Child Psychologist Checks In On What’s Healthy and Not With Balloon Boy’s Family

Any parent out there will agree that raising their kids is the most difficult thing they’ve ever done, and I’m right there at the front of the line. I question everything I do, wanting to be sure it’s healthy, safe, morally sound, etc. for my two teenagers. Sometimes, though, we see other parents’ decisions and have to ask ourselves what they were thinking. This is certainly the case with Balloon Boy’s family, the Heenes. I had the opportunity speak with a child psychologist, Dr. Frank Farley, who also understands very well the psyche of risk-takers, having counseled Evel Knievel’s family.

My first question to Dr. Farley was when he started to suspect this whole boy being stuck in a balloon story was a hoax, and what cemented it for him. When he first wondered what was going on was looking at the “craft” that Falcon Heene had supposedly taken off in. Dr. Farley has done his own share of ballooning, and thought “That’s not much of a balloon.”

After learning that family were thrill-seekers and “excitement junkies,” the red flag really stood out for Dr. Farley, once it was revealed that Falcon hid in a box in the attic for five hours. It just didn’t “compute psychologically” that this 6-year-old boy would remain in silence in this box for that amount of time. He believes human behavior would have had the family searching the house first.

I had read somewhere, although I can’t remember where it was, that one of the brothers had said Falcon was afraid to go into the attic, and to me that was my red flag, as why would this little boy would hide somewhere he was afraid to be. If you’re hiding, it’s because you don’t feel safe, so why go to a scary place? Dr. Farley hadn’t heard that, but agreed that would have strengthened his idea of a hoax even more.

What cemented the idea this was a hoax for Dr. Farley, as it did many others, were the boy’s words of “for the show” that the young Heene boy uttered in an interview. He was theorizing before that even, and those words indicated to him there was a definite plan. The idea that this boy was afraid of his father didn’t compute either, as there was no “compelling evidence that the father was abusive to the kids.”  As far as the father running around yelling when they balloon went off, he doesn’t think it reveals an aggressive person, just that he was acting.

One thing that has stuck with me reading the news stories on this incident was the little boy vomiting in the interviews. I wondered if that was because of a fear or his own 6-year-old moral stance that he was doing something wrong. Dr. Farley isn’t sure, but thinks it’s possible Falcon could have been just tired and stressed, because this media coverage is so phenomenal with the media camped outside. He doesn’t put too much weight in the puking incidents. He knows he had to be coached to be in the box, and knows it would have been hard for someone of his age to stay on script. Falcon wanted to be part of the show and do the right thing, making it more stressful. He says in times of that kids would want to stick close to their parents, but it would be hard here, as he was surely being pulled in different directions.

I went back to it not seeming like the Heene parents even considered how this could affect their kids, that it might mot be healthy, safe, etc. I wondered if they just see it differently. For Dr. Farley it’s pure speculation, as he has not interviewed the family, but families can be raised in terms of being risk-takers or thrill-seekers, and while we often criticize those types, risk-taking is a key factor in the success of America. He’s not ready to condemn them just yet.

Dr. Farley also believes that despite everyone wanting to lock away the Heene parents and throw away the key, he would guard against that. He thinks it would be detrimental not just to Falcon, but to the other kids as well. Having been such a part of the elaborate hoax, they would feel it was their fault that their parents ended up “in the slammer.” He thinks in putting the children’s welfare first, that would be the absolutely the wrong thing to do.

Additionally, as a society, Dr. Farley thinks we need to not necessarily condemn this family’s risk-taking ways, as sometimes it leads to great accomplishment, and he’d hate to see our nation go limp and believe Chicken Little is right. There’s positive and negative aspects in risk-taking in families, and in this case, no one has come forth with any evidence that the kids have ever been harmed, and he notes they actually have a very strong family bond.

Dr. Farley isn’t sure if the kids were ever in any danger in this storm-chasing they participated in, but notes you want your kids to “grow up to be fearless and take risks as needed,” and his recommendation then is to go into it slowly, by entering the shallow end first, then the deep end. The idea here is to get kids to be strengthened by the smaller risks they take first, so that they’re ready to take on the challenges of life.

Dr. Farley furthers his advice, saying none of us are going to get through this life without calamities and tragedies, and terrible things happening, “witness 9/11.” he’s not going to condemn their lifestyle without more information, although it was definitely bizarre and unusual, but people in history have done fantastic things after living an unusual lifestyle. He withholds judgement on them when it comes to the effect the family’s risk-taking has had on their kids.

If it would be detrimental to the kids to remove them from their parents by being separated, either by the parents being jailed, or the kids being put in foster care, then what does Dr. Farley suggest the authorities do since they are looking at definite criminal charges? While he doesn’t have first-hand knowledge, his best guess would be probation for the parents with supervision of some sort where the authorities stay in contact and check on them to see how they’re doing. The family seems to be extremely close knit and while they lead an unusual lifestyle, he can’t condemn them without knowing a lot more. Yanking the kids away would then indicate to the children that they’re the reason they’re being separated. The family seems to spend an awful lot of time together, and often kids look up to the their parents when they see them willing to take those risks and not be as stuffy as parents often are.

I then looked at an even larger scope, looking at this whole topic from a reality TV standpoint. Is that in itself detrimental to kids, putting their lives out there for everyone to judge? Dr. Farley notes the question is, “What is the right way?” He does have reservations about it, and feels the scrutiny attributable to reality TV can be detrimental to child development, as judgements are being made all the time on what the family does.

Dr. Farley doesn’t think that allows normal family development to take place as they’re forced to be put in a specific mold. They show “on-stage effects,” as they’re not living their real life, but living reality TV, and they’re not necessarily the same thing. He worries about the medium, not only for the kids, but the extent that it distorts anything in the family life. It can have ripple effects as other young people watch the show and can then affect their lives in what they call “modeling,” with young viewers modeling what they see on TV, which isn’t even real in the first place.

Barring all that, it puts the Gosselin clan in a much different light. It’s also made me think of the Heenes a little differently.  Where I started seeing them only as fame whores, I now see them as a loving family with a much different lifestyle than mine. I personally would have a hard time making such choices for my kids, but in a way that’s what does make the world go round. Many of the choices I make for my  kids, others wouldn’t make. Yet, above all, they probably don’t need their lives splashed on TV and Internet. Falcon Heene will be in his 30s and still being called, “Balloon Boy.”