Parenting styles
Parenting styles involves the way these adolescents (involving themselves in school shootings) were brought up by their parents. It is all about the social life that these victims were exposed to. You will find that most of the school shootings that occur originate from the social life of the victims. This means that parenting style is very important in helping alleviate this challenge.
Reviewing on the background of students, one will definitely notice the different family backgrounds they come from. Such backgrounds include broken marriage families, single parent families, poor families, rich families, caring and uncaring families among others. Some even grow up as orphans with no parental contact at all (Hayes 2).
Many of the behaviors found in students particularly the males, are as a result of their backgrounds. This causes them to develop feelings of self rejection, self pity and total desperation. They eventually turn out to engage themselves in drugs and other acts of terrorism.
Most of them eventually end up developing a don’t-care-attitude which eventually leads to habits of shootings in schools. Other reasons are the religious influences, for example the Muslims who propagate Jihad (Holy war) and also peer influence (Newman et al. 1). An individual can be brought up in a good environment only to be carried away by bad influence from his fellow friends.
Some of these friends might have been brought up in a bad environment. The issue of the holy war as the Muslims claim is also another parenting failure. Young Muslims are brought up in an environment that misleads them about war. They end up applying such teachings in school. To them, war is holy (Kellner 57).
Media Influence
The media and other social surrounding environment have contributed a lot to the growth and development of this kind of behavior among the school adolescents. Despite their efforts in curbing this behavior, the influence of media has been a subject matter by several authors who have published books and other materials used in class and even outside. Some of the media films, books and other materials are of bad influence.
Movies on terrorism acts, fighting and other related themes tend to cause bad influence. Others are the publications made after the columbine tragic events in 20th April, 1999, which caused many authors to publish plays, films, and other sorts of publications to stop the same from recurring again. Examples are the play called, Bang You’re Dead (1999) which later became a movie in 2002, the Duck – Carbine High Massacre (2002).
The internet also forms part of the media influence. There is a lot of information on the internet about guns including pro-gun sites that students obtain information on how to acquire and use guns. Some of these sites allow students to buy guns and other weapons as hyper-masculinity tokens (Kellner 57).
How to prevent Adolescent Masculinities and Guns Amok
Teachers should spend more time with pupils/students to stand a better chance of correcting their behavior. Those who are already victims still have an element of greatness and can be summoned to impart some sense of hope in them and make them change completely. The parents should be very careful with their children and should provide a reputable background that will not expose them to such behaviors.
The media should advocate for movies, books and films that encourage students not to engage in acts of shootings, Adolescent Masculinities and Guns Amok. A good example is a movie titled Anwar published to send a message that, not all Muslims are terrorists; discouraging the adolescents and other age groups from the notion that just because they are Muslims they have to be terrorists (Rhodes 57).
The internet pro-gun sites should also be dealt with. These sites should be closed or imposed with limited access. The internet can then be used as a great information source to enlighten students against terrorism acts and provide themes that promote peace, understanding as well as conflict non-violent resolutions (Rhodes 89).
Works Cited
Hayes, Kevin. “University of Texas Shooting: Shots Fired on UT Campus, One Gunman Dead, Second Possible Suspect Sought.” CBS News. 2010. Web.
Kellner, Douglas. Guys and Guns Amok: Domestic Terrorism and School Shooting From Oklahoma City Bombing to the Virginia Tech Massacre. Boulder/London: Paradigm, 2008. Web.
Newman et al. Rampage: The Social Roots of School Shootings. New York: Basic Books, 2005.
Rhodes, Richard. Why They Kill: The Discoveries of a Maverick Criminologist. New York: Knopf/Random House, 1999.