Posted on 11/21/2014 10:43:44 AM PST by 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.
Why is this kid’s mental health the responsibility of the school?
The answer is oh so simple. Instead of taking away all those evil, evil, evil firearms, we should instead do away with free time so the little monsters don’t have time to think up their dastardly deeds.
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