I’m not against kindness. But here’s the problem with #WalkUpNotOut.
The kid who’s going to eventually kill a bunch of people is the kind of person who sees kindness as weakness. By the time they are in high school, no amount of peer attention or generosity is going to change them. Their conscience is poorly developed, and they don’t have “relationships.” They use people. And they use “ideas” to promote whatever sense of oppression they feel to justify their violent acts.
It is not the responsibility of other children to “fix” their violent peers.
Navigating the waters of the social scene as a child is difficult, even for the most “popular” kid out there. And expecting them to “walk-up” to individuals who are often awkward, socially bizarre, angry-looking, or just plain weird in a scary kind of way is out of line.
The problems of a child who will commit mass murder are immense. Even many skilled professionals are not equipped to help an individual with the kind of problems that will lead to an eventual mass murder. Their problems are too fundamental, too deeply rooted, and too far gone by the time that kid is a teenager.
That’s why a person like the one who killed all those kids at Stoneman Douglas High School slips through the cracks.
That person has had such deeply disrupted attachment relationships with his caregivers that he has no conscience. Thoughts or empathy for the feelings of others do not come into his mind. He just doesn’t care.
Others are simply the source of pain for him, and he is out to repay the world for that pain.
He doesn’t care if some kid at school “walks up” to him. He will reject that overture, if not immediately, then soon thereafter. And he has no other choice because he is programmed to reject relationships. For him, relationship means pain, and eventual, inevitable loss and subsequent isolation for him.
The Solution is Not #WalkUpNotOut
The solution to the problem of mass murders will come from understanding that mass murderers are created between the ages of 0-7. Not from pushing kids to try and “walk-up” to a hostile peer at school who doesn’t look like they want anybody to come near them anyway.
Until society accepts that disrupted attachments in early childhood are at the root of all violence, the murders will continue. Every other “explanation” is just icing on the cake.
Want to know more? Read my blog, How a Kid Can Kill. Or call me, we’ll talk.
