By Terry Real
Cleveland students are experiencing their own mini-post-9/11 having returned to school after the massacre at SuccessTech. But are they any safer today?
We live in a country in which 135,000 children take guns to school every day. That averages out to 43 guns taken to high schools in every American county today -- 43 more chances for a massacre in your neighborhood and mine today.
Asa Coon was just one more bullied young man building an arsenal in his bedroom that would be the envy of any drug lord. That fact alone cries for more engaged parenting, but as with other forms of neglect and abuse, when the parents fail, our society relies on teachers and school counselors to act.
The cure for the type of violence we have seen in Columbine, Paduka, Virginia Tech and most recently Cleveland lies in understanding the hidden epidemic of male depression. As a father and a mental health professional I believe we need urgent funding so our school systems can provide the training necessary for school counselors and teachers to identify the warning signs before a teen is about to crack.
In the bygone days of neighborhood schooling, faculty enjoyed a different dynamic with the student body. The principal, vice principal, home room teachers, coaches and guidance counselors provided students with a choice of non-parental adults to confide in and seek counsel. The staff were not as burdened by red tape or student populations the size of small cities as they are today. The fact that most faculty and staff cannot even recognize most of the student body by face much less name is a reality that just exacerbates the sense of disconnect our teens feel today.
As a practicing family therapist for 25 years, I know that few boys escape firsthand acquaintance with active trauma. The hidden epidemic of depression is the number one killer of boys and young men -- more than childhood disease, more than accidents or natural disasters. By far most violent acts, both inside and outside the home are committed by males. It's a simple fact: wounded boys become wounded men.
Our culture demands that boys suppress complaints of any kind. No pain, no gain. Don't be a sissy. But this constant burial of psychological and emotional pain is very damaging. In people of all ages, this leads to depression. During adolescence, a time of general emotional and identity confusion, children are especially vulnerable.
Current research makes it clear that a vulnerability to depression is most probably an inherited biological condition. But in the majority of cases, biological vulnerability alone is not enough to trigger this disorder. It is the collision of inherited vulnerability with psychological injury that produces depression.
Our traditional socialization of boys hurts them. Boys tend to externalize pain; they are more likely to feel victimized by others and to discharge this distress through action. Suburban school massacres and inner city gang violence bears this out. Some boys become bullies to try to gain self-esteem. Those bullied like Cho at Virginia Tech and Coon in Cleveland may snap and retaliate with extreme violence.
There are other, more secretive forms of violence. Recently, the CDC has reported an alarming increase in cutting and self-mutilation by teens of both sexes. While this behavior is more prevalent among girls, boys do it too. The spike in self-mutilation by young men and women has become so epidemic that it is known as the "new anorexia" among medical and mental health professionals.
There is no doubt that our teachers are overburdened by class size, but in an age when both parents work and where two parent households are increasingly rare compounded by the pressures of over-programmed kids in the digital age, what happens at school has the greatest impact on our children. After all, they spend more time on campus than they do at home. Parents must be vigilant at home, but some parents simply cannot or will not. The children of those parents are under the most stress, and they are the most at risk for depression.
A few dollars spent on helping teachers and school counselors identify the warning signs of depression and the simmering violence or self-mutilation that can result, will quell bullying and prevent future campus massacres. Furthermore, those few dollars will save our communities millions of dollars by preventing crime, domestic violence and substance abuse.
Comments