As area high schools celebrate graduation, many of us are still trying to make sense of the events in Littleton and other communities recently devastated by teenage killers.
As area high schools celebrate graduation, many of us are still trying to make sense of the events in Littleton and other communities recently devastated by teenage killers.
These, after all, were not the children from whom we expected violence. These were not the "urban superpredators" of fashionable political rhetoric. The young people who exploded with such feral rage were, from all accounts, privileged suburban children from intact, mostly churchgoing families. It is easy to blame cultural influences, but that begs the question why millions of others exposed to the same music and films do not respond by becoming murderers. Why did these children kill?
There are no simple answers to such questions, but some intriguing research may suggest avenues to better understanding.
At a recent conference, a professor from Florida State University shared what he cautioned were preliminary results of research into issues of "procedural justice" within families; that is, the methods families use to resolve conflict. He found that the single most reliable predictor of teenage aggression and violence was persistent "lack of respect"–defined as unwillingness by the parent to hear what the child had to say.
To lawyers, "due process of law" or "procedural justice" means notice of the accusation against you and an opportunity to be heard, to respond. "Respect" to teenagers means much the same thing. The research did not suggest a correlation between punishment and later violence; rather, anger and hostility were a response to a denial of "voice"–denial of the opportunity to give their side of the story. Punishment imposed after hearing the child out might be considered fair or unfair, depending on the situation, but it was not experienced as lack of "respect."
These preliminary conclusions are consistent with other findings. Students of labor-management relations, for example, have noted the importance to employees of having their complaints heard, whatever the ultimate decision on the merits of a grievance.
In 1988, Samuel and Pearl Oliner published The Altruistic Personality, comparing Germans who risked their lives to rescue Jews during the holocaust with those who did not. They found that rescuers were significantly more likely to come from homes where discipline was accompanied by discussion, where rules were explained and reasons given. Highly authoritarian families rarely produced rescuers; such families were also more likely to produce people who obeyed orders without questioning their legitimacy.
Families where punishment was preceded by explanation and children were treated as individuals tended to produce citizens who had internalized their parents’ values and were thus prepared to act on them.
Our children need discipline, but if they are to become self-disciplined adults, they also need to be heard, to be respected as the individuals they are. They don’t need BMW’s and cell-phones, and they don’t need to be divested of the relatively few rights and freedoms they have. They do need parents and teachers who practice what academics call "procedural justice" and what the rest of us call living by the Golden Rule.