Assessing the damage of family abduction

When an abduction begins, quick action is the best antidote. With many of the people I interviewed, abduction had been threatened or was anticipated. Parents in high-conflict custody battles need to be aware that abduction may occur if one parent is sufficiently dissatisfied. Photos of children should be kept up-to-date, school personnel alerted about the custody arrangements, and children (depending on the age) taught about what to do if they are kidnapped.

The longer the abduction goes on, the more difficult it is to resolve without emotional scars. Almost all of the 20 children I learned about from interviewing them, their siblings and their parents seem to have suffered in some way. In a few cases, their suffering is significant still - intimate relationships are hard to form, fears of abduction related to their own children abound, alcohol and drugs are abused to cope with anxiety and depression. These situations, born of parental anger and distrust, rarely end well for the children involved.

What will happen to Reigh? How will she look back on this event five, 10 or 20 years from now? It is impossible to predict the outcome for any one person. Children are resilient; her abduction was brief and she probably was well treated during the time missing. She should be shielded from the media. Ideally, her mother will provide a nurturing environment that will let her process this potentially traumatic event at different developmental stages as she grows up. And, ideally, others around her will let her return to her childhood ways and not force her to grow up a little faster, as so many other abducted children have been forced to do.

Geoffrey Greif is a professor in the School of Social Work at the University of Maryland, Baltimore and author of the book "When Parents Kidnap." His e-mail address is [e-mail].