Sandy Hook School shooter Adam Lanza's mom, school missed opportunities to treat ‘crippling’ issues

NY Daily News ^ | November 21, 2014 | Meg Wagner

[ConservingFreedom]

Adam Lanza’s childhood was filled with “crippling” mental health issues ― some of which which his mother ignored, preferring to “accommodate and appease” the would-be Sandy Hook school shooter, a new report said.

Connecticut’s Office of the Child Advocate outlined missed opportunities to treat Lanza’s mental health and behavioral issues in a new 114-page report. However, the authors of the detailed report did not say whether more effective treatment could have prevented the 2012 tragedy.

The 20-year-old gunned down 20 children and six staffers at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown. Conn. in December 2012 after he killed his mother, Nancy Lanza. He turned the gun on himself at the end of the bloody rampage.

But in the years before the massacre, doctors recommended various treatment programs for the boy’s mental issues ― some of which, Nancy Lanza refused, the report said.

In 2007, Yale Child Studies Center prescribed antidepressant/anti-anxiety medication for Lanza.

But the then 14 year old said he didn't want to go to appointments. So Nancy Lanza pulled away, discontinued the treatment and never scheduled follow-up visits.

When Lanza was in the ninth grade, Nancy Lanza withdrew him from classes over his mental health problems.

The school agreed to let him study independently and graduate early, when it could have provided better services for the trouble boy, the report said.

That move may have encouraged Lanza’s problems — not treated them.

"Records indicate that the school system cared about AL's success but also unwittingly enabled Mrs. Lanza's preference to accommodate and appease AL through the educational plan's lack of attention to social-emotional support, failure to provide related services, and agreement to AL's plan of independent study and early graduation at age 17," the authors wrote.

After withdrawing from school, he spent months alone in his bedroom, where his depression worsened.

He developed a fascination with mass murder and suicide, and spent time talking to other massacre enthusiasts online, the report said.

He also started plotting his imfamous rampage.

“The attack on Sandy Hook Elementary appears to have been a purposefully thought-out and planned attack — AL did not just ‘snap,’” the report said.

The squandered chances to help the boy started early.

When he was just 2 years old, his parents took him to New Hampshire doctors because he showed communication and sensory problems and socialization delay.

He started getting help ― but the treatment focused on his troubles forming words, and not his inability to communicate with others.

His problems started getting worse in the fourth grade, the authors found.

That’s when he became preoccupied by violence. He started producing “graphic writings that appeared to have been largely unaddressed by schools and possibly by parents,” the report said.

He struggled off and on for the rest of his life.

He made enough progress in the 10th grade to return to class, but withdrew again later that year.

The report said throughout it all, Lanza’s parents ― and his school ― classified him as a gifted student.

“In actuality, psychological testing performed by the school district in high school indicated AL’s cognitive abilities were average,” the report said.

While the lengthy report discusses Lanza’s problems, treatment and lack thereof, it does directly relate his troubled past to his crimes.

“There is no way to adequately explain why AL was obsessed with mass shootings and how or why he came to act on this obsession. In the end, only he, and he alone, bears responsibility for this monstrous act,” the author wrote.

[DoughtyOne]

Before these events, nobody is expert enough to spot a guy like this.

After the event everybody is expert enough to spot a guy like this.

These folks are some of the planet's biggest glory hounds and attention seekers.


Ramirez's latest political cartoon LARGE VERSION 11/21/2014: LINK  LINK to regular sized version of Ramirez's latest, and an archive of his political cartoons.
In this political cartoon, Ramirez presents, "Keystone"

Election Results: LINK        Animated Photos: LINK        Ayam Cemani chickens: LINK

FReepers, 78% of the FReepathon goal has been met.  Please click above and pencil in your donation now.  Please folks, lets pick up the pace and end this FReepathon. Thank you!
...this is a general all-purpose message, and should not be seen as targeting any individual I am responding to...

[CGASMIA68]

Small Town New England school system screwed up due to Political Correctness.
Many there are looking in all directions for answers when they all need to look into the mirror

[AppyPappy]

“He developed a fascination with mass murder and suicide, and spent time talking to other massacre enthusiasts online, the report said. “

Where?

[stephenjohnbanker]

“experts” aren’t......

