The Violence Project: Promoting School Safety

Across the United States, summer is coming to an end and children everywhere are returning to school. They are experiencing the normal combination of trepidation and excitement that accompanies this Fall ritual. They wonder about who their teachers will be and worry that their friends might not be in their classes. They may be excited about their new lunchbox, backpack, and fun school supplies purchased for the occasion. Mixed in with these feelings, however, is something darker that has also become part of the back-to-school rite of passage for children as well as their parents: the worry that they will become victims of a school shooting. Shockingly, we are no longer shocked by mass shootings – even those that take place inside a school building and involve the senseless loss of life of young children. Adding to the national trauma, are some of the measures designed in response such as active shooter drills. According to Peterson and Densley’s work for The Violence Project, “More than half of American teenagers worry about a shooting at their school, and a lifetime of active shooter drills, locker searches, and locked school doors, has engendered in them an overwhelming fear of imminent death” (page 6). In their (2021) book, The Violence Project, Peterson and Densley unpack some of the myths and facts regarding who perpetrates mass shootings and the impact of this terrible blight on our society. According to their extensive research, four factors are present in all individuals who become a mass shooter. The first is exposure to violence and unaddressed childhood trauma. In fact, they argue that, “The worse the crime, the worse the story.” Second, an identifiable crisis point is reached in which pain and suffering overwhelm the individual. The third is access to a script or model from previous mass shootings that can be applied to achieve revenge against the humiliation of life and the persons believed to be the cause of such misery. The fourth is the opportunity to carry out the shooting, including access to weapons and victims. Based on their research, they conclude that, “Mass shootings are not an inevitable fact of American life; they’re preventable” (page 17).

Amid the horror of school shootings, there is cause to hope for a future in which these terrible events are prevented. This does not involve even more “hardening” of schools, which has clearly not worked. At the Psychological Maltreatment Alliance we endorse Peterson and Densley’s more personal and human approach. Like them, we envision a world in which the red flags that someone is in trouble are routinely assessed and acted upon before the damage is done. They describe several “off ramps” along the road to mass shootings. One such off-ramp involves individuals stepping up to act when someone is in trouble, detecting the signs and providing the nurturance and support the individual needs to get them off the terrible path they are on, a path that led to an end to the individual’s pain only through the infliction of tremendous suffering to others. A second off-ramp involves more systematic ways of checking in on people who enter schools through routine trauma screenings, to see if someone is suffering before their pain becomes intolerable. Third, are societal means of acknowledging and addressing gun laws that currently make it far too easy for troubled people to access the means to conduct a mass shooting. A final prevention approach involves teaching children how to avoid the social contagion of violence and hatred in person and especially on-line.

The work of The Violence Project resonates with our work at the Psychological Maltreatment Alliance because at the root of all school shootings is the unaddressed early childhood trauma of the shooter. The effect of early trauma is largely psychological in nature, with impacts that are not yet fully appreciated, limiting opportunities for promising interventions. As noted by Peterson and Densley, “early resolution largely resolves issues.” At the Alliance our mission is to educate and inform a wide range of professionals on the types of harm that come to children from an often misunderstood form of childhood maltreatment. Not as visible as physical abuse, sexual abuse, or physical neglect, psychological maltreatment is an insidious and highly impactful form of maltreatment that is associated with a range of harm for individuals, and was common in the backgrounds of the school shooters. For this reason, we applaud and support their recommendations and we will continue to provide those who work with families with the information and tools they need to take better care of our nation’s schoolchildren.

I'm Afraid of the Scream Mask, and I'm an Adult

I have a confession. I am afraid of the mask from the movie Scream. The cold impassive face leering at me seems to convey a bloodless desire to do me harm. It makes my heart race every time I see someone wearing one, even if that someone is a young child prancing down the street on Halloween excitedly swinging a plastic bucket of candy. I know in my brain that this person is not going to harm me, but my body goes into threat mode anyway. That is why I was so appalled to see the video of adult daycare providers donning their scream mask and chasing their little charges around the room. One video showed the adult getting into a young child’s face in a menacing way. This would be frightening even without the mask. But the mask adds a level of horror and menace to the situation that will probably traumatize these children for years to come. The question that we must answer as a society is why adults would want to do this. And it most likely was not a spur of the moment thing. Someone had to buy or locate the mask. Someone had to choose to put it on and then proceed to terrorize the children. To be clear, I use the word terrorize for a reason. It is one of the six major types of psychological maltreatment according to the American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children’s endorsed definition. Although these children were (presumably) not physically or sexually harmed in the making of that video, harm was done to them nonetheless. No one watching the video could deny that what was done to them was a form of abuse. Several years of research has now established that psychological maltreatment (including terrorizing) is a widespread and extremely impactful form of childhood maltreatment that can have long-lasting negative effects. It is an adverse childhood experience that is linked with a host of physical, emotional, and psychological negative outcomes. I wish that I could speak to the people who did this and try to understand why they thought this would be alright to do this to little children. But I suspect that they do not really know themselves why scaring little children brought them pleasure. Hopefully they have learned from this experience that it is not okay and perhaps others will think twice before showing their children a snapchat filter that creates the impression that a giant spider is crawling across a child’s face or participating in a “TikTok made me do it” prank at the expense of a child who places their trust in their caregivers to be safe, loving, and available. At the Psychological Maltreatment Alliance we provide state of the art research, training, and resources for professionals and caregivers. We invite everyone who cares about children to visit and to consider how we as individuals and society can better protect children from being harmed by the people who should be protecting them.

CDC Warns of High Levels of PM

On March 31, 2022 the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) released new data on the mental health of U.S. Adolescents. For the full story read here https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2022/p0331-youth-mental-health-covid-19.html

Among the many alarming findings, this one stands out: More than half (55%) reported they experienced emotional abuse by a parent or other adult in the home, including being sworn at, insulted, or put down. In the report, the CDC Acting Principal Director notes that the data are a "cry for help." Prior to the pandemic, rates of PM were lower but obviously too high (about 10% to 30% lifetime exposure).

These new data can be understood in the context of the increased stressors on parents that occurred during the Covid-19 pandemic. That is, one of the risk factors for psychological maltreatment of children is parental and familial stress that reduces parental patience and effective discipline strategies. Needless to say, the pandemic has played a significant role in increasing parental stress in a number of ways such as inducing intense fear of becoming ill and/or taking care of sick family members, decreasing access to socialization and exercise which reduce stress; and losing one's job and/or having to juggle working from home, child care, and children's virtual learning. While overall reported rates of child maltreatment declined during the pandemic (perhaps because of reduced opportunity to be observed and reported by doctors and teachers), the CDC data demonstrate that self-report data tell a different story, with more than half of teens saying that they experienced themselves as being psychologically maltreated in their homes. The data highlight the importance of multiple perspectives when establishing prevalence rates.

Of particular importance, the CDC data demonstrate the negative impact on families during the pandemic. The CDC survey also found that more than a third (37%) of high-school students reported they experienced poor mental health during the Covid-19 pandemic, and 44% reported that they persistently felt sad or hopeless during the past year. These problems were already on the rise in the decade before the pandemic.

While the current Covid-19 crisis appears to be moving away from the pandemic phase (although this could change), there could be future surges of this or other viruses that result in renewed lockdowns, quarantines, and social isolation. The question remains, how can we as a society do a better job supporting parents so that they can support and promote their children's well-being regardless of the levels of stress being experienced. What can we be doing now to ensure that the next generation of teens is less likely to be emotionally harmed by their parents? Families, children, and even society will suffer unless we find answers to these important and timely questions. Guidance towards these answers can be found on the "intervention" sections of numerous resources on this site.