I Accidentally Killed a Child. May I Get in Touch With the Family?

As to "agent regret", I had an experience 40 years ago when I worked as a middle manager for FAA at Kennedy Airport. An airliner had gone down at the airport and, as I was leaving work and heard the sirens of the emergency vehicles racing to the scene, I burst into tears (not my usual response) feeling some responsibility for the accident. This, even though I was an administrator not an operator and had nothing directly to do with the accident. Thus is the reach of "agent regret".
JD

>>Is there an ethical way to use parental web-monitoring software (like Net Nanny, etc.) for young children who are learning to navigate the internet?

How about simply not giving a 4 year old a smart phone or tablet?

Nah, that would never work, requires actual parenting.

On December 7, 1937, my five-year old brother was hit by a car. Rodney had alighted from the school bus and was in the process of crossing the street to reach his home, the driver of the car hit him. Rodney ended up in a near-by ditch; a mail man witnessed the tragedy, and with the help of the driver of the car that hit him, he was taken to the hospital. His injuries were enormous. Phone calls were made to mother and dad, and at school - I and my older brother- were called to go to the hospital immediately. Rodney died about 5 hours after his hospital admittance. This accident brought about statutes to Minnesota State Laws concerning safe school bus travel by children. Within two years these improved upon Minnesota State Laws became nation-wide laws, to be followed shortly thereafter by International Bus Laws. It was weeks later that my mother and dad met with the driver of the car (just hired -new job/married/young children), he was suffering terribly because of this dreadful accident. Mother and dad suffered for MANY years over the loss of their "baby", but they never regretted 'reaching out' to the man who caused his death. Because of Rodney frightful death, all school children are now safe because of the "rigid school bus laws". Even though I was only 7 when this happened, any time I am behind a school bus on any road, it brings back many childhood memories of Rodney.

To the person who was involved in the accident where a child died: please leave his family alone. Explore ways to assuage your guilt but don't do it at the family's expense. Please just don't.

Regarding the computer repairman/felon, I'm not sure that standing outside his shop and warning everyone who goes in or out that he has a record would be the proper or practical thing to do. If he were a school crossing guard or a bank teller, it would be easy enough to monitor his activities and keep a close eye on him. Given the nature of his crimes, however, I do wonder what he's doing with those computers he repairs. Setting up tracking software or undetectable cameras to watch the people at home? Stealing passwords?
This is troubling and a difficult question.

Children need their parents to be involved and observant. I don't think those monitoring programs are an adequate substitute for parents who familiarize themselves with what their kids are doing, through conversation and observation. I can't see how it is unethical to monitor your kids - what is unethical is to behave as though they are adults, when they really aren't.

A kid's job is to gradually separate from the parents; the parents' job is to be sure that this is done safely and in a way that maximizes the odds that the kid will live to be a good citizen/parent/student in adulthood and not hurt anyone or be hurt by anyone.

I disagree with those who suggest donating in the child's name. That also does not respect the boundaries of the parents. If anonymous it could seem like stalking. If named it could seem like self-promotion. Either way, it's like walking onto someone else's lawn who has already asked you not to tread there. The better advice: leave it alone and deal with it alone.

If writing a check makes the letter writer feel better it ought to be a silent gesture - simply to a general fund for a cause that makes sense, and simply as a promise to himself. Money to a good general cause may help the cause. But it may not help whatever the letter writer is really searching for. For some things in life, there is no "closure", there is just acceptance and private meditation.

As to the auto accident letter the fact is that the police judgment has limited value. Their decision that they would not bring charges against the letter-writer means only that based upon the available evidence they were not convinced they could prove culpability beyond a reasonable doubt. While that leaves us with the "presumption of innocence" from a legal standpoint, it really does nothing to expiate the guilt the writer feels from the nagging feeling that there was some heightened alertness, anticipation or prompt reaction which might have avoided the accident.

In my opinion it is this nagging guilt and regret that is eating at the letter writer.
If the writer were truly certain that the accident could not reasonably have been avoided by his/her actions, I think the writer's need for forgiveness would not be so strong.

