School Shooting – update
As most of the world knows there was a school shooting in Jacksboro, TN – just a few miles from Knoxville (the home base of this blog) – yesterday. The long and short is there was a 15 year old that seems to have had some past issues decided to take out his frustration on the school staff – shooting the principal and two assistent prinicipals (one of which died) in the process.
Bottom line everyones says there are no set signs. Though I would agree that shooters do not all look, act or are not all motivated the same I do think there are some things that are consistent with in these cases. I will list the ones that I have noticed below
- 1) Isolated life
2) Uninvolved parents
3) Anti depressent drugs
4) On going issues with authority and peers
Now that does not mean that every isolated child with uninvolved parents that hates school and takes Paxil or Ridlen is a shooter, but the ones that become shooters seem to all have those things in common.
My bottom line question is not what could have been done to prevent this case, but what will parents, teachers, and society in general do to help prevent these actions in the future. As we noted yesterday – here – everyone is involved in the problem, but the bottom line issue comes down to families are not families anymore, due to all the issues in and around them, and kids do not know how to deal with life stresses, failures, and burdens. They deal by becoming violent and they are told their feelings are always valid and good – their feels are not always good and their feelings are usually selfish.
MOST kids today, not all but most, are not taught values, they are not taught respect for authority (that starts at home), and they are not taught that there are consciences for their actions. They are protected from reality and they feel entitled to all they want. Over protected, over provided for, over induldged, under stressed, under burdened kids result in selfish and immature adults in the end and along the way some of them act out violently.
If you are a parent – love your kids -, but also teach them how tough and hard life can and will be at times. You are not helping them when they remain 12 emotionally well into their 20’s.
