Parents try to help adopted son, charged with crime

[AJL]

This story is local to me and was brought up on my local board. I'm not sure what to think about what the parents did. I'm not sure how I feel about their decisions. Thoughts?

Could adopted son be helped? Parents’ steps considered criminal

When Andy and Jenifer Thyssen first brought their newly adopted 12-year-old son from Kazakhstan to the United States in 2004, they felt they had honored the call of God. The way they saw it, they had saved the boy from a grim future of spending his youth in an orphanage.

It soon became clear that their path would not be easy. The slender, blue-eyed and brown-haired boy named Koystya struggled not only with language but with basic skills such as taking out the trash or making himself a sandwich. A test showed he had an IQ of 74 — considered borderline intellectually disabled.

The garage at the home of the Thyssen family on Tuesday. The garage has an apartment inside where authorities say Jenifer ... Read More
Within months of bringing him into their family, his new parents’ concerns deepened. Koystya began fondling himself in public. When they overheard him muttering English words such as “rape,” they began to wonder if he had been molested — or even was molesting children himself.

Soon, he confessed to it.

Over the next decade, Koystya claimed to have sexually molested nine children, according to his parents and police records. The Thyssens say they tried to get help for the son they love while protecting potential victims. Each time he confessed to a possible sex crime, the couple reported it to police.

Andy and Jenifer Thyssen with Koystya (in gray suit) with other family members the day he was baptized. Today, his parents ... Read More
The Thyssens tried counseling. Eventually, they put their adopted son in foster care, hoping the state would help get him the special therapy he needed. They asked their friends and preacher to pray for his healing.

Over time, the Thyssens told friends, they felt increasingly powerless. Koystya told his parents he still was molesting children — even in foster care — and fantasized about hurting more. But each time he described another incident, investigators were never able to corroborate the events, and Koystya was never charged.

As Koystya grew and entered adulthood, the Thyssens worried about the damage their now 23-year-old son might inflict on society. Out of ideas, they resorted to a final option they thought would protect their family.

Koystya Thyssen came to the United States in 2004 and is now charged with burglary after authorities say he escaped his ... Read More
They furnished a single-room apartment with a concrete floor on their suburban Hays County property with a microwave and cot. They moved Koystya inside. The couple told him they would visit regularly and deliver food and would take him on supervised trips out several times a week.

Then they pulled the door closed behind them and locked their son inside. It seemed an imperfect but protective and humane solution.

So the Thyssens were baffled when, a year later, a Hays County sheriff’s department patrol car pulled up in front of their Dripping Springs home and they were led away in handcuffs. The May 2014 news reports, broadcast around the world with their mugshots, seemed like they were about a family they didn’t recognize: A local churchgoing couple charged with kidnapping their adopted son? Abusing a boy by sealing him inside an isolated and locked garage?

Did they really deserve 10 years in prison?

Many families unprepared

When the Thyssens had their first son 15 years ago, they dreamed of growing a large family. But after several years passed without Jenifer Thyssen becoming pregnant, the couple began considering adoption.

Through a church program in the summer of 2003, they had learned about a group of children from a Kazakhstani orphanage who were coming to the United States with the hope of finding a home — and an escape from the grim orphanage conditions that they’d heard included abuse and malnutrition.

Experts say that such conditions can leave children scarred for life and that prospective parents often are unprepared for the intensity of behavioral and mental issues with which their new children arrive.

“We see a lot of families who don’t avail themselves of professional guidance before the adoption and end up in situations that exceed their abilities both financially or relationshipwise,” said Dana Johnson, professor of pediatrics and founder of the International Adoption Clinic at the University of Minnesota, which helps parents evaluate their ability to handle a troubled child.

Another family initially was supposed to adopt Koystya, but those plans collapsed when that set of prospective parents backed out. The Thyssens decided to meet him for a trial period together and fell in love.

“They were determined to lift that child out of the horrible conditions he had been in,” said Wendy Brockett, a pediatric nurse and family friend who met Jenifer Thyssen through a music group. “They prayed about it, and they felt very strongly that God was calling them to take this child.”

The yearlong adoption process was grueling and an emotional roller coaster. The couple frequently enlisted the help of a church friend, Dastan Aitzhanov, who also was from Kazakhstan, to serve as an interpreter when they called the orphanage to speak to Koystya.