Please leave the people alone. Nothing you can say or do will likely make them feel any better, and in my view it won't solve your problem either.

Everyone I know who has one of those kiddie monitoring programs ends up spending a lot of time monitoring the monitor.
Ask yourself if you are trying to protect him or to catch him peeking at things.

Years ago, my 4-year-old brother died through someone's negligence. When I look back, it seems the trial provided a measure of healing for my father, but none whatsoever for my mother. She was angry at everyone and everything, including her closest friend, with whom she cut off all contact. The friend reached out periodically, but was always rebuffed...until about 35 years later.

On the one hand, broken-hearted people do blame others irrationally, and things can change in three decades. On the other hand, this is not parallel to my mother's situation with her friend. These people know you ONLY as the person involved in the accident. All you know of them is their grief and anger.

Hearing from you -- even so subtly as a name on a donation card -- might only remind them of the worst day of their lives. If that is the case, I would recommend a quiet gesture that helps you but does not put any burden on them: a donation to a charity that supports bereaved parents or training for young and new drivers.

Or, hearing from you might remind them how angry they were and how much they regret their anger and would say a kind word to you if they could. If that is the case, I would recommend a donation in their honour (not in memory of the child;it's the parents you knew and still think about) to a politically neutral charity (not necessarily one that is thematically related to the terrible events).

But I don't know them. Perhaps someone you trust does?

To the gentleman involved in an accident that killed a child: I am so sorry for you. Many years ago, when I was a child, my father was killed in a mid-air collision of two small aircraft, each with only the pilot on board. It was judged to be an accident with no clear fault, and I have always felt sad for the pilot of the other plane, knowing what he has to live with. From time to time I wonder about him and have the urge to reach out to him to let him know my family has no ill-will toward him. I don't know his name or anything about him, or else I would have looked him up by now. If he were to reach out to my family, I can't imagine it in terms of old wounds being opened -- even if we had never wanted contact with him as described in the scenario presented -- because as one commenter indicated, the grief is always with us, and every day has reminders. Death of a loved one is not something one copes with by not thinking about it, but rather it is that thinking about it all the time, which tends to happen automatically, makes it the "new normal". I also agree with the commenter who said the family may feel differently now after all these years. As long as this gentleman is prepared to be ok with being told "no" again, I don't see anything wrong with his reaching out. If they do agree to contact, sure, it could be very emotional for all of them, but that is not necessarily a bad thing. Emotions can be healing.

I am the parent of a child who was hit by a car and died. I have not been asked to meet the driver who was not criminally at fault but I would seriously consider meeting this person. I think they may be suffering too. It could be healing. and yet every grieving person deals with coping differently. One thing I am sure of is that you wouldn't be reminding them of their loss. That never goes away. Also make sure you are not just wanting this meeting for yourself. Have your intentions be pure and listen more than talk.

"The police determined . . ." Perhaps the family of the dead child refused forgiveness, and the LW needs it, for more reasons than simply grief. Even if the LW feels more guilt than "agent regret", however, he should follow Mr. Appiah's advise.

Letter#1: Since this accident which took the lives of two young teens over thirty years ago I don't think you should reach out to any family members. You carry a large burden even if you're not at fault--it led to unimaginable pain and lives that were altered forever. We live with ghosts. They are yours and I do feel that you are a sensitive person and suffer even today for the tragic loss. Even you lost something very precious from your life in this accident. I feel what happened had many unforseen changes in your own life as well. Not just the pain or guilt either. You have my sympathy. Of course the parents are entitled to their own feeling and never wanting to hear from you--they endured the worst thing that can ever happen to them in life, the loss of their chlld.

You write that the siblings might not be as difficult but I believe that you are wrong in feeling this way. When one child is lost, it affects the other child forever in their own relations to their parents and how these parents dealt with their grief and the fears imposed upon surviving children in that home.

Decades later you're reopening this painful accident chapter. Truth is, a part of yourself was taken on that day which can never be recovered. Embrace the loss, grieve for it, forgive yourself, and try to understand why this "accident" is still driving you and driving the pain and guilt you carry. Free yourself from it, or else 3 people lost their lives in that tradegy. I feel your pain!

