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What Would You Do? A Kid's Guide to Staying Safe in a World of Strangers

What Would You Do? A Kid's Guide to Staying Safe in a World of Strangers
Keeping Children Safe

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

A Tragic Case of Child Abuse

“What is done to children, they will do to society.”  (Karl A. Menninger)

It is tragic that some children suffer abuse in silence either because they cannot tell or are afraid to tell anyone what is happening to them. It is unfortunate that some people who suspect that a child is being abused, neglect to do anything about it because they either don’t want to get involved or they feel it is none of their business.

God bless the neighbors who did report a suspected case of a tragically abused and neglected child in Scranton, Pennsylvania. The neighbors, who had been suspicious of the abused child’s parents to begin with, heard the cries of the child and called authorities.

When police arrived on the scene they discovered a diaper-wearing, terrified 7-year-old boy in a bug-ridden basement of a condemned Pennsylvania home. He said that he was often put in the basement as punishment and was told that ghosts lived down there. The boy told police he was forced to sleep in a coffin in the basement. He also told police that he was frequently duct-taped to a chair in the home. "Are you here to help me?" he asked police who entered the Scranton home on September 26. Authorities are searching for the couple who live at the boy's address after he was found terrified and alone in the dark last week.

It has been said that it takes a village to raise a child. Anyone who suspects a child of being abused or neglected should report such suspicions to authorities. To neglect doing so is in effect what is called bystander syndrome – a tendency to stand by and allow harm to an individual without doing anything to intervene. For more information on bystander syndrome read my Suite 101 article, “Bystander Syndrome: Good Samaritan Ignored & Dies in N.Y.C.” at http://www.suite101.com/news/bystander-syndrome-good-samaritan-ignored--dies-in-nyc-a230282#ixzz1ZvWCDxXh.






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