American's seem to like to kill other human beings. We have far more violence than any other western nation. More than 14,000 Americans are killed by firearms every year. It's a plague.
So, now we have a kid that went on a rampage at a mall in Omaha. It's becoming a very common event, and will continue unless we change our culture from one that launches insane wars to one where we focus on helping kids adjust to the pressures of being an adult in America.
It just seems to me that Americans are very success driven, and we don't seem to put a lot of value of helping troubled kids adjust. They get bullied in school, ignored at home, and left untreated for mental illness.
The kid at the mall.. his parents had thrown him out of their house. To be sure, there may be some people that cannot be reached in a meaningful way, but I suspect that everything that lead up to that point resulted from poor parenting and lack of sensitivity and attention. The consequences of not putting the vast majority of our attention on the kids will be ever more deadly.
1 comment:
Ok, I have to totally disagree with you on your parenting views. As you remember, I threw one out when he turned 18 because of verbal and physical abuse. As it turned out, it was the best thing all around and today he is a productive and responsible adult. Every situation is different and every child is different and you can't always blame parents for an adult child's actions. That's like saying mom and dad are to blame for you being gay! I know I can hear your comments going through my head as I write this, but it's as close an analogy as I could come up with. His parents may very well had tried to treat him for his depression as he grew up and at one point had to cut the strings for their own sanity. When does the parents responsibilities for a child's actions end? According to the law, as soon as he hits 18. So because you chose not to be a parent, you cannot fully understand the implications that go with it, or the sorrow that the parents feel when their adult child, whom they had to set out to the world (as all parents do), does unspeakable things to others. Bad things happen to good people, but you cannot always blame the parents of those bad people until you know the full story.
Post a Comment