RAISING NONVIOLENT KIDS
by John K. Rosemond

Chilling statistics on child and adolescent violence in the United States signal a national crisis in the making.  Our counselor, a disciplinarian of the old school, prescribes strong medicine to help stem the mayhem.

ACCORDING TO A 1995 STUDY PUBLISHED IN THE Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine, the most rapid rise in violence in the United States is taking place among children. The tip of the iceberg consists of a handful of very disturbed youngsters who commit violent crimes heinous enough to generate national media attention, but the larger problem is that the rate of child and adolescent violence has increased more than threefold since 1965. Some chilling facts: Between 1982 and 1991, the juvenile arrest rate for murder and assault increased 93 and 72 percent, respectively. Sibling conflict has become more violent.  Forty years ago, siblings fought mostly with words, by refusing to share, and by cheating during games. These days, according to pediatrician reports, it is not at all unusual for a sibling to physically assault and even injure a brother or sister. What was unheard of a generation or so ago—children three and older hitting their parents—has become nearly epidemic.  In the 1950s and 60's, it was rare—extremely rare—for a student to even threaten a teacher. In recent years, teachers have been hit by children as young as five.  The rate of adolescent female violence is increasing more rapidly that the rate for adolescent males.  Furthermore, the violence being done by children is directed not just at other people but also toward themselves.  Since 1960, the teen suicide rate has tripled, and for every successful child/adolescent suicide there are at least 50-100 suicide attempts. Reversing the upward trend in child violence will require more-effective law enforcement, education, and treatment, but in the final analysis, no efforts can match those taken by parents.  What, then can parents do? Teach manners and morals / In Towards a Meaningful Life: The Wisdom of the Rebbe (compiled and adapted by Simon Jacobson), the late Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson says that a child's character education should take priority over his academic education. In fact, the esteemed Rebbe says all other educational efforts are basically meaningless unless built on a solid foundation of good character, which is a matter of manners and morals.  Teaching manners to preschool children—the earlier the better—pays off in numerous ways.  My personal and professional experience has been that the well-mannered child is more obedient, does better in school, and gets along better with siblings and friends—in short, is more well-adjusted and, therefore, happier.

American Tragedy:  Post-Columbine High School

Teaching manners requires modeling as well as instruction—reminding, explaining, correcting, and rehearing. The first manners a child should learn by his or her fourth birthday, are (in no particular order):

• saying "please," "thank you," and "you're welcome" when appropriate

• saying "I'm sorry" when he's hurt or offended someone

• saying "excuse me" when appropriate

• sharing toys and other personal possessions freely

• saying "Yes, Ma'am/sir" and "No ma'am/sir" when appropriate (I'm betraying my Southern roots here.)

• not interrupting adult conversations, even with "excuse me."

Teaching proper manners is an important prerequisite to teaching proper morality, the essence of which is knowing the difference between right and wrong. Once again, the earlier this teaching begins, the better.  Studies have shown that a child who has not acquired an understanding of moral values by age 7 or 8 has considerably increased chances for antisocial and at-risk behavior during adolescence.  Again, proper example and instruction from parents is crucial, but the next most important influence seems to be that of a faith community. Several recent studies all found that children who regularly attend a church, synagogue, or mosque—children who are therefore exposed to ongoing moral instruction—are far less likely to engage in inappropriate behavior as teens.  They are less apt to abuse drugs or alcohol, engage in premarital sex, be arrested, or develop academic problems. And when they become adults, they are more likely to enter into marriages that succeed.

Be a family, a real family / In 1955, the typical family ate the evening meal together an average of six out of seven nights a week.  Today, that number is around three nights a week, and the culprit is clearly children's after-school activities.  In many of today's families, after-school activities dominate everyone's discretionary time. The parents never seem to have time for themselves or their marriages, they frequently complain of exhaustion and stress, and the entire family seems to be in a constant state of "hurry-up-we-gotta-go."

I recommend no more than one activity per child at any given time and no activities that interfere with the family meal, which should be at home nearly every evening. A parent may then ask, "But what if my child has a lot of innate talent for, say, music and I never let him develop that talent?"

In the first place, if your child has a lot of musical talent, and he or she values music as much as you value his talent, he'll choose some musical program as his one activity. Second, if he doesn't choose what you'd choose for him, then he'll take his talents (there's no such thing as having simply one talent, you know) and put them into some other area. And by the time he's 40 years old, there's little doubt he'll be as successful in whatever path he's chosen as he would have been if he had walked the path you, with your good intentions, chose for him.

