Whose fault was the killings at Columbine High School? And how can we help our children resist bullies, not become bullies themselves and thrive after horrible killings?
Next week will be the tenth anniversary of the massacre at Columbine High School. A recent book by Peter Langman, “Why Kids Kill: Inside the Minds of School Shooters,” analyzes the killers in this and other shootings. Already the media is gearing up for an analytic retrospective. There will be an orgy of hand-wringing and finger-pointing.
Seven of the most common targets of blame are:
- It was the bullies’ fault. Had they not pushed Harris and Klebolt over the edge, the boys would have remained good citizens.
- It was the fault of the parents of the bullies. They didn’t stop their children from abusing Harris and Klebolt.
- It was the school’s fault. Had the principal stopped the bullying of Harris and Klebolt, they would not have turned into killers.
- It was the fault of the parents of the killers. Had they raised their kids better, they wouldn’t have become killers. Had they seen what their children had become, they would have had them incarcerated or committed.
- It was the fault of Harris and Klebolt. They were psychopathic, psychotic killers who twisted and resisted every attempt to help or to stop them.
- It was the fault of a society that is violent and corrupt. Had the teenagers’ minds not been filled with violent images, they would have been peaceful.
- It was the fault of a society that has lost its connection with God. If our society was more God-fearing, the boys would have grown up with good morals and not have turned into killers.
Typically, we approach problems with the scientific method: determine what went wrong, fix the bad part and the system will run effectively. That method works well on purely physical material – billiard balls, cars, sending spaceships to the moon – but it is totally misleading when applied to the living world, especially to humans. I’m not the first to say this. Blaise Pascal said it 400 years ago. He was right.
Looking to blame and then fix one part of human life is the wrong way to go. It leads us to think that we can isolate one or a few causes and fix them. It leads us to think we can easily fix the school system or our society and then there will be no abuse or crazy killers and no massacres.
Of course, we don’t want kids to bully other kids. And we need laws to force principals to stop bullying at their schools and also to protect good principals from suits brought against them by parents wanting to protect their bullying children. And we want to recognize and rehabilitate kids with criminal tendencies sooner. And we want a society that is more clear and consistent about not massacring other citizens.  And we want a society with more ethical and moral citizens.
Our efforts to change our school and legal system are necessary, useful and laudable, but they are not a solution that will prevent future massacres.
Face reality. Bullies, psychopaths and killers are like the weather – they’ve always been with us and always will be. We can’t change the weather any more than we can completely prevent massacres and tragedies. Assigning blame won’t change that. The way we deal with the inevitable changes in the weather or the next blizzard that will hit Denver in April or May is to prepare ourselves so we’re not caught off guard or helpless.
The useful question for us is how we prepare our children and teenagers for a world in which they will face crazy, violent people. One of our tasks is to teach our children not to use bullying tactics to make themselves feel good or to get what they want. Another task is to teach them to be resilient in the face of bullying and how to stop bullies in their tracks. Obviously, Harris and Klebolt never learned this.
The hardest task for parents is to recognize when our children have gone bad and to do something about it. It would be asking a lot to expect parents to say, “My kid is crazy and might go on a killing spree. Please lock him up.â€Â It would also be asking a lot for school administrators to say the same. Yet that is exactly what we want to ask of Harris and Klebolt’s parents. And also what we must ask of ourselves.
Answering these difficult questions will help us teach our children better than hand wringing or assigning blame.
Ben Leichtling, Ph.D. is author of the books and CDs “How to Stop Bullies in Their Tracks,†“Parenting Bully-Proof Kids†and “Eliminate the High cost of Low Attitudes.†He is available for coaching, consulting and speaking. To find practical, real-world tactics to stop bullies and bullying at home, school, work and in relationships, see his web site (http://www.BulliesBeGone.com ) and blog (http://www.BulliesBeGoneBlog.com ).
