Over the past 40 years there has been a steady increase in the amount of violence presented to our children through technology and entertainment platforms. It has become socially acceptable to push the responsibility of developing the child outside of the home, causing a disconnect between parents and their children. We have in a sense abandoned our duty to nurture our offspring, leaving it up to outside forces (school officials, peers, negative influencers in the community, etc.) and as a result we are all taking part in creating “little monsters.” The “alleged shooter” (I’ve always hated when people say that)… The lone gunmen who murdered 17 innocent children and adults combined (Nikolas Cruz) was reported by several individuals on various occasions as you can read here on CNN.com.
Why does it seem these incidents are starting to increase? I believe, we, as parents, have slowly allowed our children to get away from us. Over the past decade, the level of respect for authority (parents, teachers, law enforcement etc.) has diminished to a very dangerous level. The combination of violent movies/TV shows, internet access (violent viral videos), liberal school officials, and passive parents with a refusal to implement any form of physical discipline has made the children of today more out of control than any generation before them. I truly am concerned that our lack of attention has made them less empathetic and desensitized to what our parents once protected us from; death and violence. Do you think, we too, are less empathetic and desensitized as well? I say yes… We are all becoming conditioned.
Our societal push towards political correctness has forced our children to further isolate those that are obvious threats to themselves and others. We have pushed the “Pendulum of Acceptance” so far that the young people of today have moved away 
from informing (reporting) on each other; which does not allow for early intervention for those in crisis. We are then forced to deal with children with antisocial personality disorders after they have reached their boiling point instead of stopping it before their true planning stages of attack. The child with psychopathic traits can be identified and schools should have a standard operating procedure in place to be able to do just that, because it is never a surprise that a certain kid went on a KILLING SPREE.” Everyone is dropping the ball and we are all accountable for allowing our institutions of learning to morph into an incubator for young killers. Stop just blaming the THE GUN and look hard at those in your house. It is time to stop merely attaching your opinion to the narrative presented by media outlets and politicians who have their own agenda for scaring Americans (selling ad spots and pushing for re-election). It is time to take a good long look in the mirror. Yes, I said it… and I’m calling out those who are leading the charge and jumping on the band wagon of the gun control push. They are the main ones allowing their kids to curse at them and only threaten them by taking away their cell phones, video games and internet (but don’t). They continue to allow them to rack up points on violent games like “Grand Theft Auto” which rewards them for violence and killing (to include doing drive-by shootings and killing police officers). And trust me these kids are getting more trigger time and building better skills in tactics than real police officers in “First-person” shooter games like “Call of Duty.” We (parents) then allow unrestricted television as the children take in any TV series or movie associated with violence they choose (viewing rape scenes, fighting and murder). Then to add insult to injury you drop the funds for Pay-per-view events like MMA fights, to feed their thirst for blood. Now, I too like the fights, but I’m a responsible adult!
I am not suggesting we keep our kids in a bubble. We have to make our children aware that there’s a small percentage of bad people in the world that intend to do them harm. For their own protection, we must train them for violence because, unfortunately it’s the “new normal.” Aside from that, we can’t allow these acts and images to saturate their young developing brains over our positive influences and rearing as parents. I remember, when I was a young boy I had to sneak a listen to the vulgarities of Richard Pryor and could never really make out the images of sexual acts on the censored Playboy channel. Now children in grade school have full access to porn sites, explicit language and viral videos packed with teens violently attacking the elderly in the “knockout game” or posting school fights on on sites like World Star. Whatever happened to you protecting the innocence of your own children? Most of us might spend four hours with our young ones after they’ve been in school and with “friends” the majority of the day. And we wonder why our kids don’t respect adults. As a society, we are not instilling good character, morals or discipline because we’ve allowed our children to become rotten from the inside (brain) out. We have simply allowed the computer take over as their DAD, Facebook as their MOM, Youtube as their crazy UNCLE and Google as their GOD. Shame on us…
I don’t believe taking guns away from good citizens is the answer because bad men don’t follow the rules. According to SafeHome.org, you will find some states with the strongest gun laws have the most shooting incidents. There appears to be no real evidence that supports stricter gun laws, especially for those committed to breaking the law anyway. Sadly, what is a fact is more than half of the gun related deaths in our country is suicide according to Safe Home. I do think they should do better with background checks and I’m even in support of pushing the age requirement to the drinking age (21); but it won’t stop the problem. Our kids do not fear consequences because there is little-to-no discipline at home. What I think might work is legislation that forces parents to be accountable for the actions of their children under 18 years of age (with legal and financial implications). And there are others who should absolutely be blamed and they are the school administrators. These campuses are more vulnerable than ever and they have to do a better job of making our schools a “harder target.” There are too many reasonably priced options on the market to help lock the bad people out. And for those that do not understand the need for some trained school officials with firearms (with psychological evaluation and continual training) please remember this last incident in Florida. In that case law enforcement officials (with guns) failed enter to “save the day” and positioned themselves outside while the children and faculty were being slaughtered. The teachers job should be more than simply becoming human shields. They should be the last line of defense to keep your littles alive.
- Limit their hours watching TV
- Encourage an hour of reading a few times per week
- Sit down with them and talk without mobile devices
- Teach them to call 911/for help instead of videoing bullying or other crimes against others
- Do random checks of your child’s computer search history, text messages – there’s a line between privacy and neglect
- Spank/discipline your children so the police don’t have to later
- Contact your school administrators and Congressman to add metal detectors, armed guards (or police) and real active shooter plans to be practiced. At minimum you should know that your child’s school has a plan in case of an incident and what that plan is.
Thank you for reading this blog post, comment below, I’d love to have a healthy dialogue about this with people I consider supporters and friends.