“They were totally excited,” Aitzhanov said. “I still just remember thinking, I can’t believe there are people out there like that, who have such a big heart.”

Frustrated by how long it was taking to complete the adoption and determined to see it through, Jenifer, a singer who frequently is invited to perform with church groups, and her younger biological son moved to Kazakhstan for six months while bureaucrats in the former Soviet bloc country finalized the process. Andy Thyssen, a software engineer, stayed behind to help pay for their temporary residency and prepare for Koystya’s arrival.

The Thyssens at last finalized the adoption paperwork on May 18, 2004, and moved their second son into his new home. It wasn’t long, however, before the couple started noticing troubling signs.

“At first they didn’t think much of it,” Aitzhanov said. “Then it became more serious.”

Alarming confessions

The initial signals were subtle. Aitzhanov said Koystya was unusually “touchy-feely” for his age. But he and the Thyssens first dismissed those behaviors as needing love and physical affection.

Before long, though, the parents discovered other concerning clues in their home — that their son was stealing and using their underwear for his sexual gratification.

As his misbehavior continued, the Thyssens began feeling overwhelmed — documented by an adoption caseworker who visited their home within his first year. The caseworker wrote in a report that the Thyssens had begun consulting with counselors “to help manage their son’s needs and behaviors.”

Then, in the fall of 2005, a year and a half into his new life, their son made a series of alarming confessions — that he had molested children while visiting the homes of family friends.

They alerted Austin police. According to reports made in October and November 2005, detectives interviewed alleged victims and their parents. But they could never confirm the details of Koystya’s confessions.

There were indications Koystya may have been only describing images from a vivid and disturbed imagination. Parents of alleged victims insisted that he had never been alone with their children, and the alleged victims were too young to provide viable statements. Yet there always seemed to be just enough details to make his claims plausible.

The parents turned to the state for help. For the next three years, Child Protective Services caseworkers, with the Thyssens’ blessing, placed Koystya in a series of foster homes through a joint conservatorship arrangement. Throughout the separation, during which their son received numerous treatments and therapies for both child victims of sexual abuse and for adolescent sexual predators, the Thyssens’ friends said they never considered permanently giving Koystya up.

“They stayed the course,” Brockett said. “This was their family, and they gave them everything they could possibly give them. They just tried harder and harder to find help for him.”

In the meantime, the Thyssens continued growing their family. Despite the couple’s earlier fertility problems, Jenifer Thyssen had had five children, now ranging in age from 1 to 15 years old. The family also adopted another teenage son, whom Jenifer met while visiting Koystya before the adoption. Today, he is an adult living in Montana.

Koystya’s behavior continued to deteriorate. Records show that at one point, he told a therapist that he fantasized about an array of disturbing sexual behavior.

“They had turned to so many people and agencies for help, but it was a problem they had to deal with every single day, and the problem got worse as Koystya became older,” said John Nagle, an Austin software company owner who worked with Andy Thyssen.

State records show the Thyssens repeatedly warned CPS officials that they thought their son was still molesting children in foster homes, based on his own confessions. He moved in and out of a half-dozen homes, according to Perry Minton, the Thyssens’ attorney.

By 2009, the couple decided Koystya was better off back in their home.

Even after returning, he remained in treatment. At one point, Jenifer Thyssen, hoping to give therapists a complete picture of her son’s history, recorded an interview with him. During it, according to a transcript, Koystya recounted detailed stories of sexual violence. Because of the limited information, however, police were never able to fully investigate the claims.

Over the next several years, the Thyssens remained on edge, fearful to leave Koystya alone. The parents particularly worried about their other children.

By 2011, the family had outgrown their Cedar Park home, where they had lived since 2008, and bought a new house near Dripping Springs. The two-story brick home sits along Meadow Ridge Drive, a quiet rural road where houses have sprung up in open fields in the past two decades. The stand-alone garage sits about 50 feet from the main house.

Early on in the new home, the Thyssens, following what friends said was a therapist’s advice, set up an alarm system in which lights would activate if Koystya left his room.

