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How does violence stop violence?

© Amy B. Jeanroy

The last week with the boys has been really difficult. I apologize to those expecting a column. My youngest son got Croup and was horribly sick. We all actually had colds but his was far worse. What a scary thing.

This week I want to talk about the school violence and the repercussions of such. I have seen on the news that there has been a rash of copycats in others schools. There have also been many incidences of students (primarily boys) who have been suspected of being capable of committing such atrocities due to appearances or lack of friends. The response has been to either ban these children or bring in armed forces to stand guard over the entire student body.

I wonder if this is the only recourse? I feel that we are once again promoting violence by trying to "overpower" the children who may think they can be aggressive or may be thinking of hurting their fellow students. I think this can be compared to parents that hit a child for hitting. You are not teaching a child to not use violence by being more powerful; you are only teaching them that they are not yet strong enough to win.

Our society puts such high regard on being the top gun or coming out ahead of everyone else. How many times have you read a story of road rage or bullying gone too far? Our level of acceptable anger and violence is far too high. A child fights in school and gets detention. This only fuels his anger and doesn't teach him any skills like anger management or alternatives to aggression. How about teaching children that being angry isn't the problem; its turning their anger into physical violence that is the problem.

Along with the art classes and spanish classes, we need to teach these future adults how to feel comfortable with their emotions. They need to feel that there are other forms of expressing anger and disappointment that to hurt the one who makes them feel those emotions.

I don't know the answers to the problem of violence in our youth, I just know that we arent helping the problem by trying to be the winner and simply overpowering them until they are out on their own, then calling them adults and putting them in jail.

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