Two Adult Pressures that Lead to School Shootings

There are two schools of thought about this issue and both have value. One school of thought is that we need more mental health treatment.  We do, but that is not why we are having school shootings.  The other school of thought is that we need more, or less, controls on gun ownership, and we do. We need more control over unstable persons having access to firearms while we also need more responsible people who know how to use fire arms in the right place at the right time, but that is not why we are having school shootings. Fire arms presence or absence is not leading to school shooting!  

We are having school shooting because we have placed pressures on teenagers that were designed for adults.  I will limit my comments to two of these pressures. One pressure is the pressure to work, the other pressure is sexual decision making. Negotiating both of these areas in our modern society is very difficult. We want work without sweat, and sex without complexity!  Work is supposed to be hard, and sexual relationships are very hard to manage.   We teach our teenagers that life is to be perpetually fun and easy and then we place adult pressures on them in every area of their lives. The contradiction between these demands causes enough pressure for some kids to kill! 

Full time work is designed to be an adult activity not a teenage activity. We have removed play from virtually every aspect of our teenager’s lives.  The demands to succeed academically, musically, athletically, and now even sexually are felt by every American kid. When teenagers are at their best they are teaching adults the joy of life.  Teenagers are not enjoying life! Most need a secretary to manage their activities. They are not having fun!  But we tell them that it is suppose to be! That contradiction creates enough pressure for some to kill.  

Sex is designed to be an adult activity! When we give teenagers simple answers to complex questions the consequences are dire! Managing the physical pleasures and emotional complexities of sex is difficult for mature adults. Yet, everything in our society pressures teenagers to enter this complex world. When the predictable consequence occurs, death is often the option. We put life and death decisions in the path of 14 year old girls and then we are surprised when some 14 year old boys make life and death decisions about their fellow students.  If we teach them that life has no value in one context some kids simply change the context.  We have not taught our teenagers to value life!

We have not taught our teenagers that the difficulty and complexity of life is what creates its value.  We have not taught them to wait and to delay gratification on one end of the spectrum, while we have demand that they get A’s in class, perfect their jump shot, and look hot while they are doing it on the other.  Most American kids are managing to negotiate this labyrinth successfully.  However, for some kids, all that work and all the sexual negotiation is simply too much. When life is cheap, and life is hard, shooting your way into a blaze of glory becomes a viable and deadly option.