“The frequency of Koystya’s acting in sexually charged ways toward the family continued to grow, and their need to maintain physical safety required them to make daily decisions on how to handle the situation,” said Minton, who represents the Thyssens.

In a last-ditch, tough-love solution, they decided to set him up in the makeshift apartment. With its isolation and locked doors, the arrangement allowed the Thyssens to relax for the first time in years. They also hoped it would give Koystya an opportunity to learn to care for himself by preparing his own meals and living independently.

The arrangement lasted a year. On April 29, 2014, a Tuesday afternoon, records show Koystya used a screwdriver to pry open the windows, climb out and break into a neighbor’s house. According to police reports, he stole two pairs of women’s underwear.

‘Koystya … believes it’s wrong’

When Hays County deputies learned of the break-in, they called Koystya in for questioning. Before long, he revealed that he had escaped from his locked apartment, and the focus of the investigation turned to the Thyssens.

In police interviews, Koystya described a lonely existence shut off from the world and having to survive on food rations from his family. “Koystya stated if he runs out of food, then he has to wait until they bring him food again, which is usually Saturdays,” an affidavit said.

He said he was permitted to leave only once a week to visit a counselor and could “shower in the main residence prior to the visit.” But he added he never got to have dinner with his family, only “sometimes” received gifts during holidays and rarely spent time in their home.

“Koystya stated he believes it’s wrong how he is treated but doesn’t say anything,” the affidavit said.

Koystya, who admitted breaking into the neighbor’s home, was charged with burglary. Yet within days, investigators also charged the Thyssens with kidnapping, a crime for which they face up to a decade in prison. A judge first set their bails at $300,000, though later lowered them to $70,000 each. While their son remains in jail, the Thyssens are out on bond.

Hays County District Attorney Wes Mau won’t discuss specifics of the case but defended his decision to criminally charge the Thyssens. “There are legal procedures in place for dealing with people, whether they are your own children or not, who have particular issues that might make them a danger to themselves or others,” he said. “You have to limit yourselves to those ways; otherwise, we are letting individuals decide how other individuals are treated.”

Friends and associates of the Thyssens have rushed to their defense. They said the duration Koystya stayed locked up and reports of prisonlike conditions he lived in have been overstated. They said that the family routinely allowed him out of the apartment to socialize with them and that Andy Thyssen sometimes took his son to work with him.

No trial date has been set for the Thyssens. But if prosecutors move forward with a trial, Aitzhanov said he hopes he is called to address the jury.

“They have done an incredible job of handling this difficult circumstance,” he said.

The Rev. Jack Smith, associate pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church, where the family attends weekly services, said he hopes it never gets to that point and that the case will be dropped.

“I think if everyone heard the whole story they would say, ‘Wow, this isn’t what I thought it was,’” he said.

About this story
Over the past four months, the American-Statesman reviewed hundreds of pages of court records, including therapists’ notes and Child Protective Services documents, and interviewed numerous friends of Andy and Jenifer Thyssen, who declined to comment directly for the article. The newspaper also interviewed law enforcement officials and adoption experts.

[onomatopoeia]

What a disaster all around. A 21 yo old young man with a 74 IQ and extremely sexualized behavior - it sounds like they were desperate and were faced with very limited options (and had exhausted the ones they did have). They seem very invested in him, and also in protecting others from him. Based on this story (and there obviously may be more to it), I actually can't fault them for what they did.

[YeahSure]

Dec 15, 2015 8:49:00 GMT -5 AJL said:

They furnished a single-room apartment with a concrete floor on their suburban Hays County property with a microwave and cot. They moved Koystya inside. The couple told him they would visit regularly and deliver food and would take him on supervised trips out several times a week.

Then they pulled the door closed behind them and locked their son inside. It seemed an imperfect but protective and humane solution.

No. Protective and humane? That's not humane.

This is their son, whom they supposedly love, and they "furnish" his concrete floored cell apartment with a microwave and a cot. Not even a bed; but a cot. They claim that they take him on supervised trips several times a week; but he says they show up once a week with food. Perhaps the truth lies somewhere in the middle? Regardless, they leave him isolated in a cell apartment with no supervision, no communication; which also means no help. What if there were a fire? 


