"School Violence"

AFFECT AND ADOLESCENCE

ON THE TRAGEDY IN LITTLETON and other shootings.

Revised

I am a family doc, and I am supposed to know everything, so if someone asks me about the school shooting in Littleton, Colorado, or other shootings, I am supposed to have an answer. 

Several years ago, I would not have had a very good answer. I do now. I wrote this originally sometime near the time of the Columbine shooting now 25 years ago. Things are not better. The cause is the same and as shootings have gone far beyond schools we need to understand that the same dynamic applies.

So the piece is based on the simplest of concepts. It is not more security, it is not having armed teachers and it is not mostly everything that is being repeated. It is about not hurting people. But we must start at the right place. It is about not hurting our children so they do not hurt others.

I now modify the above by saying that we are in such trouble that addressing the problem through education about hurting others, while essential, is not going to stem the tide by itself. We must stem the tide of guns. Since Columbine, the number of guns has increased by some 100 million in the united states. More than one per citizen.

But I am writing about the core issue of processing hurt. At the time of Columbine, I had just learned of a concept that I will call a "a compass of hurt." When we are hurt, we either withdraw, attack others, attack ourselves, or try and avoid the situation; these four ways, in the main, only cover up the hurt; they do not address the hurt.

That said there is a fifth way, and that is to examine the hurt. To come and appreciate it and its roots. To deal with it, to take the hit and then ask the question, why did this or that hurt me so much that I would attack another or berate myself or use drugs? The hurt we feel can come from an idea, a thought, or a memory. 

The hurt comes because we are interested in life, and things get in our way. We are interested in having loving parents, but we don't. We are interested in having loving siblings but don't. We are interested in having loving classmates but don't. The teenage years are some of the most vulnerable to feeling hurt. It is that time of great definition in our life. What is important is, I firmly believe, not the influence of radio, TV, or movies but the influence of those people that we have great interest in. If we are attentive parents, teachers, and friends, we will not produce people that will take murderers as our example.

To be sure, this is not a simple journey. I do not accuse, as we, who expound this psychology, also believe that, unfortunately, life can be and is quite capricious. Single instances of intense emotion seem to be able to dramatically affect one's actions and outlook on life. Thus we know that a child can be easily damaged. 

The trick is not to point the finger at the parents but at all of us; parents, teachers, doctors, friends, and neighbors need to care about each other's hurt. We must ask and make it clear that it is OK to show emotion. It seems, in the main, that the "trench coat Mafia", the group of the Columbine pair was part of what was seen simply as esoteric. 

We do not want to expunge individuality, but we believe that it is imperative to become sensitive to such isolation at this age, or truly at any age, and ask ourselves are withdrawing due to hurt and might that withdrawal revert, at any time, to attack. To quote Dr. Donald Nathanson, the attack comes when "if there is nothing we can do by our own hand or mind to raise our self-esteem, we tend to reduce the self-esteem of anybody available."

When you woke up this morning there was mostly likely another mass shooting last night or going on right now.