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cubby

Live Long and Prosper
Bold Member!
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/japanese-boy-disappears-parents-leave-forest-39473254

A 7-year-old boy is missing in a forest in northern Japan after his parents made him get out of their car as punishment for misbehaving.

About 150 rescue workers searched Monday in a wooded area on Hokkaido, the northernmost of Japan's four main islands. The boy, identified as Yamato Tanooka, has been missing since late Saturday afternoon.

Hokkaido police said the parents initially told authorities that their son had disappeared while they were picking wild vegetables, but then admitted they made him get out of the car and then left him behind "as discipline." Police said the father returned to the site a few minutes later but the boy was gone.

The parents told police that they were punishing the boy for throwing rocks at people and cars while playing at a river earlier in the day, according to Japanese media.

The boy's father said in an interview with public broadcaster NHK and other TV stations that "I regret what I did to my child." He said he initially did not tell police the truth because he found it embarrassing to ask for a massive search for what happened as a result of the punishment.

Kyodo News service said police are determining whether the parents should be charged with child abandonment.
 
I hope they find this boy. The rest will come out in the wash later - but finding this boy is what's most important. I imagine one of my girls stuck out there and how terrified they would be....
 
This is a country where children are punished for misbehaving by being locked out of the family home. They don't tend to "ground" children in Japan. I suspect it has something to do with the limited size of the homes.....
 
Given the limited land area of Japan, i would imagine you wouldn't have to walk more than 100 yards or so to make your way out of any forested area.

What a shit country.
 
Given the limited land area of Japan, i would imagine you wouldn't have to walk more than 100 yards or so to make your way out of any forested area.

What a shit country.

You'd be surprised. The coastal areas are incredibly densely populated, while the centre of the country is largely mountains and woods. There is actually a lot of wilderness, but the ground is likely to incline with more than a 45 degree angle.

Oh, and of course Hokkaido is the "frontier" island in the north, so it has more open space than the other islands.....
 
So the family was at the river "earlier in the day" when the kid was throwing rocks at cars and people and instead of punishing him when this happened they just wait until they find a wooded area and make him get out? I'm calling bullshit. I hope that's really where this kid is but I kinda doubt it. If these assholes were mean enough to force their 7 year old to get out of the car in an area like that, I really don't think they would feel bad enough about it to just go right back and get him in a few minutes. I hope I'm wrong...
 
I really want to know any updates about this. I wonder if he is still missing which I am guessing he is. I don't know how any parent could think this is an appropriate punishment, yet this is what this site is about.
 
Wow, I think it's happening to me.... the sort of jaded thinking that happens when you've read page after page of the Demon. I read the story and to be honest, I didn't have a bit of "Whoa, what the hell's wrong with you?" that I usually have well before the end of the story!

In fact, I think I was going towards sympathy for the parents and their "embarrassment" over their choice of punishments which, while not ideal, is SO much easier to read than some of the punishments we've seen parents (and steps) (and DOTMs.... especially those) dole out in this category of our pages! Like, "Hell, no 'holding under cold water' (or scalding) or loving shots with a bb gun or cattle prod to the testicles? There's some awesome parenting!" And yeah, all but the whole "Then we lost him" part. Throwing rocks at people and their vehicles is definitely a punishable offense, and I thought, "At least they did something... a lot of them wouldn't even lay down the meth pipe for that!" But yeah.... holding off on the POTY medals until it's established just what they did do. Kind of a long search already for a small boy who was left for such a short time (their story, not mine.)

I got sort of a this-isn't-right feeling with this one, as well. I'm not very intuitive as a rule, so when the WTF is on a level that I can feel, it usually turns out that there was a lot of WTF going on. I hope I'm wrong; I hope they find him before I've finished typing this...that his parents will have gotten a lesson (and him, too.) And that the whole thing gives us a much-needed dose of hopefulness that bleeds into the "DOTM left alone with toddler, one of them killed the other" stories.
I hope that more than anything. But I just don't think that's happening here. When people begin by lying (and theirs was sort of a whopper) it just never seems to turn out without a very small casket being buried. Seriously.