What a terrible position they found themselves in, and I don't know how I would handle it; but I do know that it wouldn't be this. 

[Vespasia]

Dec 15, 2015 8:49:00 GMT -5 AJL said:

When Andy and Jenifer Thyssen first brought their newly adopted 12-year-old son from Kazakhstan to the United States in 2004, they felt they had honored the call of God. The way they saw it, they had saved the boy from a grim future of spending his youth in an orphanage.

I feel like this mentality is so often linked to stories like this. Families "save" children and expect that things will just work out because God. So rarely do they seem prepared for the reality of dealing with all the issues that may arise in a foreign adoption of children who have often been mistreated from birth. 

[maddysmum]

I don't know. I struggle to judge and condemn outright. I mean, I'd judge the hell out of it if he were 13 and they'd had him for a year and hadn't tried everything to get him the help he needed. But he's 23, they've spent ten years trying to protect innocents from their own child, who they haven't just given up on (goodness knows we've read enough articles about people who send their adopted child back when they prove challenging) and they are out of options.

Was it a good idea? Well, obviously no. Was it the "right" thing to do? Clearly not. But what was? Wash their hands of him? He's an adult - they could've and never looked back. But they were terrified he'd abuse children and no one could/would (I imagine they encountered both) help them. There were no "right" options here that they'd just neglected to take.

I guess the crux of it, for me, is this: "Hays County District Attorney Wes Mau won’t discuss specifics of the case but defended his decision to criminally charge the Thyssens. “There are legal procedures in place for dealing with people, whether they are your own children or not, who have particular issues that might make them a danger to themselves or others,” he said. “You have to limit yourselves to those ways; otherwise, we are letting individuals decide how other individuals are treated.”"

Where were all of those legal procedures when they went to the police every time he confessed to them? When they involved outside agencies? When they asked for help? And I'm not criticizing those individuals (well, I mean, unless they were neglectful in their own duties) because I think there's a gap in resources, for severely damaged children and their families. Specifically, for children of adoptions and ill prepared parents (although, I'm not sure that anyone could be prepared for this). But I don't think it's as simple as "use the legal resources available" in hindsight when it appears they exhausted those years ago and were left with a child molester and no options to protect the world from him.

They didn't just try and pray this away. It doesn't even seem like anyone (other than their very damaged son, and only in regards to this terrible decision that they felt they had no choice but to make) even argues with or casts doubt on the efforts they went to to get help and protect people from their child. Usually those people come crawling out of the woodwork promptly in cases like this!

[greeneyedgirl]

Would it be any different if he had a fully furnished apartment with a stocked kitchen? I can't decide how I feel. They were trying to protect innocent children from potential threat and has asked for help and been turned away over and over. It certainly isn't humane. I'm sure there is more to the story.

[debatethis]

I feel like I need to see this "apartment" and hear more about their "safeguards" before I can make some judgements. Is it as bleak and jail-cell like as this story says? Or was it a legitimate apartment that just happened to have additional locks/security stuff? Did they really lock him in his room for days on end with only once a week visits to the outside world or is a lot of his descriptions born of his own mental imagery, too? (And why, if the police were so quick to dismiss his vivid descriptions of sexual assaults all these times, are they so quick to assume his stories this time are accurate?)

[ijack]

I find it a little weird that he was able to continue allegedly molesting children for such a long period of time. At some point don't you not allow him to be alone with another child?

[sushi]

I'm curious the type of presbyterian. One is quite liberal, the other, not so much.

I knew a family that tried everything with their kid and eventually resorted to locking him in his room and making him sleep naked because he kept trying to run away. They then sent him to one of those military boot camps. Last I heard, he was in jail. They adopted the kid when he was 18 months, but he'd suffered so much abuse that I don't know he could ever get over it.

So, I don't know the right answer. I think people reach a point of desperation, and I'm not sure I can judge that. It may not be right, but it may be understandable.

I wish there were better support. The family I mentioned I'm sure made it worse b/c they believed in belting their kids. But they didn't know any other way. A family that reported these things to schools or police and got nothing in response? They did what they thought they had to do. If it was wrong, that's also on the various steps in the process that didn't intervene.