7 users commented in " Columbine High School Massacre: Whose Fault Was It? "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a TrackbackYou wanna know whois fault it was other then the no good snot heads that carried it out…it was the PARENTS….GO IN YOUR KIDS ROOMS TURN EM UPSIDE DOWN…BE INVOLVED….YOU HAVE TO MAKE YOURSELF KNOW WHAT YOUR KIDS ARE INVOLVED IN! For real..I blame the parents for lack of being interested in there kids life…for just blowing off the outward signs of whatever possesses kids to do what them kids did to Columbine. Parents need to go in there kids rooms and investigate and see what the heck they are up to! Get nosy its our kids for cripes sakes until my kids are out of my house I reserve the right to snoop in there rooms..it could save a life.
Research has determined that from the Moment of Commitment (the point when a student pulls their weapon) to the Moment of Completion (when the last round is fired) is only 5 seconds. If it is the intent of a school district to react to this violence, they will do so over the wounded and/or slain bodies of students, teachers and administrators.
Educational institutions clearly want safe and secure schools. Administrators are perennially queried by parents about the safety of their schools. The commonplace answers, intended to reassure anxious parents, focus on the school resource officers and emergency procedures. While useful, these less than adequate efforts do not begin to provide a definitive answer to preventing school violence, nor do they make a school safe and secure.
Traditionally school districts have relied upon the mental health community or local police to keep schools safe, yet one of the key shortcomings has been the lack of a system that involves teachers, administrators, parents and students in the identification and communication process. Recently, colleges, universities and community colleges are forming Behavioral Intervention Teams with representatives from all these constituencies. Higher Education has changed their safety/security policies, procedures, or surveillance systems, yet K-12 have yet to incorporate Behavioral Intervention Teams. K-12 schools continue spending excessive amounts of money to put in place many of the physical security options. Sadly, they are reactionary only and do little to prevent aggression because they are designed exclusively to react to existing conflict, threat and violence. These schools reflect a national blindspot, which prefers hardening targets through enhanced security versus preventing violence with efforts directed at aggressors. Security gets all the focus and money, but this only makes us feel safe, rather than to actually make us safer.
Some law enforcement agencies use profiling as a means to identify an aggressor. According to the U.S. Secret Service and the U.S. Department of Education’s report on Targeted Violence in Schools, there is a significant difference between “profiling” and identifying and measuring emerging aggression; “The use of profiles is not effective either for identifying students who may pose a risk for targeted violence at school or – once a student has been identified – for assessing the risk that a particular student may pose for school-based targeted violence.” It continues; “An inquiry should focus instead on a student’s behaviors and communications to determine if the student appears to be planning or preparing for an attack.” We can and must assess objective, culturally neutral, identifiable criteria of emerging aggression.
For a comprehensive look at the problem and its solution, http://www.aggressionmanagement.com/White_Paper_K-12/
Hi Pickles,
I agree.
Parents are responsible for their children. Knowing what they’re up to is more important than their privacy. You might even end up protecting them from attack by someone else. Of course, some sociopathic kids will be able to fool their parents, but that’s a small percentage.
And principals and district administrators should be responsible for stopping bullying.
Best wishes,
Ben
Ben I fully understand the role that school officials and principals play in protecting our kids..I hail from the great state of Oregon and school violence is rampent here…Parents like you said and I said need to take part and be like a prison turn the rooms upside down!! Be nosey…
when my older son was bullied, he offered to see them after school in the parking lot. End of problem.
But my younger son was gentle, and did not fight. So I changed high schools.
But a lot of blame must be put on the copycat killing: The films and 24 hour news stories that essentially say: kill a bunch of people and you will be a hero.
My younger brother was bullied for many years from elementary school to high school one day in Shop class the boy was doing his norml routine and my brother turned around and cole cocked him right in his nose…broke it..end of problem.
Thanks Nancy and Ms. Pickles,
Yes, when facing dedicated bullies you have to get their attention by beating them up. There’s some case studies about this in “Parenting Bully-Proof Kids.”
I don’t get the missionary pacifists who ignore the evidence while clinging to their false beliefs.
Glad two of the kids figured it out.
Best wishes,
Ben
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