To the first letter-writer: I'm terribly sorry for what you've been through. It must be a horrendous thing to have to live with, even knowing you were in no way at fault. Clearly it still disturbs you deeply, even thirty years later.

Having said that, though, surely you must recognize that your desire to get in touch with the family is about what you need, not what they need. Mr. Appiah has this one right: look elsewhere for the forgiveness you seek. They probably cannot (or maybe will not) give it to you, and your pain, as bad as it may be, is nothing compared to theirs.

Train engineers are required to take leave and receive pyschological couseling when someone commits suicide by stepping in front of the train. There is absolutely nothing they could have done to prevent it since the train cannot stop instantly, but nevertheless they feel tremendous guilt and suffer from PTSD. I think the same is true here for the CADIs.

LW3 I am a former elementary school teacher. Net Nanny and other software is the WORST way to protect your child from violent and disturbing content on the web. I was the tech person on our campus. Kids got around the filters most often out of innocence and kid logic and were scared to report because of punishment threats.

If you want to keep your child safe - TALK to him.
1. Teach him how to use technology. Teach talk. When you are looking something up with him explain why you used the search terms you did and why you don't use other terms you don't have to explain exact meanings just that some words have two meanings and some are inappropriate.

2. Accept he is going to stumble across something inappropriate. In the early 80s my sister turned on the TV. As it warmed up she screamed in horror as Pamela Voorhees's head flew across the screen. My parents had left the TV on HBO when they went to bed the night before. We had done nothing wrong.

3. Set the expectation that if he sees something inappropriate, he will turn off the screen (not the device), and tell you. That way you can figure out what line of kid logic or keyword trickery got him there and help him learn how to avoid falling into that trap again.

5. If he knows a mistake on his part is going to mean learning not punishment you are ahead of the game.

It seems as though the person who killed the child has been perpetually haunted by the incident which is more than understandable. However, [they] are indeed seeking forgiveness from the family of the deceased. Since the family has already strongly expressed an inability to grant this request or even to accept an expression of regret, further contact would be self-serving. There are no ethical standards under which initiating contact with this family (siblings included) can be approved. None. The family of the deceased is well aware of the identity of the person who was involved in the accident and has expressed no desire for contact. So, their needs should be respected absolutely and without exception, in my opinion.

Regarding the accidental death incident. If the remorseful driver has the means, he/she could set up a scholarship at a school in the town where the accident occurred. It need not be in the name of the dead kids, but could provide financial assistance to families with sick children of about the same age, or pay for rehabilitation services to other children injured in accidents. Some community foundations can provide leads to existing charities where donations can be made if you don't have a lot of money. But if you have a lot, you can set up a fund at the community foundation that they can administer.

Offering up cash doesn't eliminate the sense of guilt or remorse. But at least you can do something to benefit other kids and their families.

I would reach out to both the parents and the adult siblings. Grief changes over time, and they may feel very differently now, and the siblings may wonder about you and your perspective now as adults. You will in no way cause their grief to be re-ignited or worse or resurface. When you love someone, you always grieve them, daily, but the manifestation of it can change. Best wishes.

Children don't have privacy rights. Parents should be able to know everything about their child's activities.

Well at least people are presenting true moral dilemmas instead of the typical angst over removing the tag from the mattress that one is advised not to remove. But the blatant self-interest and naval gazing of the first writer is staggering in its obliviousness; he (or she) was self-indulging by even attending the funeral! The family may have come to terms with the death after 30 years, but this is their loss, not an opportunity to expiate guilt for the driver. However, there is a social ritual to call upon - donate time or money to a charity on behalf of the deceased child. And for God's sake, don't trumpet your good deed.

Your advice to the person who killed the moped passenger started out well. I like the notion of agent regret as a way to reason about the situation. The question to ask the writer is what they would do if contact was accepted. From that you might be able to identify steps that you can take with a proxy of the family. For example, set up a recurring donation in honor of the person who died with a charity. In short, the answer to agent regret may be agent amends.

