Children and Violence

Children and Violence

Not all children enjoy the "carefree" days of childhood. Unfortunately, when things start to go wrong, people often despair of being able to repair the damage.

This is a time of high concern about violent behavior by young people. As a nation, we are in a period of reflection as to what can be done to stem this tide. Helping young people avoid or overcome emotional problems in the wake of violence or disaster is one of the most important challenges a parent, teacher, or mental health professional can face. Moreover, children often face violence in their own homes.

Children are very sensitive. They struggle to make sense of trauma. They also respond differently to traumas. They may have emotional reactions. They may hurt deeply. They may find it hard to recover from frightening experiences. They need support. Adult helpers can provide this support. This may help children resolve emotional problems.

There are two types of trauma - physical and mental. Physical trauma includes the body’s response to serious injury and threat. Mental trauma includes frightening thoughts and painful feelings. They are the mind’s response to serious injury. Mental trauma can produce strong feelings. It can also produce extreme behavior; such as intense fear or helplessness, withdrawal or detachment, lack of concentration, irritability, sleep disturbance, aggression, hyper vigilance (intensely watching for more distressing events), or flashbacks (sense that event is reoccurring).

A response could be fear. It could be fear that a loved one will be hurt or killed. It is believed that more direct exposures to traumatic events causes greater harm. For instance, in a school shooting, an injured student will probably be more severely affected emotionally than a student who was in another part of the building. However, second-hand exposure to violence can also be traumatic. This includes witnessing violence such as seeing or hearing about death and destruction after a building is bombed or a plane crashes.

School Violence

The topic of school violence is one that affects all of society. Aside from interfering with the learning process, the long range effects of school violence affect us all. Statistically, children who engage in bullying behavior are more likely to become adult criminals. Many children who display violent behavior at school are exposed to violence or abuse outside of school and may be in need of help from adults.

Awareness of potentially violent behavior and early intervention are crucial components in helping kids at risk. Equally important is caring for children who have been victims of school violence. It is common for children to keep quiet about episodes of victimization due to shame, embarrassment and fear of escalated violence. Children who are victimized in school crime often suffer from decreased self-esteem, truancy, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder and in extreme cases, suicide and violent retaliation.

The distribution of serious school violence varies widely by community. Serious school violence occurs most often in urban schools. Typically, community violence in inner cities is more prevalent than in rural areas, which may partially prove that community violence has direct effects on children. The majority of the research to date suggests that violence is a learned behavior, so children who are acting out in violent or aggressive ways may have learned violence by repeating the violent behavior of adults. With this in mind, one can see why early intervention among school aged children is an important element in stopping the cycle of violence.

Children who are exposed to school violence need assistance from adults. Parents, educators, administrators, school mental health workers, police and other health and safety providers have a responsibility to children to provide them with the safest possible learning environment as well as keeping themselves informed about the violent issues and experiences that children face every day. Most schools have adopted a zero-tolerance policy against school violence. Anti-violence interventions that are available may include conflict resolution, good citizenship instruction, and peer mediation training for children, and early warning sign and crisis response education for adults.

Media Violence

Violence in the media is an issue surrounded by controversy. For some, there is the concern that children who are inundated with the images of shootings, bombings and rapes will become desensitized to such violent acts and possibly learn to see them as valid responses to life's stresses.

Some research has been done to support the idea that violent thoughts and behavior increase after exposure to violent films, music, television or video games. The argument of observational learning--that children learn by imitating what they see--is at the core of the majority of these studies. Some children are more able than others to tell the difference between make-believe and real-life events.