Then they tell us their own stories. Therefore, the children corroborate the adults and both corroborate the therapists. On the contrary, the data and evidence instead suggest that there is no widespread conspiracy. Further, ritual abuse evidence points to a few isolated perpetrators. There is also evidence that children's perceptions of reality can be manipulated, even by those with good intentions, and the result can be fear and emotional damage.
Children are extremely impressionable.
Dreams, memories, movies, stories, and television are often as real to young children as everyday life. When trust in parents and a desire to please adults combine with this impressionability, it is little wonder that children sometimes believe and say they have experienced what actually has not happened to them. A third possibility is that a child, particularly a young one, may be neither lying nor telling the truth, but what he or she believes is true, based on the questioning of the child by over- zealous, biased investigators, using props and leading questions, perhaps even things like this book. After we had decided to review this book, a colleague passed on interesting information. Were this true, the book would be not only potentially harmful, but its credibility irrecoverably damaged by Stratford's demonsrated history of story telling.