This cessation of even minor violent behavior, pushing,
slapping, bullying, sports, and the like, I believe, has led to children not
having an outlet for the anger they experience as a normal part of their development
- it does not prevent anger and probably does not truly prevent violent at a
higher level. Most certainly, acts of extreme violence perpetrated by youthful
offenders, has been on the increase over the years since any type of violent
behavior by youths has been shunned and strictly eliminated in our schools and
in our society in general. I hypothesize that this total attempt at elimination
of violent behavior among youths has led us to a society in which we have a
disproportionate number of children and young adults who do not know how to
handle certain types of frustration and anger through at least one of the most
effective means of deflating those emotions - mildly to moderately violent
behavior. We also have a large number of children who when confronted with mild
forms of violence such as shoving, minor fighting, taunting or bullying or even
mandatory violent sports participation who do not know how to react to it and
then ultimately inappropriately react and sometimes overreact.
I believe that anger and frustration then have no outlet,
that they are internalized and are held within, without an outlet, over the
years that the children are developing and thus lead to the child becoming an
adult who does not know how to cope with frustrations and anger invoking life
incidents as well as would a child who was allowed to act out with minor
violence throughout development. Of course, there are other ways to out
frustration and anger - talking about feelings for instance; however the
communication skills of children are in development, just as are aggressive
skills, and talking is often if not always not enough.
Thus, by the time many children have reached their mid-teens
or passed on to young adulthood they are ill equipped to deal with their
emotions and are also not able to interact with other people as well as had
they been allowed mildly to moderate behavior, at times, during their
development. In addition, the propensity of many children to play extremely
violent games, where the only successful way to win the game is to utilize
extreme violence may add to their inability to understand how to deal with their
emotions and with social interactions that anger them.
Thus, a youth who has never learned how to control anger and
frustration through the utilization of minor violence may also be otherwise
unable to cope, possibly due to minor mental disorder, drug use, buildup of
family and or personal problems may be
more likely to reach a point where he or she inappropriately resorts to extreme
violence to deal with their problems. Why extreme violence – because they have
been repeatedly admonished if they have ever resorted to minor or moderate
violence and have been prevented as much as possible from ever resorting to
such and because they have seen examples of extreme violence being used as a
problem solver with great success in video games, theatrical entertainment, and
on the news (such as war coverage). Therefore, extreme violence is often the
only violence that children and teens have been taught about as a tenable
option to solve problems no matter how appropriate or inappropriate for any
given situation. Had these young people been taught the proper and natural
outlet for their angers and frustrations, by way of minor violence in some
instances, it is unlikely that so many would resort to the only type of
violence that they have ever witnessed as being successful – extreme violence.
You will not, I did not mention firearms as a problem above.
I also did not mention automobiles, gasoline and matches or knives or clubs or
any other thing that could be used by someone as a means toward violet behavior.
Those things are not the problem, they are inanimate objects that are not
dangerous in and of themselves. A loaded gun will not go off if left alone, if
no one picks it up to fire it. An object that could be used as a weapon is not
dangerous without someone to operate it. Millions of Americans own firearms and
never have or will use them for inappropriate violent behavior or illegally. We
would be better off addressing the real problem of why people resort to
inappropriate use of extreme violence for problems that would have been so much
easier to address if they were aware of and familiar with other means to solve
them. Ban guns, sure you can do that and then a youngster could resort to using
matches and gasoline, Molotov cocktails, poisonous substances (easy to obtain
or create with things found in the supermarket) or even explosives (also pretty
easy to make at home).
In addition we need to address our mental health care system
and reconsider allowing people who are mentally ill, who have the high
potential to act out with extreme violence, to remain unfettered in our
society. Maybe it is time to restrain them to protect society as had been past
practice.
Bear in mind, that behavior resulting in school shootings
and other mass murders, within the United States were virtually unheard of up
though the 1970s. Certainly there were some but not nearly as many as there
have been within the past two or three
decades. It was only after the implementation of the anti-violence campaign,
relative to children and teens, in our schools and society in general that it
seems our youths began to resort to extreme acts of violence as a means to cope
with their problems. Violence may have been said to beget violence but
sometimes, I would hypotesize, appropriate use of milder and moderate levels of it almost surely is
a way to adjust one to its appropriate use and thus prevent further inappropriate use of heightened forms of it.
All the best,
Glenn B
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