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I don't blame any one factor for the rise in violence among youth. In my opinion, the rapidly changing society and the changing pressures of parenthood are major causes of this. Technology also plays an important role as well as the media. I also believe that the availability of guns plays a part in the equation. More children are being raised in single parent households than ever before. Divorce has not only an emotional affect on the family, but a financial one as well. More of our children are being raised by day care workers during their earlier years because both parents must work to support the family. In the case of divorce, providing for two households simply costs more than for one. Parents are working longer hours and are more stressed, yet are still expected to provide the same level of mothering and fathering under more difficult circumstances. How can parents successfully accomplish this? Some families are have an easier time with this than others. Struggling with time and energy management is understandable and we need to pull our resources to these parents, not criticize or condemn them. Kids today grow up learning about computers sometimes during preschool. Many of our children spend a good deal of their free time playing computer games or nintendo, where 20 years ago they were outside playing with friends. Children are not spending as much time learning how to socialize. This can only be done through practice and playing with peers which leads to learning problem solving skills and conflict resolution abilities. It's great that our kids are learning how to use computers and get self esteem from this, but this should not be at the expense of developing social skills. When I child is frustrated losing a computer game he can restart it or turn the computer off, but dealing with people is much more complicated. Too many of our children have access and know how to use guns. I know this is a very controversial opinion, but we don't let our kids drive or drink or vote until they are older, why do we teach them how to use guns. Yes, guns don't kill people, people kill people, but the gun often the impliment used. When our founding father's wrote the constitution giving us the right to carry arms, they were thinking about muskets, not automatic guns and rifles capable of mass murder. Role models today are few and far between. Too many potential role models have become infamous for their less than heroic behavior. Children often don't see consquences for their role models' negative behaviors actions. The kids who have committed the school shootings were given a tremendous amount of publicity. Their pictures were plastered on the cover of newspapers, magazines and on television. To many children, negative attention is better than no attention. The media alone is not to blame. They give the public what they want to see. I know that I am guilty of searching the t.v. channels for more and more information when these crimes occured and the media is only giving me (and others) what we want. We don't always take children seriously. If every kid who threatened to kill someone was serious, there would be a lot more murders in this country. How do you tell which child is serious and which is expressing fantasy or anger? As I therapist I remember thinking more that once that if a certain child did not receive continued intervention, he's be a serious threat to society in several years. Of course, I had no way of actually predicting what would happen, but there are certain warning signs that indicate serious trouble. Some of these include: There is a fine line between suicide and homicide among our nations youth. Looking back upon the school shootings over the past several years, most of the gunmen had a history of depression. This is not to say that depression causes violence, but violence is an expression of depression. Depression and suicide have been called violence turned inward. Likewise, school shootings, while obviously outward, is also depression turned outward. Again, early intervention a vital part of the answer. Parents often don't realize how potentially serious these behaviors can be and therapists and teachers don't always have the resources to help these kids. Cooperation between adults is imperitive when working to help children. I've had parents say to me, "I used to do that when I was a kid and I turned out ok." I'm sure this is true, but our kids are growing up in much different times. Their peers have killed others, even if your child did not experience this first hand, he knows about it. The children who commited the school murders last year had their pictures on the front page of newspapers and were discussed endlessly on the news. Sometimes negative attention can seem better than no attention. I'm not blaming the media, they only show what the public wants to see. I've spend many days flipping through the channels to learn more about children who commit these crimes. I'm not alone. If we weren't so interested, would there be so much coverage? We need to take threats of violence seriously and we need to teach kids to do the same. I've heard too many survivors of school violence say that they "knew something" was going to happen. In the latest shooting in Littleton, CO, a teacher said that some of the faculty was concerned about the group of students who committed the shootings. If adults don't know how to voice their concerns, it's unrealistic to expect teens to be able to know where to go with their fears. In my opinion, it's better to be overly cautious 99 times than undercautious the one time a crisis occurs MiniSurvey
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