I think you're right, Kat; it just doesn't add up somehow. I'm wondering if it's not a punishment-gone-wrong and their trip to the forest wasn't to hide an already-dead child.
Not sure what there is to "determine" by the police (as the first article stated.) I've no idea what they did to their boy, but at the very least, they abandoned him. And thinking of that, of seeing your angry parents drive away and simply leaving you behind in a forest...god how terrifying to a child so young! That experience would never fully leave him, and would cause fuckery throughout his life, so yeah, that's what a "child abandonment" law is for, I'd think. Be interesting to see how they handle the search and what charges (if any) they'll face, etc.

Thanks for the story, cubby.... I keep coming back to check for updates; interesting one!
 
You're welcome, I keep checking to see if there's an update.
[doublepost=1464719346,1464719049][/doublepost]http://naijaknow.com/look-for-the-7-year-old-son-left-the-forest-day-4-parents-as-punishment-arrives

Not sure if this a newspaper or a bog but it definitely has a interpreted from Japanese feel to it.

In it, near the bottom, is the allegation that these parents have had other children taken or removed from them.

The authorities are now investigating allegations application Yamato abandonment of older children. The search is also enhanced and expanded further into the woods.
 
You're welcome, I keep checking to see if there's an update.
[doublepost=1464719346,1464719049][/doublepost]http://naijaknow.com/look-for-the-7-year-old-son-left-the-forest-day-4-parents-as-punishment-arrives

Not sure if this a newspaper or a bog but it definitely has a interpreted from Japanese feel to it.

In it, near the bottom, is the allegation that these parents have had other children taken or removed from them.

Looks like our cultural guru @Abroad may have been correct.
 
I would follow that link, but my virus protection pitched a fit when I tried. Anybody braver/better protected than me able to copy-paste some of the salient points from it?
 
There isn't really anything new in that article, minus the part that cubby had quoted.

The only other thing I've found is that the search has gone deeper into the woods at the parents' insistence. The search was originally focused up and down the road, because they didn't believe the boy would just go directly into the woods "within minutes".

Two hunters also joined the search because they saw signs of bear activity in the area. (?)
 
Yes, there are bears on Hokkaido.
Yeah, I read and assumed as much. My question mark was more about why they would join in the search.

Maybe thinking that if the hunters tracked the bears, they might find the boy's body? Or signs of him?
 
Ugh so now they urge the search to go on. They're only doing that to take the focus off of them. I think they killed him too. Surely no one can be THAT dumb. Wait..
 
If they killed him, they are awfully stupid for using the punishment story and not just saying he had wandered off.
 
Yeah, I read and assumed as much. My question mark was more about why they would join in the search.

Maybe thinking that if the hunters tracked the bears, they might find the boy's body? Or signs of him?

Ah, yes, probably. And for the safety of the other searchers, perhaps?
 
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/military-hokkaido-missing-boy-japan-search/
TOKYO - The Japanese military has been called in to join the hundreds of people already searching for a boy abandoned by his parents in bear-infested woods, according to multiple reports.

Seventy-five members of the country's Self-Defense Forces have been deployed to the mountainous forests of Hokkaido island to hunt for the missing 7-year-old, reports the BBC.

There are already 200 civilians and police combing through thick brush hoping to find him, reports Reuters. A local hunter has been tapped to join the search after fresh bear tracks were found in the area where the boy disappeared, the news agency reports.

[...]

According to Japan Times, there have been dozens of bear attacks and deaths on Hokkaido since 1962, when the government started keeping records of them. The bears on the island are closely related to the grizzly bears found in North America. They can reportedly grow to well more than six feet tall, and weigh more than 650 pounds.

I tend to believe the parents story that he disappeared into the forest, though I have suspicions about the details (such as it only being a few minutes before they turned back for him). That combined with the allegations that they had other children taken away from them leads me to think they are abusive and probably fudging aspects of their story. However, if it's true that he wandered off after being left behind, the above info does not sound good. :bear::(
 
Poor little guy, things appear to be looking pretty grim for him. WTF is wrong with these parents? Not surprised there has been other allegations that brought about the removal of other children at some earlier point. Hoping against hope that a bear did not find him. <3
 
Hoping against hope that a bear did not find him.

I never used to be scared of bears...mostly because I've never encountered one and where I live

the risk is pretty low...but then I seen that movie with Leo, The Reverent or something...and

now I'm terrified of bears and ever getting that dirty or having to wear my clothes that

long, but the bear is a the top. That would be like fighting the incredible hulk, the best I can

recall the Hulk has BIG but much gentler looking hands.
 
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