Here are a few guarantees: The fewer after-school activities your children are engaged in, the more relaxed the family unit will be. You'll eat more evening meals together, and the kids will be better behaved. Studies show that the more often a child eats dinner with his or her parents, the less likely it is the child will develop behavior or academic problems.

Here's yet another guarantee: Less focus on children, combined with a generally more relaxed family atmosphere, translates to a stronger marriage. No reasonable person would argue with the idea that being relaxed allows parents to have better communication and intimacy.

Be a dad, a real dad / While it has become politically correct to downplay the role fathers play in child rearing, David Blankenhorn, president of the Institute for American Values and author of Fatherless America, has found that, by and large, children reared by single moms so not do as well on any measure as children raised in two-parent families. But a father's mere presence in his children's lives is not enough. To make a difference, he must be actively involved.  Children who grow up with involved fathers tend to be more self-confident, well-behaved, and achievement-oriented. 

The role of fathers becomes especially crucial during the teen years.  Studies show that teens with active fathers are less prone to having problems with sex, drugs, or alcohol, and more likely to go to college. As adults, they are more likely to enter successful marriages and eventually become good dads themselves.

Discipline with plan and purpose / Over the last 30 years or so, mental health professionals have succeeded at giving discipline—especially the old-fashioned kind—a bad name. It damaged self-esteem, they said, and high self-esteem is essential to good behavior and high achievement. Turns out they were wrong. The latest, best research says the most well-disciplined children are also the most well-adjusted.  Even spanking, long maligned, is proving to have beneficial, if limited effects.  Several studies show that parents who occasionally spank are more likely to raise well-adjusted children than parents who never spank. Furthermore, parental permissiveness, it turns out, correlates highly with aggressive behavior in children. Contrary to conventional wisdom, it seems children who are never spanked are more aggression-prone than children who are spanked on infrequent occasion.

As for self-esteem, a landmark study conducted by psychologists at Case Western Reserve University and the University of Virginia found that people who score high on measures of self-esteem are also highly prone to resorting to violence when they feel they've been treated unfairly. In fact, some of the highest self-esteem scores obtained were from career criminals, gang members, and spouse abusers.  And where academics are concerned, high achievers are more likely to be somewhat self-critical and unpretentious.  Humility and modesty are timeless virtues that shore up character, make for good citizenship, and promote higher achievement.  In fact, if everyone had slightly "low" self-esteem, the world would be a more peaceful place.

Censor the media / You wouldn't let your children consume dirty food, would you? Then don't allow them to consume profanity, "adult content," and violence in the media.

By age five, the average couch potato trainee is watching close to three hours of television per day, more than 1,000 hours per year.  She comes to first grade having watched more than 4,000 hours of television.  In one survey of children ages four to six, more than half stated they preferred watching TV to spending time with their parents. The problem of children and television is not simply one of excessive time spent in front of the tube but the violence children are exposed to in the process. Prime-time television programming averages from 20 to 25 violent acts per hour. 

Does watching televised violence predispose children to violent behavior?  Indeed, almost every study done to date has found a strong relationship.

In response to questions like, "Suppose another child pushes you off your bicycle. What would you do?" children who were heavy watchers of television violence were more likely than light watchers to select aggressive responses.

One study found that a child's early preference for violent television programming and other media is a significant predictor of aggressive and generally antisocial behavior in late adolescence and young adulthood.

The problem may be even more pronounced where video games are concerned. Two of the most outspoken critics of video game violence are David Grossman and Gloria DeGaetano, authors of Stop Teaching Our Kids to Kill: A Call to Action Against TV, Movie & Video Game Violence.

Grossman and DeGaetano say we are "raising generations of children who learn at a very early age to associate horrific violence with pleasure and excitement—a dangerous association for a civilized society."  They decry not only the act that video game violence is becoming increasingly realistic, but also that children learn to enjoy killing and mutilating, if only at a fantasy level.

Grossman and DeGaetano advocate a strict "no video game" policy for children of all ages, and I concur.  I would add that no child should have a television in his or her room.  Or a computer hooked up to the Internet.  It is, in my estimation, unconscionable for a parent to turn a child's room into a total entertainment environment. In the first place, this encourages the child to isolate himself in his room.  In the second, it reduces parental supervision to a minimum.  Grossman and DeGaetano suggest no more than 10 hours of total screen time (computers, television, video games, videos) per week.  I say that's still too much, I'd draw the line at five.

So to my way of thinking, the keys to raising a child who's not violence-prone are manners, morals, family, fathers, and parents who are as careful when it comes to the media messages their children consume as they are about the food their children eat. Nothing new here, folks. It's responsible parenting of the sort that prevailed not so long ago, when the words "children" and "violence" were rarely found in the same sentence. /END/

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