Sometimes the child cannot justify leaving home. He may have left for irrational reasons that even he does not understand. There are various possibilities:

• The child's age
• The child's environment
• Peer pressure

In those cases, or when children feel hatred towards members of their family, they may set up traps, with the hope that the hated members of their family will fall into them. They may not know why they hate those members of the family.

Agencies that deal with children in distress or children at risk may also set similar traps. Amazingly, those agencies may set traps to attack the child's hated family members. When the confused children see that the authorities show hate towards their hate targets, they reinforce their own feelings. After all, they must be justified in their feelings - the authorities also seem to hate the family members as well.

The family or family members are not likely to have a good response under these circumstances, because the trap is based on a true accusation and supported by a child-welfare agency.

Parents or other family members often do fall into these well-planned traps, after which the child can say, "See - here is the (post-facto) reason that I left."

This method works well for the child, who can now present an excuse to outsiders. The family realizes that the fabricated accusations (that are based on the truth) are not valid, but they will not act because they do not want to hurt their child. That is right - the child depends on and trusts his parents to show him unreciprocated consideration despite his repeated attacks.

These traps form yet another way in which the child burns his bridges in order to satisfy his peers and authorities, and in order to justify his actions.