[miniroller]

Dec 15, 2015 11:00:56 GMT -5 ijack said:

I find it a little weird that he was able to continue allegedly molesting children for such a long period of time. At some point don't you not allow him to be alone with another child?

I was also awfully wary of this fact. He's basically in jail, & I wonder if he would prefer jail (being around others).

I'm also wondering what the plan for the future is? It seems this isolation is only going to exacerbate his mental turmoil. Are they just waiting until the rest of the kids are out of the house, & then they'll figure out what to do? Lock him up when grandkids come over? Ugh, this is just not right.
I don't have the answer, but I'm hopeful outside resources can help now that this situation has become public.

[ECB]

I have many thoughts about this and it boils down to "I don't think I can judge them".

My brother was adopted when he was 3. We lived in England at the time and my parents went to a German orphanage. I don't think there was ever any actual abuse, but he was born a blue baby (oxygen deficiency which has led to some minor learning disabilities) and he was in an orphanage for the entire time. My mom did a lot of research in later years about the impact of that and long story short- not having a strong mother figure during those oh-so-very important developmental years means that he will never be capable of creating deep relationships. Everything is surface with him.

As a kid - he was a problem kid. My parents divorced a couple years later and my dad got custody. Through out my brothers childhood into early adulthood - he wasn't good at school, got expelled, had run ins w/ the law, etc. After my mom died and I was going through her things, I found some letters between her and my dad and in one, my dad was talking about how hard it is and how he just wishes the state would just come and take my brother away.

My brother has somewhat turned his life around. At the age of 43, though, he still asks my parents (dad and step mom) for rent money. And he are I are not close AT ALL. But - big picture - he has his life relatively together.

But what we dealt with in relation to him - I think it totally pales in comparison to this story. Knowing my experience, reading the desperation in that one letter... I really can't judge these people. It seems that they really tried everything they could think of and had reached the end of their rope and just didn't know what else to do.

I don't think the answer here is to send them to jail and leave their other kids w/o parents. They needed (and need) help. That boy needs help. Jail isn't the answer here.

[mrshandy]

There are many failures in this case and is extremely disturbing.

There are other avenues.

They sound like they were extremely desperate and I can't imagine being in this situation. But seriously, locking him up was not something they should have entertained.

[zelda25]

I don't feel like I have enough information to judge one way or the other.  Assuming that it's true that they reported his confessions to the police and that they exhausted all available resources for help--which I think we all know by now are probably extremely limited, given how our society tends to treat mental illness as a character flaw--I wouldn't be surprised at all if they genuinely (and legitimately) felt like they were out of options.

[lizlemon19]

Yes, I think the parents should be charged. Locking him in a "cell", isolating him, only adds to the trauma.  But I think other systems failed as well.  How the hell was this child placed in a foster home with other kids? He should have been in a treatment facility for children with offending behavior.  They tried the police too. Part of me feels for them, but what they did is not acceptable.  Other people should be held accountable as well.

[penguingrrl]

I sit possible to get him involuntarily committed? Clearly he's a danger to himself and others and can't be trusted to walk free, but there seems to be few to no options since he was never charged with anything.

[penguingrrl]

And while locking him up like they did seems wrong, it sounds like years of trying to work within the system wasn't successful and they were desperate.

[AJL]

Dec 15, 2015 11:10:46 GMT -5 sushi said:

I'm curious the type of presbyterian. One is quite liberal, the other, not so much.

I knew a family that tried everything with their kid and eventually resorted to locking him in his room and making him sleep naked because he kept trying to run away. They then sent him to one of those military boot camps. Last I heard, he was in jail. They adopted the kid when he was 18 months, but he'd suffered so much abuse that I don't know he could ever get over it.

So, I don't know the right answer. I think people reach a point of desperation, and I'm not sure I can judge that. It may not be right, but it may be understandable.

I wish there were better support. The family I mentioned I'm sure made it worse b/c they believed in belting their kids. But they didn't know any other way. A family that reported these things to schools or police and got nothing in response? They did what they thought they had to do. If it was wrong, that's also on the various steps in the process that didn't intervene.

The church they belong to is part of the Presbyterian Church in America denomination. I don't know what any of this means, though. 

