gaming - Games - Almost Columbine Again...

Yet again we are faced with the prospect of having another tragedy like the Columbine High school massacre. Police in the small town of Riverton Kansas arrested five male students just hours before they intended to carry out their plan to shoot and kill students and teachers.

Shocking? Yes. Was it totally unexpected? No, or at least it shouldn?t be. Once Columbine occurred we should have all been prepared for a copy cat incident or several attempts at the repetition of the same horror. We should all stay prepared for more of the same.

Why are our teens becoming increasingly violent and committing such unspeakable acts? The Sheriff of Riverton stated that all of the boys played violent video games. Could that be the reason? Is it too much media? Is it too many violent movies or not enough parental supervision? Yes; to all of the above.

The human brain has matured and will mature in the same way it has for hundreds and hundreds of years. It has a certain pattern it follows. Until our educational system and parents understand how the brain works and begins to reform the way we teach our kids and what we teach our kids, we can expect more violence.

The human brain is the ultimate PC. It is a huge and fascinating computer whose potential we can not begin to calculate. It is a sponge for information that it sorts and stores for future use. It has audio and video input capabilities courtesy of the eyes and ears as its tools and it has the ability to input tactile information.

But the brain also has the ability to fear and love and hate. It has emotion and this makes it the most dangerous computer in world. The computer of the brain is not limited to just logical and calculated out put. It can respond or react to any given situation at any given time.

Any information that goes into the brain is stored, much like a computer, in files in your mind. The brain does this so we will have experiential information to draw upon when we need it. Once we have touched the burner of a stove and learned that it is hot and can hurt use, we don?t need to keep touching that stove over and over again because the brain has that ?touch the stove? file to open up when we even glance at the stove. Under the stove file, it also has the sub files of how turn the stove on, how we cook with it and so on.

Imagine what files open up for a teen that wants to solve a problem. For example, let?s say we have a teen that plays violent video games and watches way too much TV or horror movies. All of that information is stored away in the brain. The brain makes no judgment on the quality of information it stores. It neither labels it good information or bad information. That task is left to the kind of education about morals and character that is also being filed as he or she learns it; IF he or she has been exposed to that information.

Now lets say that same teen has a problem at school, he is being picked on by some of his classmates. To a teen, this bullying is perceived as an attack. How can he deal with the problem and eliminate the bullying? He reaches into the brain for solutions and the ?stop the attack? files open up. Inside this file is experiential information. Among those files may be ?tell a teacher or parent?. Another file may recommend avoiding the attacker. Another file may suggest quitting school as a solution.

But imagine files opening that contain the violent solutions they have seen on TV news, video games and violent movies. The solutions range from shooting the attacker to stabbing to bombing and so on. Whatever that child has seen or heard is filed away somewhere in the brain and when called upon to provide a solution to the bully problem, again the brain makes no distinction whether the information is good or bad, it just presents the possibilities.

Let?s add that to the fact that along about the age of 11 or 12 years old, the frontal cortex of the brain ?falls asleep.? This is the area of the brain that is responsible for connecting the dots between risk and consequence. It is the brakes of the mental process. It is part of impulse control and keeps our reactions in check. Because this part of the brain is sleeping, as parents and educators, we have to ?teach? and ?connect the dots? for our teens about risk and consequence and impulse control until that function wakes up again around the ages of 21 or 22. So when you ask yourself, ?What is my kid thinking?, chances are they are not; at least not the way you and I think.

In light of all this new information on brain maturation that the scientific community is giving us right now, this begs the question of who is teaching our teens the life skills and the tools they need to help them make the right decisions about their actions and choices. Who is teaching them what a boundary is and how that is used in your life? Has anyone explained what the different between responding to a problem and reacting to a problem?

Have you ever said to your teen, ?If you drive drunk with your best friend in the car and have a bad accident, you may have to live with the fact that you have injured or killed your best friend? If not, let me tell you that you have to make that direct a connection between driving drunk and the consequences of that choice for your teen. They simply are not able to make those connections without prompting from parents and teachers unless they have experienced it or seen another of their peers experience it.

Bottom line here is that although we are teaching our children to learn, we are not teaching them how to think. We are not giving them the life skills they need, which should be taught in school, nor are we giving them any tools to help them deal with their problems on any kind of mature and satisfactory level.

Until we ?get it? that what goes in the brain has the potential to come out of the brain and that ?crap in? means ?crap out?, then expect more of the same type of violence that we have been seeing over and over in our teen population. Until we begin to teach them how to make good choices we will continue to see any kind of choice being made. Until educators connect brain maturation studies to when and what we are teaching in school, then you can have the greatest education in the world and still not be able to handle life and its frustrations.

And yes?.. We will continue to see the horror that was Columbine acted out again and again. At the end of the day, we as parents and teachers are dropping the ball in a major way when it comes to helping our teens cope with life and choose the better solutions. If no life skills education or character education is going into the brain to be filed away that can help them control themselves and their environments, then the information that may stop all this senseless violence is not available to our children. Can we stand to be accountable for that?

Jeanne Webster CPC is a professional life skills coach that niches in teen, parent/teen and young adult issues. She is a columnist, speaker and author of the two time national award winning book, "If You Could Be Anything, What Would You Be"? For more on brain maturation, visit her website at http://www.youcouldbeanything.com for a free copy of The Brain Pain Report.

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