in a word

Written by Lauren Yee

Directed by Rachel Pustejovsky
Carnegie Mellon University School of Drama Production, April 2015
Controlling the Story

Give the story a new slant.

Limit the number of points you want to make and keep them simple.
Articulate the most crucial information in every interview.
You can repeat your main points over and over again.
If you can create a way for the media to present your childs story in a different

way, it is more likely to be run.

To give the story a new look, you may want to change the tone of your interviews.
Make your child real by sharing stories that show his or her wit, interests, and

other endearing qualities.

Keep control of the story.

This is some of the advice given in When Your Child Is Missing: A Family Survival
Guide, a handbook published by the U.S. Department of Justice for parents whose
children have gone missing.

Media publicity is the best way to generate leads from the public concerning a
missing child. As Patrick Sessions, a father with a missing child, said: One shot on the
evening news is worth 20,000 posters. However, with the suggestions presented by the
handbook mentioned above, it is interesting to see how parents with missing children are
advised to adjust their stories for maximum media interest and impact.
The story that is presented in the news is not always the most accurate story. Its a
short story, a story that quickly covers the most important points, a story that focuses on
the endearing qualities of a child, a story that is geared towards a specific audience. This

combination of qualities gives the media the story they are most likely to react to and
present to the public.
Trying to fit a story into all of those requirements can be difficult, and, once you
create that story, it can be difficult to tell a different story, perhaps a more accurate story.
Telling the altered story over and over may make that story become real in your mind.
Telling the same details over and over may make you forget any other details that may
have occurred.
Memory and storytelling go hand in hand. Psychological studies have shown that
people alter the stories they tell depending on their audience and their communication
goals. These goals are usually accuracy or entertainment. An accurate retelling of a story
may not be the most entertaining account to listen to, while an entertaining story may be
embellished to make an audience have a stronger reaction. While retelling a story of an
event, sometimes what we remember about the event is not the event itself. Sometimes
what we remember about the event is actually a memory of the last time we talked about
the event. And sometimes, we can have a memory of an event that never actually
happened.
A false memory is a psychological phenomenon in which a person believes
something happened that didnt actually occur. The false memory phenomenon developed
through a memory implantation study that used the lost in the mall technique. A study
was conducted in 1995 in which a cognitive psychologist and her student interviewed
family members of 24 study participants. In these interviews, they asked for a true story
of an event that happened to the study participant during his or her childhood. The team
then presented the participant with a written account of this story, as well as a written

account of a made-up story in which the participant had gotten lost in a mall at the age of
5. The made-up story was edited to include real details from the participants childhood.
After reading the stories, the participants were asked to remember as much as possible
about the events of each story. The team found that twenty five percent of participants
retold the made-up story as if it had actually happened. This experiment shows us just
how inaccurate our memories can be. The combination of the unreliability of our
memories and the effect of an audience on our storytelling explains why stories change
over time. It happens to all of us.
With these facts in mind, the advice, Keep control of the story is more difficult
than it seems.

The Effects of Child Abduction

What does a family whose child has been abducted experience? The following responses,
to questions I have devised are drawn directly from an article entitled Impact of Family
Child Abduction written by Georgia K. Hilgeman, founder and former Executive
Director of the Vanished Childrens Alliance.

What are some factors from life before an abduction that may affect how parents react to
the event?
Families where abduction has occurred may have experienced pre-stressors. Pre-stressors
refer to the stress in these peoples lives before their children were abducted. When a
child is abducted, the incredibly severe stress is then added to past stresses. Some typical
pre-stressors might include: domestic violence, separation, divorce, child abuse, neglect,
loss of a job or housing and financial insecurities. Couple the pre-stressors with the
trauma of child abduction and you have parents and children in distress.

What decisions do parents with missing children have to face?

If the child is not returned quickly, the family is faced with a multitude of choices. Will
they return to work? If not, how will they pay the bills? Should they hire a private
investigator or psychic? Are they reliable? Could they get ripped off? They are
emotionally distraught. They see their child's toys, clothing, room, playmates, or a child
in the grocery store-all reminders of their missing child and fear of the unknown. They
wonder when, if ever, they will see their child again.

What happens when, after weeks or months, a child still hasnt been found?
Time does not heal the wounds when the family remains in a state of limbo and left with
uncertainty of what has happened to their childFamilies need answers. Most searching
families will, at some point learn the fate of their abducted children but the journey is
grueling and often with no end in sight. Until the child's whereabouts are known and
reunification has occurred, families cannot experience one of life's greatest gifts-joy. How
can a parent ever be happy when he or she does not know the well being or the location
of their child. Is the child dead or alive? Are they abused, hungry, cold or sick? Time
unfortunately provides additional triggers, reminders and pain: the child's birthday, the
anniversary of the childs disappearance and the holidays. It can be an emotional roller
coaster for the parent when sightings or leads are received and don't materialize into
an actual location and recovery.
Families of abducted children experience serious emotional distress. Most
families live for the moment when they will be reunited with their children. If
reunification occurs certainly one nightmare will end but it is not the end of the story.