We believe that babies enter this world innocently, but from the moment they are born, they have gained experience shaping who they are and how they behave.
That’s why I’m wondering as a result of a mass shooting in Buffalo, New York, where an 18-year-old child killed 10 people and injured 3 in an assault rifle. ??
According to news reports, the shooter is a quiet, lonely person who turned to online games when the pandemic closed the school and was fascinated by the guns. He told authorities he was detained for a psychiatric evaluation last June after writing “murder-suicide” as an answer to a virtual learning question (“What are you going to do when you retire?”). rice field. As is often the case, he was released the next day without follow-up.
Authorities looking for motives settled on his radicalization to the white supremacist agenda, pointing out the 180-page racial diabetes he posted online. It’s an obvious answer, but a short-sighted answer. The seeds of his act were planted much earlier and sprouted red flags that were excused or ignored.
According to a study by the CDC-Kaiser Permanente, adversity childhood (ACE) has a profound effect on the execution and damage of future violence. ACE is usually defined as neglect or abuse at home, from parental loss to domestic violence, addiction, and mental illness. However, they also include persistent bullying, exclusion, rejection, and isolation, and science shows that even high-performing students in middle-class families, such as archers, can actually damage the brain over time. May give.
Therefore, the origin of his actions may have come long before his online immersiveness, racial radicalization, or the purchase of a gun he bought and hid from his parents. You will need to look back further to find out exactly what made him the target of such a simple indoctrination. If we can’t focus on what led to his susceptibility, we are not only missing the point, but also the potential solution.
By the time guns, needles, or jumps from the bridge are involved, we have already missed the boat. The effects of early trauma can be overcome, but it takes years of effort and can put a significant financial burden on our support system. A more aggressive approach of preventing adversity from the beginning, or at least dealing with it as soon as it appears, cannot happen if no one is watching.
Of course, ideally it would be the parent of the child. However, not all children have a stable family situation and a parent who balances the boundaries with the abundant supply of unconditional love needed to gain the trust and confidence of the child. Therefore, it is essential to create a system outside the house to prevent children from slipping through gaps.
To reduce mass shootings, suicide rate spikes, and homeless and prison population spikes, we need to monitor and support mental health from birth through health systems, churches, schools and personal relationships. I have. All children must have access to a mental health counselor and primary care physician. A mental health assessment should be part of the body each year.
Peer support groups, led by trained counselors, should be available free of charge for all ages. Emotional adjustment techniques such as meditation, mindfulness, and deep breathing should be as familiar as the alphabet.
And, in contrast to current attempts to remove it from the classroom, social and emotional learning needs to be integrated into all subjects to build empathy, cooperation, acceptance and understanding.
This mental health prioritization should start now. It’s not because of yet another mass shooting, but as the Wall Street Journal columnist Daniel Heninger recently wrote, “Mental illness is the next pandemic in the United States.” Let me share with you a story that explains that.
Recently, I participated in a new state law forum that reduces gender identity discussions, limits racial education, and censors certain texts. Sitting next to me was a junior high school teacher, who was scoring a huge amount of papers while waiting for the event to begin.
After the panelists discussed the confusion by parents, the ban on books, and the threat of school privatization at a school board meeting, I asked if she was encouraged by what she heard.
She sighed. She said it wasn’t that what she heard wasn’t valid. It was unrelated to the daily crises in her classroom.
“I stopped listening to the school board meeting because I didn’t hear about the issues we were actually dealing with in class,” said the teacher who oversees the 22 students. Or other accommodation.
“The problems I face every day are children who come without resources to succeed. Mental health problems, trauma, lack of parental work, poverty, social and emotional problems with COVID, significant With increased fighting, suspension, and drugs. That’s what we’re dealing with. We’re really, really struggling. And so are our kids. “
As the pandemic declines, many children are on the verge of eruption. If their mental health needs are not resolved, it will lead to huge outflows to the community and potentially disastrous behavior.
We can continue to focus on the motives behind the latest tragedy. Alternatively, you can stop talking about the importance of mental health and do something to actually change the course.
Please contact the columnist Carrie Seidman (carrie.seidman@gmail.com or (505) 238-0392).
