. I hope everybody I saw today will still be alive and able to make “good” choices tommorow. </p>
<p>Gun owners and homeowners who possess guns in the home are responsible for whatever happens with those guns. Nancy was responsible for those children’s deaths. Peter could have prevented it if he had been a good father and husband and homeowner. Without being provided any evidence that his divorce was coerced, that is what I am left with. </p>
<p>It’s possible after years of trying to raise her son and being isolated as a result, Nancy Lanza may not have been in her right mind either. It says in the article that she was afraid of Adam, and as a result, she kept guns in the house. It doesn’t seem rational. </p>
<p>I agree that someone who is mentally ill is more at risk with accessibility to guns–undoubtedly suicide is a much greater risk than homicide, but both are lethal. </p>
Not at all sure the “professionals” would have been of any help at all. The boy might have been suspended repeatedly or expelled. Most certainly bullied. And would Newtown have paid for a residential placement?</p>
<p>It was the first psychiatrist the family consulted (Dr. Fox) who recommended homeschooling. </p>
<p>As I said before, I, too am bothered by the father’s absence in their life. Parents don’t just go away when kids refuse us. We linger looking for a way to connect. Peter Lanza talks about hiring a detective to stalk his son but no mention of trying to connect to the family emotionally. </p>
<p>The dynamic between Peter and Nancy is not clear to me. I do think it is significant to note that the breakdown in Peter’s relationship with Adam came right after his second marriage. Whether that breakdown was attributable to Nancy, Adam or Peter is something we will never know. I do agree with other posters who have suggested that the weight of Adam’s care was place squarely and directly on the shoulders of Nancy. There is no getting away from that. It is not surprising that she broke under this extreme pressure and made some decisions that do not appear rational to the outside observer.</p>
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<li><p>I think lots of you are being unfair to Peter Lanza. His account may have been self-serving, but one of the things that really impressed me was the extent to which the former spouses cooperated and worked together for their son’s benefit, at least until the last couple of years. And I think it’s clear that he did not “abandon” his child at all. Unlike many divorced parents, he appropriately deferred to the judgment of the parent with primary custody in handling a difficult situation. It’s easy to say now that Nancy Lanza’s judgment was flawed, but it could have been another disaster if Peter had openly undermined her by insisting on visiting Adam when she had said no.</p></li>
<li><p>Tears were running down my face last night, as I read the article by Ron Suskind in last Sunday’s New York Times Magazine, <a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/09/magazine/reaching-my-autistic-son-through-disney.html[/url]”>http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/09/magazine/reaching-my-autistic-son-through-disney.html</a>. It is excerpted from a forthcoming book, “Life, Animated.” It’s a wonderful, redemptive story of a child who developed regressive autism at 3 and, among other thing, lost all use of language, but who, over the course of 20 years, used an obsession with Disney animated films to pull himself, slowly, out of his own internal prison. One of the things that affected me was that, at 16 or 17, this child and Adam Lanza were not so different, and both were friendless, unhappy, being homeschooled because there were no good options for them, even in the world of private schools for children with special needs. Suskind’s theme, which he and his family pursued to sensationally good results, is that the way to make contact with autistic children and to educate them is to follow them down the rabbithole into the world they have chosen.</p></li>
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<p>My sense is that Nancy Lanza (and many other parents) had the same intuition, and that’s what led to her “indulging” or being controlled by her son. Owen Suskind’s rabbithole took him to a place of real love, insight, and human connection. We know where Adam Lanza’s went.</p>
<p>JHS, I think you are correct. Nancy did try to follow Adam down his “rabbit hole” but unfortunately it was one filled with violence and guns. There was no second set of “eyes” on the situation during those last years to pull either of them back. I am not assigning blame, as I think this family has had more than their fair share of pain. But facts are facts and no article can change what little we do know about the inner workings of this family. While I feel for everyone involved, the bulk of my sympathy lies with the families of the victims and Ryan Lanza, the surviving brother. </p>
<p>^You are misinterpreting Adam Lanza’s rabbit hole. Science/tech was his rabbit hole. And his parents didn’t follow him there. He was sent to a middle school interrupting his journey. It probably wasn’t clear at that time to his parents. Gun or mass shooting wsan’t his rabbit hole. That was a destructive act of a hurt kid, not his salvation rabbit hole.</p>
<p>If Nancy and Peter Lanza communicated so well, how could Peter not sense anything this big was developing and the great pressure Nancy Lanza was under? Being who he is, he may be incapable of communicating in a meaningful sense leaving everything up to Nancy Lanza. I wouldn’t call that communicating well, just not acrimonious. </p>
I can think of a few million people, but we don’t need to go too far into that again. </p>
<p>I saw that article in the New York Times Magazine as well, and it was very interesting. But perhaps that approach is not a model for everybody–perhaps Nancy Lanza, for example, wasn’t well-equipped to manage a process like that.</p>
<p>Maybe, no-one could have foreseen that a crazy kid was about to shoot up a school. Maybe, he could have seen a therapist that morning and gone out and done the same thing. It’s crazy to assume that help would have helped. Or that going to school would have helped. Or that his parents staying together would have helped.The Littleton, Co shooters went to school and had intact families. It didn’t help. </p>
<p>Mental illness or not, you do not allow teenage boys to have unsupervised access to guns, period. The behavior of teenage boys is unpredictable, they do dangerous and stupid things for fun, and many of them, not just troubled ones like Adam, are fascinated with guns. Anyone with a teenage boy who has guns in the house and doesn’t lock them up 24/7 is a complete idiot. I know this sounds harsh, but part of me wishes Nancy had lived so that she could serve out 26 lifetime sentences, sending that message to others loud and clear.</p>
<p>Is it possible that Peter Lanza did not know there were guns in the house? I doubt it. That is why he is partially to blame. As Adam’s father, it was his duty and obligation to protect his family. He didn’t do it. So he is also to blame.</p>
<p>Not having access to a semi-automatic weapon would almost certainly have helped. I note in passing that 8 organized people with knives were able to achieve about the same body count that this one disturbed person did.</p>
<p>There have been so many school shootings in the country that the opportunity is surely there for statisticians to identify whether divorce is a risk factor. I wonder if anyone has? In a haphazard look-up, I learned that Seung-Hui Cho, Dylan Klebold, Eric Harris, Michael Carneal, Andrew Gordon, Kip Kinkel, and Steven Kaczmierzak had parents who remained married. The parents were divorced in the cases of Adam Lanza, Mitchell Johnson, Charles Williams (who lived with his father), and Jeff Wiese (who lived with his grandfather, whom he also killed). </p>
<p>I don’t accept that divorce was a contributing factor to this tragedy. Peter Lanza maintained contact with his son for as long as Adam permitted it, until Adam was 18 1/2 years old, a legal adult. I don’t know how a father goes about forcing further contact with an 18 year-old. Are there legal grounds to do so? </p>
<p>JHS, I also read the article in the NYTIMES magazine and really am looking forward to the book when it comes out this spring. I had thought about that article when I read the Lanza interview.While clearly not the same situation, there were many parallels and that was the thought I had in mind about perhaps another school option might have been considered. No one could know what Newtown School District would have paid for had the option been presented to them but I never had the sense that the Lanza’s struggled financially or such a decision was ever considered whether for financial or other reasons.</p>