Commentary "Ending School Shootings and Suicide"

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I wish I could like this article about a gazillion times.
This is not about gun control.
It’s about a society that rejects and bullies the a-typical kids.
Some of them snap

Early intervention–not just from schools, but from the community.
People need to reach out to these kids and their parents, in a non shaming, non condescending way, and help them along the journey.
 
Seriously, people only notice when a shooting occurs–but what about the kids who don’t pick up a gun and commit the heinous act?
There are SO MANY kids like him, who hurt and are alienated and lonely and have no one, and society doesn’t care or notice, as long as they are behaving and not shooting.

Nicholas Cruz was 100% wrong what he did. But who was reaching out the hand of friendship and healing before he snapped?
 
That’s a question I’d like to ask the survivors of the shooting. How many of them worked to prevent it by talking to Cruz, by sitting near him at lunch or talking to him after class? How many were kind and considerate to him?
 
The article lays the blame on the school system, but I think we need to look deeper. The school system is a product of our society.
 
I was a bully intervention specialist at an elementary school and bullying IS a major problem. I think the hard part for educators is to know is that their reach goes only so far and only in the school setting. If a student goes home to NEGLECT, sexual or physical abuse and bullying at home by siblings or parents, our hands are tied unless it meets criteria for reporting to DHS. Thus if students comes to school with home issues, we may not even know about them so we can’t help address them.

Educators are INDEED aware of bullying and it’s a real problem. Often in MY experience is that those bullied are often real bullies themselves and students get sick of it and ostracize them from the normal activities on the playground so it’s a diificult problem. Others are simply bullied for reasons that seem unexplained.

Let us pray for an end to bullying and offer proper and helpful responses by educators, parents and any one that can help us remove bullying from the lives of our children, God’s children, no matter the age and setting need to grow and thrive with the help of all involved in their lives.

May the information we report regarding students and children that seem at high risk for violent behavior be acknowledged and appropriate action take by authorities before it’s too late.

I firmly belileve if we can resolve the severe bullying issues in this country we can prevent some unnecessary crime and perhaps intervene before someone decides to walk into a school and take lives.

I think we can all agree something needs to be done SOON.
 
Well, this kid did for one…


Also, the family that took him in was very nice to him and reached out “the hand of friendship”. Look where that got them.

This KIDS ARE NOT TO BLAME FOR NIKOLAS CRUZ!!!

Girls are bullied a lot. Girls don’t shoot up schools. Gay kids are bullied a lot. Gay kids don’t shoot up schools. Etc.

I was bullied as a kid. I did not think of shooting everyone who was unkind to me. It would be nice if people were concerned about bullies independent of school shootings.

I have noticed in my face book feed, the people going on and on about “walk up not out” etc are gun rights enthusiasts and seem to be awfully threatened by teenagers protesting.

By all means, lets pray for an end to bullying. But let’s also not blame the kids for the shooting in any way shape or form by suggesting they were not nice enough to Nikolas Cruz. From many accounts it sounds like HE was the bully .
 
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What?

Children are so often bullied because they present themselves authentically. I admit if I were child now, I’d be a bully, but I’m not a child. I was in my past, a child, as every person is, and my parents told me if I was ever mean then I would be punished. I didn’t want to be punished.

I once took a comic book off a guy in elementary school. I was ring leader of the “popular” crew. When mum and dad got wind of what I done; I learned lesson I never forgot. That same chap is now my best friend.

We ought not to idolize anyone.
 
Society has no respect for the A-typical kid. Society is a cooking pot for all kinds of psychological disorders.
 
I wrote a long post on this in another thread on this forum.
And I stand by my statements on this thread too.

There needs to be intervention (non shaming, non punitive) starting at a very early age, K through 3rd grade, to find the atypical kids, the oddballs, the kids who aren’t being invited to the play dates and birthday parties, the kids who sit alone and play alone on the playground.
You identify the kids who need help.
You figure out the help they need (it often comes down to social skills–they don’t take turns, they eat their boogers, what have you).
You give them the help they need, such as social skills and conflict resolution, and learning to deal with anger and sadness in ways that don’t hurt you or anybody else.
You also reach out to the popular and adjusted kids. Teach them to invite the isolated kids into their playground games, and conflict resolution. You teach them not to sneer, mock and isolate.
There has to be real and uncomfortable consequences for cruelty.