[sam19]

I admit that I skimmed so I might have missed it but this kid sounds like he should have been in a group home where he would have had constant supervision. His parents basically put him in solitary confinement which in my opinion is extremely inhumane. It sounds like he would have had better treatment in prison.

[Deleted]

Having previously worked in Kazakhstan, and visited many orphanages and child "jails" in my time there, I'm curious what center he came from.


I'd like to hear more about this story before I pass judgement.

[jojoandleo]

Dec 15, 2015 11:00:56 GMT -5 ijack said:

I find it a little weird that he was able to continue allegedly molesting children for such a long period of time. At some point don't you not allow him to be alone with another child?

Well, none of his claims were able to be substantiated.  And it said the parents of kids he claimed to molest stated he was never alone with their child.  I wonder if many of his claims are just stories in his own mind. He obviously has major issues. Maybe he made up and believes his own stories, but they never happened.

I feel they should have moved to have him committed and put in a mental facility rather than locking him in a room.  What would happen if the parents died?  What would happen if there was a fire?  Or something?  This was not the answer.  

[penguingrrl]

Dec 15, 2015 12:10:03 GMT -5 jojoandleo said:

Dec 15, 2015 11:00:56 GMT -5 ijack said:

I find it a little weird that he was able to continue allegedly molesting children for such a long period of time. At some point don't you not allow him to be alone with another child?

Well, none of his claims were able to be substantiated.  And it said the parents of kids he claimed to molest stated he was never alone with their child.  I wonder if many of his claims are just stories in his own mind. He obviously has major issues. Maybe he made up and believes his own stories, but they never happened.

I feel they should have moved to have him committed and put in a mental facility rather than locking him in a room.  What would happen if the parents died?  What would happen if there was a fire?  Or something?  This was not the answer.  

It sounds like they did try to work within the system to get him help, though. And the system failed. CPS routinely put him in homes with other children despite warnings that he claimed to be a molester. His parents took it to the police, who dismissed it due to lack of evidence. I'm not saying what they did was right. I think it was desperation versus feeling like this was the best answer.

[Deleted]

I can't judge them. I'd like to know more about this "apartment" though.

What exactly is a person supposed to do with someone who is a danger to society but doesn't belong in prison? I worked in a long term care facility that specialized in the elderly with psychiatric issues- people that a normal nursing home wouldn't want. Every once in a while we would get a patient who posed a danger to other residents. And when we couldn't handle them, the only option was a state institution, and it was damn near impossible to get them admitted there. In the meantime, we would establish 24/7 one on one monitoring- which isn't covered by Medicaid or Medicare, and keep our fingers crossed that there would be an opening somewhere. And really, many of these people had issues their entire life that their family had been dealing with for decades. Your average group home doesn't have the resources for these people either.

[hopecounts]

Dec 15, 2015 11:46:59 GMT -5 penguingrrl said:

I sit possible to get him involuntarily committed? Clearly he's a danger to himself and others and can't be trusted to walk free, but there seems to be few to no options since he was never charged with anything.

Iffy, due to the limited number of beds available it is entirely possible that since he wasn't threatening death or serious injury and could (theoretically) be kept from the opportunity to offend that he would not be committed. 
Should he have been? absolutely but the mental health system is a complete mess. 

[penguingrrl]

Dec 15, 2015 12:52:24 GMT -5 hopecounts said:

Dec 15, 2015 11:46:59 GMT -5 penguingrrl said:

I sit possible to get him involuntarily committed? Clearly he's a danger to himself and others and can't be trusted to walk free, but there seems to be few to no options since he was never charged with anything.

Iffy, due to the limited number of beds available it is entirely possible that since he wasn't threatening death or serious injury and could (theoretically) be kept from the opportunity to offend that he would not be committed. 
Should he have been? absolutely but the mental health system is a complete mess. 

That's the exact answer I feared. He's a danger and likely does belong in a facility, but money and a broken healthcare system will prevent it.

[jeaniebueller]

Dec 15, 2015 11:00:56 GMT -5 ijack said:

I find it a little weird that he was able to continue allegedly molesting children for such a long period of time. At some point don't you not allow him to be alone with another child?

I guess I am wondering....do we know that he actually did those things? It seems odd that if there were so many victims and he was so limited, that there wouldn't be a witness or a victim who could substantiate it. Its a tough case, but I am not sure I agree with how the adoptive parents handled it. But who knows the truth.

