Morning Sentinel
A LITTLE PSYCHOLOGY HELPS WARDEN, OTHERS FIND BOY
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Kennebec Journal & Morning Sentinel 06/28/2008

Game Warden Kevin Anderson not only understands the minds of deer poachers and other unsavory folk, he has a skill in child psychology too, which we do not believe is usually a field in which game wardens are required to exhibit proficiency.

Anderson is one of several good souls who organized a hunt for a 2-year-old West Gardiner boy who wandered away from his yard Sunday when his older brother left him alone outside. The boy's extremely upset mother called the county sheriff, a helicopter was summoned and deputies and Anderson went on the hunt, joined by their search dog and the boy's grandfather.

Little Reid Willette was found about an hour later by his grandfather, less than a half-mile from his mother's home.

"When you have a 2-year-old missing," Anderson told our reporter, "it's a high priority. I'm not saying that a missing adult would not be a high priority, too, but young children don't think the same way."

Amen to that, Warden Anderson. It's our experience with 2-year-olds that they engage in highly magical thinking. They aren't too good at connecting actions with consequences, including what it means to wander away from your home in search of rocks. Might that worry Mommy? Not an issue. There are rocks to find.

And Anderson gets parent psychology, too. "I completely understand being scared and upset your child is missing," he said. "That's your whole world missing for the time."

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