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Overindulgent parents who let their kids run the show: Share your stories in the Mothers area of Table Talk

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Hey hey, ho ho, the matriarchy's got to go
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Scouts' dishonor
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The straightest arrow of them all: My friend the gay Scoutmaster
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Wedding Bell Blues
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Poems of edgy urban working wifedom
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The Spock touch
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More than just a bestselling child-care guru, the late doctor "Spock-marked" a generation with his politics
(03/23/98)

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Why it's time
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MAKING SENSE OF JONESBORO | PAGE 2 OF 2

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There was almost a game-like quality to the killing, with the kids dressing up in fatigues, then hiding in the bushes like snipers.

That's the part that is most scary to me. In America, violence is considered fun to kids -- they play video games where they chop people's heads off and blood gushes and it's fun, it's entertainment. It's like a game. And I think that is in some of the psychology of these kids -- this "let's go out there and kill like on television." It's fun for them, and they don't quite understand they are killing people and those people won't come back next week for the next episode.

How do we make kids understand what killing really means?

Parents have to counter what comes through the media by saying violence is not fun, it's not funny; that violence is an unacceptable way to negotiate conflict. You have to tell them not to play with guns. Parents who have guns, those who hunt, really have to secure those guns. The fact that the Arkansas kids knew where the guns were means they were easy to get. Those guns were not secure in my opinion. In the South and in the cities guns are too easy to get. Kids fantasize, they wonder, "What is it like to shoot?"

People have the idea that children are more violent today than ever before. Is it that they are more violent or do they simply have access to more violent tools?

Society has changed -- with the divorce rate going up and dual career couples and kids spending time in front of the TV -- kids don't get the same kind of childhood coaching and guidance that they used to. Everybody's rushing, everyone is busy. When you take surveys, children complain that their parents don't spend enough time with them and parents complain that they don't have enough time to spend with kids. Things are fractured. Plus, they are being bombarded with so much information via the media and are exposed to things they're not ready to handle.

For example?

Violence, sexuality, adult subjects like AIDS. You talk to 8-year-olds and they are familiar with adult material! There are parents who take their 6-year-olds to see R-rated movies with violence and graphic sex in them. What kind of effect is this going to have on kids?

What about the fact that these boys specifically targeted girls. Can we assume then that this is a misogynist crime?

It is not unusual for boys in this age group to have antagonistic relationships with girls. The older boy felt rejected by a girl. So his anger was personal but then generalized all girls. He saw girls, more than boys, as the villain. We got snatches in the media that he was upset about the breakup of his family, that he missed his dad. If he blamed his mother, who knows what he was acting out? But you would need someone to do a history of him, to analyze him.

How should children who kill be rehabilitated?

I don't know and nobody knows. But on juvenile statutes, they will be let out at age 18 and they may have some very loose screws up there that made them commit such an act. Rehabilitation is not a pure science. The fact that these kids are young, well, they certainly can mature and recognize that they were wrong, but you always have to wonder that someone who did something like that might do it again.

How would you have counseled kids like these -- ones that express anger, rage and the desire to kill?

I would get in touch with the parents. I would find out whether the kid had access to weapons. I would tell the parents that the weapons needed to be secured. And I would say that the boy needed to see a counselor. That's what I would have done.
SALON | March 30, 1998