Criminal Profiling Topic of the Day: Let's Stop Screwing up Our Kids!
Two teenage girls in Australia just strangled a friend to death just because they wanted to see how it felt. Apparently not much else of life was worth experiencing for these jaded teens, so they had to experience the “thrill” of murder to get an adrenaline rush. I remember my years as a youth and I also wanted to be excited by life and so I worked with blind and deaf children, took karate, and dreamed of traveling to Africa. Never did it occur to me that violence would be a kick or that watching my terrified “friend” die a horrible death at my own hands would be an experience worth having. Something is seriously frightening about the psyche of some kids today.
Two other teenage girls in Australia took a different path. They killed themselves because they felt the world wasn’t worth living in. Participants in “Emo” culture, a mindset that over focuses on the “poor me” syndrome, they didn’t lack for a large group of friends (as their suicide notes named) but even the fact that they weren’t alone in the world didn’t stop these self-murders from occurring. I remember another teen who thanked her parents and siblings for being wonderful and her friends for being there for her who then hung herself because the world was “mean.” The world was kind of mean when I was growing up as well (and I wasn’t terrible popular in high school and didn’t have more than a couple of friends) but suicide never ever crossed my mind. Homicidal and suicidal ideation are being promoted constantly in our world today. I never heard of such things when I was growing up so my response to being angry was to lock my bedroom door and listen to show tunes (which didn’t do much to fuel my rage). Now, anger is bolstered by violent ideation from just about every corner of life – video games, movies, television, music, and news – and so it is no wonder kids now consider violence a way to express themselves when they become frustrated with the world around them.
Teenage years have always been difficult transition points. If we as a society care about our children, we need to surround young adults with soft cushions instead of providing them with vicious thoughts to spur them on to violent behavior. We also need to require niceness in our schools, in our communities, in our families, and in our society in general. All the nastiness we see on reality television, in music videos, with bullying in schools, in heated divorce battles, and in general discourse can hardly bring a feeling of happiness to stressed and saddened teens.
Keep posted for news of my new campaign, “Let’s Stop Screwing up Our Kids!” It is time to really do something about the environment our kids live in.
Criminal Profiler Pat Brown
Two other teenage girls in Australia took a different path. They killed themselves because they felt the world wasn’t worth living in. Participants in “Emo” culture, a mindset that over focuses on the “poor me” syndrome, they didn’t lack for a large group of friends (as their suicide notes named) but even the fact that they weren’t alone in the world didn’t stop these self-murders from occurring. I remember another teen who thanked her parents and siblings for being wonderful and her friends for being there for her who then hung herself because the world was “mean.” The world was kind of mean when I was growing up as well (and I wasn’t terrible popular in high school and didn’t have more than a couple of friends) but suicide never ever crossed my mind. Homicidal and suicidal ideation are being promoted constantly in our world today. I never heard of such things when I was growing up so my response to being angry was to lock my bedroom door and listen to show tunes (which didn’t do much to fuel my rage). Now, anger is bolstered by violent ideation from just about every corner of life – video games, movies, television, music, and news – and so it is no wonder kids now consider violence a way to express themselves when they become frustrated with the world around them.
Teenage years have always been difficult transition points. If we as a society care about our children, we need to surround young adults with soft cushions instead of providing them with vicious thoughts to spur them on to violent behavior. We also need to require niceness in our schools, in our communities, in our families, and in our society in general. All the nastiness we see on reality television, in music videos, with bullying in schools, in heated divorce battles, and in general discourse can hardly bring a feeling of happiness to stressed and saddened teens.
Keep posted for news of my new campaign, “Let’s Stop Screwing up Our Kids!” It is time to really do something about the environment our kids live in.
Criminal Profiler Pat Brown
