all of these school shootings should make parents think.
columbine was the worst one but i feel so bad for the others.

my parents rule was my house my rules you dont like them there is the door.

wow. If my mom would have run the house this way, I would have been on a quick train to trouble. I was rebellious but my mom never gave me anything to rebel against. There was only a handful of times I ever lied to her about where I was, which she promptly found out about.

Her parenting philosophy was to not give me something to rebel against, and let me tell you - it worked. That doesn't mean being uninvolved in my life, she took me to school everyday until I could drive, talked to me about the boys I liked, what classes I had trouble in, etc. She gave me privacy because she knew that I would find ways to hide my life if I really wanted to. I always felt like my mom was on my side, no matter what I faced, which gave me no reason to act out.

These boys were severely disturbed to begin with, but do you suppose if their parents had sat down with them on a regular basis - from day one - and asked them about their lives in a respectable way, some of this could have been prevented? It's hard to know. differenting parenting styles work for different kids...obviously something was not right here.


This is a good balance, I think for most kids. My mom was a single parent, she did a good job especially for having no one to bounce ideas off. I'm glad she trusted me, it really allowed me to work through some of my own problems and I always went to her when I couldn't do it myself. It taught me to be independant but ask for help. Wish these kids could have felt an ounce of that.

It's impossible to know, now (obviously), but one has to wonder. I suspect, from the writings quoted in the article, that there was a huge hole of acceptance that was never filled in these boys. Now, speaking solely from my own experience, I didn't find that social acceptance from my peers, either. To this day I don't, except in rare instances. So, barring that, I turned to my family, where I DID find it. Translating that to these boys: they weren't fitting in at school, but did they feel as though they had the comfort of total acceptance from their families, either? I don't know.

We -- you, me, Bananie, most of the rest of the ladies here -- were extraordinary lucky we had our familial support systems. My best guess is that more support on that side might have prevented the other side from becoming so all-consuming. But the world will never know.

__________________
The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.
-- H. L. Mencken

BTW Bananie, I think you and I grew up in the same house and just didn't know it.

__________________
The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.
-- H. L. Mencken

I can see your point. I grew up a chunky kid, and was made fun of frequently. Even though I was accepted by my peers, I was also accepted as the chunky girl. Growing up, my brother made fun of it as well and when I got to high school, I began a severe plunge into an eating disorder. Now,I can't blame it on my mom for not stopping my brother, or the kids at school for making fun of me because there has to be something there to spark in order for a problem to ignite. Did it perpetuate the problem, of course it did but there was a lack of self-esteem within me to even be affected by those words in the first place.

Back to the boys, while it wasn't their parents fault or the school's fault for not reaching out to these boys - it definately allowed the problem to get out of hand. Perhaps, again, it is presumptuous to say that if these parents had been more involved that the shootings would have never happened. Nonetheless, we know that there was something within these boys to begin with that enabled this problem to get out of hand.

I wish we could teach every kid just what effects it can have to pay attention and to be kind to everyone. It really can save lives...

Agreed.

__________________
The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.
-- H. L. Mencken

I think we've all hit low points in our lives and ultimately what always kept me hanging on was how much my parents and family loved me and believed in me, I was told daily. I was always made aware that high school is only 4 years and most of those people don't matter b/c you will probably never see them again....I can't count how many times my Mom picked up my school books and folders and just start flippiing through asking who's so and so that wrote this or that in here. Invasion of privacy? No, interest in what is going on in a child's life. I would have been in psychiatric care(probably hospitalized) if there was talk of killing anyone. Not saying that it's anyone's fault except for the people who committed the crimes just an example of interest(invasion of privacy, if you want) that may have helped prevent such a thing from occurring. I'm sure that those parents would have a different view now, and I feel just as badly for them as the other parents. It's awful enough to lose a child at all but at their own hand?....I'm sure they will be asking themselves what they could have done differently everyday.

__________________
* Let it not be said that no one cared, that no one objected once it's realized that our liberties and wealth are in jeopardy.

~Ron Paul

"If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy."
- James Madison