[ConservativeInPA]

School are for learning. They are not psych clinics, abortion clinics or any other type of clinic because their mission is to teach, not doctor - two different things. Mrs. Lanza, you failed in your duty to take care of your own. It’s not my problem (I have plenty of my own). It’s not the school’s problem. It’s not the government’s problem. It’s not the gun’s problem.

People need to start taking responsibility. Faceless institutions and inanimate objects have no responsibility.

[Dan(9698)]

In the end, only he, and he alone, bears responsibility for this monstrous act,”

His Mother is very much responsible, and she paid the price.

[CGASMIA68]

Liberalism at it finest

[bgill]

Despite how much the libs want schoolds to be the parents, they aren’t, never were and never will be. His mother was the sole parent after the father bailed on them. The father agreed to pay for treatment in the divorce decree but rarely saw the kid after that. It had been three years, iirc, that the father or the older brother saw Adam. One of his therapists was later charged with child molestation. Who knows if the doctor did anything to Adam or Nancy knew and that influenced her decisions. Nancy was close to getting him placed into a treatment center before the shooting which could be what set him off.

[Vigilanteman]

In a saner time Adam Lanza would’ve been safely locked away in a mental institution for the criminally insane. Remind me once again who it was that forced the closure of these institutions.

[Fractal Trader]

There is strong evidence that LAnza had been sexually abused and that, in part, his violence was intended to express his rage about this prior abuse.

[Cicero]

From what I have heard, and from what we read here, it sounds as if his parents bear at least part of the blame. I don’t know what the school could have done, under current rules.

[DoughtyOne]

Yes. I think there’s a profession with some pretty eager beavers in the mix when it comes to explaining these things too.

[ClearBlueSky]

Awwwwww...HE was the first victim,eh? BS!!! The parents ‘squandered’ the chance to help the INSANE kid they created!! From what I’ve read they could have afforded to INSTITUTIONALIZE the evil little demon as early as 4th grade. Why didn’t they? 20 innocents are dead because of him and I- for one- am GLAD his mother was his first victim. He was a monster from birth-a monster she and his father refused to acknowledge and deal with-so now it’s ‘society’s’ fault he wasn’t ‘helped’?? If doctors and teachers had recommended he be institutionalized, these enabling parents wouldn’t have done it. They( especially the mother) protected and enabled her evil spawn and inflicted him upon society. First you have to face the fact that your child IS mentally ill and dangerous; then you have to have the guts to do something about it-up to and including institutionalizing him. We need insane asylums for those who can’t afford to do it privately. This family could- and didn’t. If he had killed MY child, the entire family would be living in cardboard boxes and eating out of the garbage forever.

[colorado tanker]

The Arapahoe High shooter saw two shrinks, one from the school district and one hired by the parents. Both said he was no danger to others.

This kind of stuff is just hindsight.

[proxy_user]

If there was ever a wacko upper-class family, this was it.

I knew a few people like this when I was growing up. Their wealth prevents them from having to act sensibly, so they do whatever they feel like.

[vette6387]

“Small Town New England school system screwed up due to Political Correctness.
Many there are looking in all directions for answers when they all need to look into the mirror”

That’s the real problem. They don’t want to come to terms with the fact that it was their PC attitudes (and policies), not the availability of guns that caused this horrible tragedy. But now “the never let a tragedy go to waste crowd” is trying to capitalize on what happened to further their PC agenda. The deaths now are simply a means to an end. Breaking eggs to make an omelette so to speak.

[Diana in Wisconsin]

“Remind me once again who it was that forced the closure of these institutions.”

*RAISES HAND*

Socialist Democrat FemiNazis!

Tell her what she’s won, Bob!

[Veto!]

Agree, AL’s mother didn’t do enough and neither did his father, for that matter, who walked away early and apparently paid the bills, generously, but he just wasn’t there. I still think the mother used drugs and alcohol quite a lot to keep her numbed enough to live with this seriously deranged boy.

This kid belonged in an institution, and the Lanza’s could have afforded to keep him in a very good one. I think they decided not to for financial reasons.

[SMARTY]

If he quit going to appointments, that means she left it up to him.

That is not good thinking.

SHE was responsible to get him to his appointments.... but it sounds like she must have been too busy or something... and trusted her ‘child’ to go on his own.

Stupid