HUMILIATION SEEN AS EFFECT FROM INCIDENT (LAST OF THREE PARTS)

In the beginning, the prank intended to humiliate their son was seen by Bobbie and Stuart Venable as a single incident they needed to defuse. Bobbie concentrated on helping him forgive. But when they discovered the video of the prank was being shown for others' amusement, they needed to do something more, says Dr. Doris Skelton, coordinator of counseling programs at Southeast.

"They saw people had not shown any remorse, had not learned a lesson from a joke gone bad. ... They were still having fun with this at this boy's expense. ... Something had to be done to stop it."

They needed to take action on behalf of their son, Skelton says.

"If they just keep forgiving the perpetrators, their son begins to think, 'Doesn't anybody take me seriously? Doesn't anybody realize how hurtful and destructive this is to me?'"

Ugly incidents such as this mock crucifixion can happen within a group of friends because people like to belong to a group and want to be accepted by the group. And every group has a leader.

"I assume the young boy was someone the boys looked up to and trusted," Skelton said. "I think of it as getting in a canoe and going along."

People sometimes follow a leader because it's easier than making decisions for themselves, she said.

"I believe these young people quit thinking of the consequences and instead got involved in the excitement," she said.

It's the group dynamic at work again. "They will go beyond what they would do by themselves as a result of that pull to not be excluded," Skelton says. "Thinking alone they might make a different decision."

But especially at the age of 15 or 16, other parts of the personality need to be developed as well, says Dr. Brad Robison, a Cape Girardeau child and adolescent psychiatrist.

"Sometimes we take kids from a very early age and put them in competitive sporting events to where the whole focus from early on is succeeding in social interactions. They skip over a whole period when only a piece ought to be about peer relationships. A big part ought to be developing a sense of mastering, doing things by myself, initiating things myself."

Most of the boys involved were football players. Robison said athletics can provide many opportunities for growth. "But part of what parents need to be supporting in kids is not only a healthy sense of accomplishment in sports, but also a healthy individualism so we have kids that will stand up and say, 'We're going too far.'"

Skelton is appalled that parents could witness such a scene and give their approval. Said Robison, "I don't have any idea what the parents were thinking that would explain why they were not able to step up and say, This has gone too far."

No one willing to talk knows why a mock crucifixion was chosen for the boy's humiliation. The family is religious, but so are some of the families of the other boys. "The cross bothered him a lot," Bobbie says of her son. "That is so creepy."

The prank had a history. According to Bobbie, their son had refused to go along with a previous prank in which members of the group removed the tires from a friend's truck and set it on blocks. He thought it would be disrespectful to the boy's parents, who'd just gotten him the truck, Bobbie said.

When the prank was pulled, the victim called their son, who told him who had done it.

Skelton said the prank might have been punishment for acting as the group's conscience.

Robison said it may have been an attempt to make the boy conform, "a way of bringing someone into line that maybe was starting to think of getting out of the group."

Perhaps the boys didn't realize the psychological effects of putting a hood over someone's head as they did to the Venables' son during the evening. It is called sensory deprivation. The effect is disorientation.

"We utilize that whole disorientation phenomenon to entertain ourselves with thrill rides, shooting on a roller coaster into a dark hole," Robison said. "But that lasts brief moments. The longer it progresses, the more disorienting it becomes and the more difficult it becomes to maintain clear thoughts."

Putting a hood over the head of a suspect during interrogation was one of the interrogation practices the Israeli Supreme Court banned last week.

Skelton imagined how the Venables' son would feel after the experience. "He would feel completely confused. You expect when you're in high school to be safe, and you expect parents to help you to remain safe," she said.

"To find out it is not your enemies but your friends who have singled you out as a recipient of something so frightening would do something to this young man's trust level for the rest of his life.

"He's going to be cautious of making friends, really giving his full trust to anybody."

Youth is on the boy's side.

Robison said, "With a single incident like this, most people are going to be pretty resilient. They are going to bounce back fairly well. Most people are able to process a significant amount of trauma."

A supportive family and friends and getting on with day-to-day life are key, Robison said.

"For this kid, how he will respond will depend a great deal on his own internal strength," Robison said. "He is going to feel ostracized, and that has to be realized. He is going to have to have a healthy sense of himself. It would be great if he had a peer group here that would rally around him and his family."