Closet Children

[UnrepentantSinner]

Any of you guys heard of this form of abuse where a parent locks a child into a closet and leaves them there for long periods of time and is there a more precise term? Of special interest would be families where there are other siblings who are not abused in this way.

 

[godofpie]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genie_(feral_child)
This is the only one that I am familiar with. Genie had an older brother but he was not allowed to speak to her even when he was feeding her.

 

[drkitten]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genie_(feral_child)
This is the only one that I am familiar with. Genie had an older brother but he was not allowed to speak to her even when he was feeding her.

There are others (unfortunately). The usual term for these is "feral children," and if you type "feral children" into Google you'll get lists.

 

[Cainkane1]

Any of you guys heard of this form of abuse where a parent locks a child into a closet and leaves them there for long periods of time and is there a more precise term? Of special interest would be families where there are other siblings who are not abused in this way.

Parents who do this are often mentally retarded and don't seem to know that what they are doing is harming their child. In the cases where parents of normal intelligence do this they should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

 

[Blackadder]

Harry Potter

 

[thought_fugitive]

Sounds like it could be explained through a form of attachment therapy but I don't know if there's a specific term for what you're looking for.

 

[Patsy]

Dave Pelzer's book "A Child Called It" was required reading when I was trained as a foster parent, and chronicles such a situation where one child was singled out for abuse and neglect. I will say there is some controversy regarding his book, with his account being denied by one brother and an aunt, and being confirmed by another brother, school authorities, and law enforcement.

 

[Lanzy]

Locked for how long? I was frequently locked in a closet for hours at a time. I was supposed to contemplate god and decide just how "bad" I had been. I much preferred this to the other alternative of having the devil beaten out of me. To be honest though, sometimes I got both.

 

[drkitten]

Locked for how long?

Months and years, sometimes.

 

[Patsy]

Months and years, sometimes.

We had a case recently where I live, a child that was locked up, not in a closet, but in his room for an entire summer, with a bucket for a toilet. When questioned, his mother claimed she was not able to afford a sitter while she and her boyfriend were at work, and that the child was a "problem" child when they were home. Her solution was to lock the child up 24/7. She seemed genuinely puzzled that people were upset with her, and seemed to genuinely think this was the appropriate solution to her problem

 

[Cayvmann]

For short periods, this is nothing more than simple solitary confinement, and might be useful to some extent. For extended periods this is either just torture, or an idiot's "out of sight, out of mind" policy, this is just sick. I wouldn't do this to my child, and it wasn't done to me.

Is it just an extension of our laziness, as a society, that we want to imprison everyone we can't understand or control?

 

[godless dave]

Is it just an extension of our laziness, as a society, that we want to imprison everyone we can't understand or control?

No. This isn't about "society". This is about individuals with little or no empathy and individuals who are sadistic.

 

[Piscivore]

Locked for how long? I was frequently locked in a closet for hours at a time. I was supposed to contemplate god and decide just how "bad" I had been.

My grandma did this to us (brother and cousins) occasionally. My parents never did. It never worked on me, I just went on a "Calvin and Hobbes" style fantasy trip.

I never did and would never do this to my kids. It's much crueller and far more effective to show them why what they did was wrong and get them to logically accept the fact.

 

[Rolfe]

Harry Potter

That's what immediately struck me about this question. When I began the first Harry Potter book it seemed obvious that Rowling was describing an abused child. The fact that he came out of this apparently perfectly normal was perhaps the most fantastical thing about the books.

Rolfe.

 

[Aitch]

Not only Harry Potter. I had always assumed Goodnight, Mr Tom was a children's book until I read it (it's actually meant fo teenagers/'young adults'). Towards the end is a harrowing section where the boy is found chained in cupboard under the stairs cradling a dead baby in his arms. Not an easy read.

 

[Rolfe]

There are others (unfortunately). The usual term for these is "feral children," and if you type "feral children" into Google you'll get lists.

That's a funny use of the word. The definition I'm familiar with is "a domesticated animal which has returned to the wild". So, stray cats, mink, even goldfish in streams. It seems to me to have such a connotation of running wild, and surviving alone, I find it odd usage for something confined.

Rolfe.

 

[quarky]

B.F. Skinner comes to mind.

 

[drkitten]

That's a funny use of the word. The definition I'm familiar with is "a domesticated animal which has returned to the wild". So, stray cats, mink, even goldfish in streams. It seems to me to have such a connotation of running wild, and surviving alone, I find it odd usage for something confined.

It is. The word is also used for Romulus-and-Remus or Mowgli style children raised in the wild, and the R/R/M usage probably predates.

The reason the same word is used, of course, is because both types of children display the same deficiencies in cognitive development; they never learned language or human society.

They're absolutely fascinating from a psycholinguistic or psychodevelopmental standpoint, in a sort of take-a-stiff-drink-and-pretend-to-be-Dr-Menegle way; we've learned unbelievable amounts about human cognition by studying Genie.

Which makes her no less a tragedy. In fact, the Genie-ologists that I know are (when they're not in the lab pretending to be German) among the most vocal advocates against even mild forms of child abuse for exactly this reason.....

 

[Sir Robin Goodfellow]

B.F. Skinner comes to mind.

We all know that story about his daughter is nonsense.

 

[kittynh]

We can thank the wire monkey mommy for undoing the damage of BF Skinner and his "don't touch the baby" philosophy.

Moms were often taught not to cuddle of baby their children. Germs were evil.

Now we know that cuddles are good and early exposure to germs make a kid healthy.

One controversial theory about these children is that they are autistic. Their family can't deal with it, and the kids seem ok with being locked up. I'm not saying it's RIGHT, but there is great debate about were these children ever "normal" or is the damage caused by the lack of social interaction? In other words, perhaps the child that was autistic was "shut away" from shame or just inability to care for the child. The inability of these children to ever regain any kind of normal life could be due to their mental issues, or to the abuse. It's not clear yet because thank goodness not too many parents do this (or it rarely comes to light).