Why Are Children Today Looking and Behaving in Ways That Are More Aggressive?
“It is not our job to toughen our children up to face a cruel and heartless world. It’s our job to raise children who will make the world a little less cruel and heartless” L.R Knost
I grew up in the 60’s- the “cliché” time of Peace-Love-Understanding. As cliché as it may sound, the 60’s culture truly was bombarding us with sounds and images of people trying to come together. The music was a source of conditioning around helping others, accepting differences among people and generally provided a monologue of “being one”- using peace and dialogue between people to try and make things better.
I, like many elders, will remember the famous picture of a young person putting a flower in the barrel of a rifle that a young National Guardsman was holding at the Kent State protests. We were surrounded by images of peace and getting along with one another in the face of a divided and violent, tumultuous time in history. The preaching of Dr Martin Luther King and the words of Bobby Kennedy both portrayed messages of our being stronger as one unified nation of diversity and tolerance- where all are accepted and respected. While certainly not the best of times, the 60’s challenged us growing up then to imagine a world that could be different- a peaceful, accepting world. We really did want to “teach the world to sing in perfect harmony”.
Well…we “Boomers” didn’t do such a great job bringing that world of peace and understanding to our children and grandchildren. Fast forward 50 years and today we are bombarded with disruptive images from a vast array of media sources of violence, division, anger, hostility, greed and aggression. We hear and see a constant barrage of anger, aggression and discrimination from those same media sources.
Given the cultural shift from the peace and love of the 60’s to the tumultuous and negatively hostile influences in culture today, the rise and epidemic of bullying in our schools should not surprise us. We adults (as a collective society) have in a sense conditioned this behavior in our children. That 60’s messaging of Peace-Love-Understanding today is in a state of contra conditioning. It has been building over the last couple of decades.
In today’s world, we are observing, hearing and reading bullying and aggressive rhetoric at the highest levels in our society. Children are great observers- they are in a sensory ready state to absorb all the social conditioning that blitzes them- and this place in time in history with its aggressive and divisive approach does not escape their consciousness.
We have reached a point in our culture where we are tired of hearing about corporate CEO’s who lack conscience and will dupe millions of dollars from the people they work for, or from those that trusted them enough to invest with them. If you believe surveys, most Americans today regardless of their party affiliation are sick and tired of our U.S. warring, non-compromising political process. We now have grown accustomed to waking up every morning and bracing ourselves for local, national and international news stories of conflict, murder and other forms of hatred. Hostile, negative, aggressive ‘tweet storms” are an unfortunate and all too common experience today.
There is much focus today on bullying and intolerance with children of all ages. We are seeing national data that indicates bullying has become an epidemic, an unfortunate yet expected force in our schools and communities. Violence, disrespect toward one another, aggression toward, and shaming those who are different seems all too prevalent these days. With adults behaving badly and seemingly at times acting without conscience or remorse…and children acting without control- these dynamics are contributing to make us much more susceptible to acting out aggressively and behave with an intolerance toward others who may be different in some way (like even having different political views).
Well, I won’t even begin to talk about the implications of this aggressive stance for adults- but suffice it to say we may not be the best role models in this regard for children today. In our country, I think that there are cultural conditions for children in play that are not just related to issues of income level, race, age, gender, urban v. suburban, or equality. My thought is that they are fundamentally rooted in, and related to, the implosion of the family and the parenting styles, or lack of parenting, that we see all too common in today’s homes and child rearing practices. This parenting shift gets reinforced and multiplied by out of home dynamics that are all too encouraging of aggression and violence.
Teachers will tell you that they hear a common refrain from students of all ages who use physical force and aggression with other students. It goes something like, “well my parents said if somebody hits me I should just hit them back”. While it is a noble thing to teach and prepare our children to stand up for themselves and to not be bullied, the first strike response of hitting back does not allow children to learn how to use their biggest muscle to respond to conflict…their brains. It does not tell or teach them to use their negotiation and assertiveness skills to get their needs met, it just tells them to act out whenever they are threatened or even perceive a threat- or to put down someone who is different from them.
Living a life where you get your needs met in a responsible, peaceful and ethical manner must be taught to children. This is not a value set that is innate to a child and will unfold naturally because of maturation. These internal value beliefs and subsequent behaviors must be taught, modeled and reinforced repeatedly with children as they mature. The cultural forces of the internet, children being ‘wired”, todays music messaging, gaming and widespread bullying all are massive contra conditioning forces at play with our children especially in this regard.
I just read that the incidence of child and adolescent suicide is rising faster today than it was in the height of adolescent suicides back in the 80’s. It is difficult for children and adolescents to deal with the consequences of the contra-conditioning toward violence and aggression that is in play for them today. This dynamic is especially acute for children if they are the target of such aggression toward them for being different or even if they were simply perceived as being different. Imagine being a teenager and deciding that you would be better off dead than living in the present life circumstances you might currently living with…It is the ultimate feeling of being hopeless, hapless and helpless to change your life for the better.
We also have been witness to many school shootings over the past two decades where 70% of the shooters have been students or former students who were the target of aggression by others in the school. Through 2018 over 187,000 students at 193 schools have experienced a school shooting since the Columbine massacre; Sixty-three percent of students who were exposed to gun violence at schools were children of color; since 1999, there have been 10 school shootings each year on average in the U.S., and shootings have occurred across 36 states and districts and the shootings have caused 375 deaths or injuries to students, teachers and school staff. Our once ‘safe schools” are now having to conduct active shooter drills to try and prepare students for what many of them think is an inevitable situation they will one day have to face.
Children who grow up without a foundation of ‘executive function”, are more susceptible to the influences of the constant media contra-conditioning toward violence and will more likely default to aggression in the face of aggression (or perceived aggression) toward them.
Right now, we live in a cultural time where our parenting priorities may be backwards- because we want to protect our children from the changing world that is now more hostile to them than ever before- right in their own bedrooms via their computers and in their neighborhoods and schools.
But equipping our children to act aggressively in a self-protective stance for living in the cold cruel world misses the bigger picture. That is, if we want a world less hateful and violent, we must raise children to be the purveyors of that value orientation in the world as they grow up and become tomorrow’s leaders, corporate CEO’s, politicians and most importantly…when they become moms and dads raising their own children.
Children must be explicitly taught not to first use their physical muscles in conflict but to use their mental muscles to solve problems and in reacting to threats. Parents and teachers must strategize how to teach and model emotional control- leading to more thoughtful behaviors- elevating executive functioning- and producing a higher emotional quotient for children and adolescents to use in their lives as they respond and confront the violence and aggression that is now part of the social fabric that they live every single day in some way. Mindfully and strategically raising the importance of Emotional Quotient (EQ) by parents and teachers to become as valued as Intelligence Quotient (IQ) is essential for us to turn things around for children in our homes and classrooms today.
Changing the world begins right in our own homes and classrooms…I think it is time for each of us individually, and for us collectively, to bring back some Peace-Love-Understanding to our homes, communities, country and the world.
Be well, joe cozzo