[Deleted]

Dec 15, 2015 12:13:05 GMT -5 penguingrrl said:

Dec 15, 2015 12:10:03 GMT -5 jojoandleo said:

Well, none of his claims were able to be substantiated.  And it said the parents of kids he claimed to molest stated he was never alone with their child.  I wonder if many of his claims are just stories in his own mind. He obviously has major issues. Maybe he made up and believes his own stories, but they never happened.

I feel they should have moved to have him committed and put in a mental facility rather than locking him in a room.  What would happen if the parents died?  What would happen if there was a fire?  Or something?  This was not the answer.  

It sounds like they did try to work within the system to get him help, though. And the system failed. CPS routinely put him in homes with other children despite warnings that he claimed to be a molester. His parents took it to the police, who dismissed it due to lack of evidence. I'm not saying what they did was right. I think it was desperation versus feeling like this was the best answer.

I agree with this. I think the failure occurred a long time ago on a societal level. I used to assume there was some type of social safety net in place to catch and support people like this - people with extreme mental difficulties - but it doesn't sound like there is one in every state or community. It's extremely depressing. If there is no institutionalized care where they could place their son, what were they supposed to do with him? I'm not saying what they did was a good idea because there were many things that could go wrong there. But really, how many good options did they have?

[imojoebunny]

"end up in situations that exceed their abilities both financially or relationship wise,”

I only found this out after a friend of a friend adopted a child (not an infant) from Ethiopia who they ended up giving up to be re-adopted by another family 3 years later, after essentially bankrupting themselves, and fearing for their older child's safety, and trying everything, including a very expensive in patient treatment program for the child for a year. It is hard to imagine the long term effects of severe abuse, and in their case, they were not aware of the extent of the abuse, and did not have the personalities to handle the behaviors or the resources, especially with another child in the home.

No one likes to institutionalize a person anymore, but sometimes, it is the best option. Unfortunately, this family was not able to do that for whatever reason, and chose to make their own version. This also seems weird, "Because of the limited information, however, police were never able to fully investigate the claims."

I would be interested in hearing what happens to the man in the future, especially if his parents go to jail, and it sounds like they will.

[oscarnerdjulief]

Dec 15, 2015 11:46:49 GMT -5 lizlemon19 said:

Yes, I think the parents should be charged. Locking him in a "cell", isolating him, only adds to the trauma.  But I think other systems failed as well.  How the hell was this child placed in a foster home with other kids? He should have been in a treatment facility for children with offending behavior.  They tried the police too. Part of me feels for them, but what they did is not acceptable.  Other people should be held accountable as well.

A social worker probably needed to fill a quota.

I am not just being snarky or flippant.  We were matched with a boy who was way, way beyond our ability to parent.  It's by the grace of God that the truth was revealed to us in time.  (animal abuse, juvenile delinquency, a very long etc.)

I do not think it often ends well when families adopt with the idea that it's their religious calling.

[sugarglider]

Dec 15, 2015 11:49:19 GMT -5 AJL said:

Dec 15, 2015 11:10:46 GMT -5 sushi said:

I'm curious the type of presbyterian. One is quite liberal, the other, not so much.

I knew a family that tried everything with their kid and eventually resorted to locking him in his room and making him sleep naked because he kept trying to run away. They then sent him to one of those military boot camps. Last I heard, he was in jail. They adopted the kid when he was 18 months, but he'd suffered so much abuse that I don't know he could ever get over it.

So, I don't know the right answer. I think people reach a point of desperation, and I'm not sure I can judge that. It may not be right, but it may be understandable.

I wish there were better support. The family I mentioned I'm sure made it worse b/c they believed in belting their kids. But they didn't know any other way. A family that reported these things to schools or police and got nothing in response? They did what they thought they had to do. If it was wrong, that's also on the various steps in the process that didn't intervene.

The church they belong to is part of the Presbyterian Church in America denomination. I don't know what any of this means, though. 

That's the other kind. sushi was raised PC(USA)

[readyin07]

Wow. I agree with all the viewpoints. I don't know what was right, just that this a fucked up sad situation for everybody.