(Continue on next post)
 
BTW, this doesn’t all come from the school. The parents also have to learn to see beyond their children’s little social groups and encourage them to befriend the kids who have nobody.

(Although good luck with this–most parents are so relieved their own kid has a friend they don’t really care what’s happening in the classroom)

Furthermore, this has to happen very early, before the kid takes too many painful hits and rejections and then makes up a narrative for themselves to “explain away” why they don’t have friends.
And build up resentment.

Of course, most unpopular kids will never pick up a gun and start shooting. They’ll just live lives of depression, quiet desperation and loneliness…
 
Thank you for posting this article–it was really interesting.
The family was kind and tried to reach out the hand of friendship.
I wonder, though, if it was simply too late in this case (BTW, not the fault of this family, it’s just how it played out).
By 7th grade, kids have formed a personal narrative for themselves to explain why their lives look like they do.

Our country is in a severe mental health crisis. The Nicholas Cruzes represent the extreme end of the picture.

Please understand I’m not actually “blaming” the classmates. Or the teachers. Or the schools. A lot of events led up to the shooting. A lot of social trends and movements have been swirling around for a long time, such as people have greater isolation from each other (people stare at screens rather than interact), people don’t know their neighbors, the increasing rigidity of childhood (kids overschduled in activities rather than playing outside). Lots of things.

But it was a great article and thanks for posting
 
0Scarlett_nidiyilii said:
Seriously, people only notice when a shooting occurs–but what about the kids who don’t pick up a gun and commit the heinous act?

There are SO MANY kids like him, who hurt and are alienated and lonely and have no one, and society doesn’t care or notice, as long as they are behaving and not shooting.

Nicholas Cruz was 100% wrong what he did. But who was reaching out the hand of friendship and healing before he snapped?
Click to expand...
I disagree with you, found the below which says it well. The issues run deeper than “let’s be friends”
It is not the obligation of children to befriend classmates who have demonstrated aggressive, unpredictable or violent tendencies. It is the responsibility of the school administration and guidance department to seek out those students and get them the help that they need, even if it is extremely specialized attention that cannot be provided at the same institution.

No amount of kindness or compassion alone would have changed the person that Nikolas Cruz is and was, or the horrendous actions he perpetrated. That is a weak excuse for the failures of our school system, our government and our gun laws.
Read more at http://www.patheos.com/blogs/deacon...-still-killed-my-friends/#Uv7v0dLsbTgGlt2j.99
Click to expand...
 
The kids who are bullied are not the same kids perpetuating shootings. Different issues.
 
I really liked your article. It was thoughtful and authentic.

But I still stand by my statement that screening has to start extremely early. K through 3rd grade. Before the cliques form, and when kids are still malleable and teachable.

Trying to do this type of peer mediation/mentoring with opposite-sex and hormonal middle schoolers was beyond asinine. Of course it didn’t work.

We are in a mental health crisis in this country, for many different reasons.
Depression, anxiety, drug addiction.
Broken families, often without any outside support from relatives or friends–a lot of people are living lives of desperation, just trying to get through one day at a time.
Psychiatric care is expensive, and oftentimes there’s a backlog before you can even be seen.

Please don’t think I’m putting this all on the schools to fix–but teachers know very well who the unpopular kids are. They can identify the kids who are maladjusted.

I really would like to stop the school shooting phenomenon (which is really only the extreme end of a pervasive mental health problem) at the root–when kids are starting to form these violent ideations.
 
I am of two minds about the article. It was a good story, but anecdotes do not good policy make. The article has one false premise, that of unlimited funds, as in "You have taxpayer-funded professional resources that are seemingly unlimited. " LOL. Social service workers are the lowest paid college-educated professionals in the country. I have no doubt this principal the article touted made enough for three positions for a social worker, that is, when they do not count on volunteers to fill the gap. Most programs to help troubled kids is the opposite of what is described, but rather is an attempt to get something cheap.

On the other hand, the one thing that is positive about the article is the difference an individual can make, who chooses to make a difference.
 
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