JonBenet Ramsey: Are there lessons to be learned from her tragic story?

JonBenet Ramsey is back in the news, ten years after her heartbreaking murder.

This story is every parent's worst nightmare. We all remember how it caught hold of the mass media and the American public, with its irresistible themes of ambiguous evidence, suspicion if JonBenet knew her killer or not, and heinous child victimization - all entangled somehow with a world of financial privilege and childhood beauty pageants and disquieting images of a highly made-up and precociously sexy appearing 6 year old.

In the relentless 24/7 cable coverage of the case, every pundit on the planet got his 15 minutes of fame, each hawking his favorite pre-existing theory: "It's usually the weird parents." "The poor parents are being unjustly accused." "The hyper-sexualized world of young children led to her being abused and killed." "Selfish parents don't keep track of their kids." "It's our sick society."

But - sadly, in my view - the most powerful message to emerge was this: "The world is a very dangerous place. There are zillions of maniacs out there just lying in wait to wreak havoc and destruction and abuse and murder on your kids. Be afraid. Be very afraid."

What should you as a parent to make of this story? Were the pundits right? Should you teach your children what a scary, dangerous world this is? Are there nut jobs who mean them harm lurking on every corner? Should you obtain child IDs that include fingerprints and DNA testing as a precaution? How much money should we as a society invest (e.g., in universal "amber alerts") to prevent such this worst-case scenarios?

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Dr. P's Pearl #231: Notorious stories usually make for bad policies and ill-advised parenting practices. This is one of them. Let me tell you why I think this is the case.

The media vastly overemphasize how risky the world is (hence, the newsroom adage: "If it bleeds, it leads"). Who wants to read how and why little Jimmy is having a wonderful childhood? Fear sells. Scare tactics make money.

Let me give you just a few examples*:

• From 1990-1998, the murder rate in the U.S declined by 20%. During the same period, network TV stories highlighting murder increased by 600%.
• 40% of all news stories about kids involve crime and violence.
• Most other stories about kids detail risks - however unlikely - to their well-being. Most of us have been led to believe the world has become increasingly dangerous for kids, despite the fact that in 1930, 1 in 10 children died before reaching the age of 20 and in 2000 it was about one in 100 (mostly due to non-intentional injuries).
• One of the most proven negative outcomes of frequent TV viewing is coming to see the world as much more hazardous than it really is. Big-time TV viewers vastly overestimate the chances of, for example, being a victim of a crime or contracting a disease.
• This instills a culture of fear to the some of the least risky possibilities, and diverts funding to from common to extremely rare risks, like your child being abducted by a stranger.

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What are the chances of your child being abducted and/or killed by a stranger? Let's put this risk in perspective. (Data largely taken from a 1999 study by the Department of Justice)

• About 69,000 children were abducted in 1999.
• Of those, 82% were abducted by known family members (usually due to custody disputes), 11% by friends and acquaintances, and 2-3 % by strangers.
• Of these 69,000, about 115 were "stereotypical type" of abductions. (These data are hard to gather; some claim the numbers should be closer to 200-300.). "Stereotypical abductions" are defined as abductions perpetrated by a stranger or slight acquaintance that involve a child who was transported 50 or more miles, detained overnight, held for ransom or with the intent to keep the child permanently, or killed.
• Thus, the risk of such an horrific abduction was about 1 in 600,000 U.S. children.
• Of the 115 abductees, 45 were murdered, a risk of about 1 in 1,500,000 U.S. children.

Now, let's compare this risk of death (50 children/year; odds of 1 in 1.5 million) to the following:

• About 1,500 children die each year from physical abuse.
• The odds of a child dying is 2 X more likely from influenza or pneumonia, 4 X more likely from heart disease, 17 X more likely from suicide, 20 X more likely from playing youth football, 30 X more likely as a pedestrian in a car accident, 100 X more likely from a car accident.
• The odds of being struck by lightning are 1 in 240,000. About 75 people /year are killed by lightning.

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Still, even with these relative odds in mind, when we see something on TV, we intuitively believe it much more likely to happen to us than it really is. And it's hard not to respond emotionally to this tragic story, not to envision worst-case scenarios happening to your child, not to feel you must choose between protecting a child or supporting a child killer, not to agree to do anything to prevent your child from being in the headlines.

When this story first broke nine years ago, I had parents in my pediatric practice who decided to teach their child to be ever vigilant to all the possible dangers on every corner. They chose to have her DNA tested and fingerprints stored for future identification. They refused to let her walk to school. They taught her how to elude a stranger who might try to abduct her. They succeeded in making her plenty scared.

Interestingly, these were the same parents who had refused to immunize their child with the whooping cough vaccine . At that time the vaccine carried a risk of 1 in 2,000 for a serious side effect (like shock or convulsions; it's much less now with the newer 'acellular' vaccine), compared to a risk of 1 in 50 for these to occur should their child actually contract the whooping cough.

Like many of us, they were great at responding emotionally to much-hyped, poster-child media stories. But they weren't too good at wisely playing the odds. (They are not alone. How else to explain why lotteries make a ton of money and Las Vegas has built a new, billion dollar hotel? After all, with all those happy winners on TV - of course, you don't get to see the millions of losers - why couldn't that just as easily be me?)

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Dr. P's take:

Make no mistake: child victimization is a real concern and does merit your attention. It's just that abduction and murder is about as unlikely a risk as it gets.

• I'd suggest you try to put risks into perspective.
• Avoid the fear-mongering, induced hysteria that will surely be re-visited in the weeks to come.
• Don't scare your kids to death and promote in them an unwarranted culture of fear.
• Do teach kids how to lessen the likelihood they will be victimized in any way (such as physical and sexual abuse, being bullied and scape-goated, etc.). I'll deal with this in another blog, but a nice summary of effective, sensible programs can be found here.
• Blow up your TV.
• If you do happen to watch these kind of stories with your kids, be sure to discuss it with them, explain how rare an event it is, how TV shows exaggerate risk, reiterate that you will make certain they stay safe, and take them in your sheltering arms and reassure them that the world is mostly a friendly and joyous place to be a kid.

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* Book cited: The Culture of Fear: Why Americans are worried about the wrong things. Barry Glassner. 1999. Basic Books.

Related Topics: The JonBenet Case and Cruel Stress, Sexual Abuse Prevention

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