Because the family said they didn't want to talk with the driver I wouldn't recommend directly contacting them. I have the opposite situation. As the mother of a child who was accidentally killed by a driver, I would welcome the opportunity to talk with the driver who hit my child. I hold no ill will. I've reached out to the driver via an intermediary, but the driver didn't want to talk with me.

Forgiveness of self is never easy and closure is what this driver needs. Perhaps knowing from somebody like me with such a loss would help. You are forgiven.

When I was a teen in the early 00s, before smart phones and texting, my parents monitored my computer use with software. Internet history, chat logs, and keystrokes were all recorded. Occasionally, I would have a chance to secretly delete the reports in my parents' email, or the PC would freeze in a way that shut down the monitoring; but most of the time, it was inescapable. I was a normal nerdy teenager doing normal things—little to merit worry or punishment—still, I resented being watched, being denied the ability to have private conversations with friends online. My parents felt it was their right until I was out of the house. And surely so—but it did no favors to our relationship.

Of course, sixteen is not six. I agree that limiting certain websites could be appropriate at that age, but communication and modeling good practices are better tools for helping your kid navigate the digital world than unrelenting surveillance. (I would argue that getting a report of every vaguely unsavory site your kid has visited, or every social media post they have made, is of a different scale than just limiting TV and movies.) I get the desire to protect children from the violent or pornographic; but there's also something to be said for having the (if small) freedom to Google something silly or embarrassing without Mom knowing about it, and—if the search result brings up something confusing or scary—having the freedom to go to her and have a conversation about it.

As a nurse I have seen my share of heartache: children dying from cancer, burn victims, families coping with drug addiction. Yet one of the saddest memories I have is from my time in the medical department of the NYC MTA. We were following the case of a subway motorman whose train ran over a man who fell on the tracks. He felt such enormous guilt, even though he was in no way responsible. The victim's family certainly suffered, but so did the innocent motorman and his family. Whenever I hear about someone falling on the tracks by accident, or committing suicide "by train" I remember the second victim, too.

I think that stating that the driver whose encounter resulted in the loss of a child's life "clearly wants something like forgiveness" oversimplifies the underlying motivation.

I've tried to put myself in both places - the driver's and the parents.' Which is of course impossible without having experienced this. But if I were the driver, reflecting on the same question, it wouldn't be forgiveness that I were seeking. It would be shared healing, from an event that is so tragic and heartbreaking it alters the lives of everyone involved irreparably, albeit differently. Life is so incredibly awful at times. The only thing that helps counter that in any meaningful way is each other. Community.

If I were the parents, I think my ability to withstand seeing someone who is so deeply connected to such an earth shattering loss would depend on how far I had come in my ability to cope. If it were many decades later, I would definitely hope that I were in a place where I could reach peace not with the event itself, but with the individuals involved in it. So for me, personally, assuming the driver's intentions really were pure, I think I would appreciate that person reaching out to me. But without knowing the state of mind of the parents and how their lives have unfolded, the consequences of doing so are certainly not clear.

I would have advised the driver against making any contact with the family, including the original contact at the funeral. Here in New Hampshire it is assumed that a child is never at fault in an accident. He is lucky the family did not bring a law suite. Leave well enough alone.

Let the family be. What happened was a tragic accident, and the driver of the car (however innocent) is a reminder of what happened. Unless there is some real need to review what happened, leave it alone. They might not even really hold you responsible; it's just their way of coping.

I generally lean towards "innocent until proven guilty", but that doesn't mean I would go about business with someone charged and awaiting trial like I would anyone else. Something seems off here (besides the guy himself). If it was one of the "worst" cases ever seen, how is he out of jail on bond - especially with a felony conviction? Anyway, tell what are facts (convicted of, charged with, etc.) if you feel safe doing so. I doubt the computer-repair business is totally on the up-and-up.

My parents (rightfully) controlled what I watched on TV, what movies I went to see, what strangers I interacted with, and a few other things, to various extents during my youth. Employing a computer program to do the same type of thing online is not much different. The main difference is how obvious the content is to the parent. It's hard to hide what you're watching on TV from Mom or Dad in the next room, but computer stuff is a lot less obvious (and interactive). The process might change, but the goals don't.