Incest dad, as he seems to have become known in the media, is a great teaching moment for parents and future parents alike. He kept his daughter in a dungeon with no windows beneath his house for 24 years and fathered seven children with her. He and his wife apparently adopted 3 of them to raise as their own.
He is quoted as having said: "I must have been crazy....I cared for them...."
In bits and pieces, reports of his story are as follows:
His reasons forlocking her up: she misbahaved. His reasons forkeeping her locked up: scared he'd be apprehended. His reasons forfathering children with her: unclear. His reasons forcoming forward: he took care of the family andhe cared about them (one of the children got deathly ill and required hospitalization--he apparently feels he was benevolent in allowing the child medical care). I believe he said something like "I could have killed her and burned her body and no one would ever have known".
Having had nightmares about this situation, here are the questions that I would think might come up in a person's mind while examiningthe relationships that make up this family:
Grandchildren to grandmother--why was this OK with you? Grandchildren to victim mother/daughter--you were powerless. Where does that leave me? What is going to happen to us now? I had no idea the sky was blue. Grandchildren to grandfather/father--why did you think this was OK? Daughter to mother--my having 7 children in a dungeon and giving 3 of them up for adoption to you was the right thing to do? Daughter to father--so you believe you are benevolent? What now, since I have no knowledge of how to care for my family in the real world and I have no education or job skills?
Since the stated trigger for this horrific case was the daughter's apparent misbehavior(with parents who punish a child by locking her up, the definition of misbehaving might need clarification), let's have a discussion about handling misbehaving children, especially in the teenage years.
(Let me say ahead of time,incest and the pathology behind it, is way beyond the scope of this entry. Since parenting is a topic that is of interest to my readers, I will limit the discussion to that topic alone at this point).
Let's think about all the options available for teaching a child how to behave "properly".
How aboutpositive reinforcement: you do this, I'll give you that. You don't do this, you don't get that.
Starting young with theParenting With Love and Logicphilosophy of life's natural consequences and allowing children to feel them early in small doses while they are safely at home with loving parents.
Negotiatingbehavior for the big things as kids get older and more capable of independent behavior: you can have a car but you have to pay the insurance.
Group parentingwith other parents of a child's friends who can be eyes and ears when mom or dad aren't around.
Tough Love approach: you do this forbidden or undesirable thing, you lose financial or some other type of support--best for older children, I would think.
The Fresh Baked Cookies approach: have a batch of chocolate chip cookies ready to pop in the oven as the misbehaving child is threatening to run away-- the idea is that the smell of fresh baked cookies would overwhelm the desire to flee. Theoretically, this would work beautifully with young children. Although this might sound simplistic, children really like the comforts of home assuming they are not being abused.
Get professional helpif you can't figure it out. There are resources in almost every community for families with big incomes, little incomes, no incomes. Get Help.
Love them and smother them with hugs and kisses. It has been reported that parents tend to stop hugging and kissing their teenagers perhaps because of the sometimes extreme emotional challenges they present. Teenagers crave affection like any other child and those who give advice on parenting suggest parents simply grab them and hug them even as they squirm. They need it. (Teenagers request that this be done when their friends are safely out of sight).
