Psychological Abuse of Children Results in School Violence, Bullying, And School Shootings

In 2018, there were a total of 113 people who had been killed or injured in school shootings (Katsiyannis, Whitford, & Ennis, 2018). It is indicated that there have been more people who have been injured due to mass shootings in the United States in the past 18 years than those injured in the entire 20th century. This indicates that school shootings are no longer isolated occurrences but rather they form a part of a deadly epidemic that should be addressed. The best way to address this epidemic is to uncover its underlying root causes. There are numerous shootings that take place in American schools and shooting will only become a mass shooting if four or more people are killed. This number does not include the shooter. There has been a steady rise in the number of school shootings since 1979. In the 1980s the overall death toll from the mass shooting was 12 and in the 1990s the death toll was 36 (Paolini, 2015). For the whole of the 20th century, there were 55 people killed and 260 injured at schools due to mass shootings in America's Western region. According to Katsiyannis et al. (2018) a majority of the shooters were white males who mainly acted alone. Of the 25 shooters, nine were diagnosed as suffering from a mental illness. Sixty percent of the shooters were aged 11 - 18 years. From the start of the 21st century, there have already been 13 mass school shootings that involved lone shooters. These incidents have resulted in 66 people being killed and 81 injured. There have been more deaths related to school shootings in less than 18 years than those experienced in the 20th century. The most alarming thing is that most of the 21st century shooters were adolescents. This does indicate that it is now easier for adolescents to access guns. Adolescents more frequently suffer from mental health issues than was the case in the 20th century.
Child Psychological Abuse
Child psychological abuse is the pattern of intentional behavioral or verbal actions that convey to a child the message that he or she is unloved, flawed, worthless, endangered, or unwanted. Some forms of psychological abuse that can be used on a child include withholding emotional support, terrorizing a child, or isolation. Domestic violence that is witnessed by a child can also be considered to be a form of psychological abuse. Psychological abuse of a child will have serious consequences on the child's development. Children are born into the world being innocent and they mostly find comfort and support from their caregivers when they are under stress (Paolini, 2015). However, when the child is abused, they will not be able to get the comfort and support they need. This will result in the child displaying abnormal patterns of emotional response and disturbed forms of attachment towards their caregiver. The child's future mental and physical health is impacted during his or her developmental years and this is mainly influenced by the caregiver (Katsiyannis et al., 2018). The development of higher cognitive functions and the ability to interact with others is highly impacted by the quality of exchanges between the infant and caregiver. A child is likely to have learning and behavioral issues if they are living with parents who are abusive.
When a child experiences parental abuse or neglect, they are likely to display negative outcomes that will carry on in their adult life. The child will have ongoing problems with self-concept, emotional regulation, academic motivation, and social skills (Dias, Sales, Hessen, & Kleber, 2015). There is also a likelihood of the child having serious learning problems, severe depression, peer difficulties, delinquency, substance abuse, and aggressive behavior. A history of child abuse is associated with suicide attempts, personality disorder, and substance abuse.
Adolescents who have experienced abuse in their childhood are likely to involve themselves in dangerous or risky behaviors (Briere, Runtz, Eadie, Bigras, & Godbout, 2017). One of the behaviors could be practicing shooting using violent video games. In cases where the adolescent has access to guns, he or she might begin practicing using the actual weapon. What will begin as fantasy could quickly escalate into reality (Katsiyannis et al., 2018). As was the case with the perpetrators of the Columbine shooting, the two boys started by fantasizing about shooting other people, and they eventually did turn their fantasy into reality. There is a direct correlation between psychological abuse that a child experiences and their resultant behavior (Dias et al., 2015). Most of the children who undergo abuse at home will eventually act out and they mostly turn to violent behaviors. This link has been shown by numerous researchers who investigate the writings of the children after they have conducted the mass shooting. Briere et al. (2017) posits that child abuse does result in mental development problems that may result in mental issues for the child. It is noted that boys who constantly see their father beating or harassing their mother are most likely to replicate this behavior in school towards girls in his classroom. The boy is only doing this because he assumes this is the right way of treating girls since that is what he has experienced at home. If the behavior is not rectified early, the boy will continue bullying girls and will most likely also begin bullying other boys who are younger than him. Violence in school is mostly learned at home. Children who come from violent homes or neighborhoods will themselves tend to be violent against other children (Paolini, 2015). Depression could also lead to violence. Depression is mostly caused by a lack of connection with caregivers and the child is not able to have the appropriate support (Dias et al., 2015). Without this, the child will act out in different ways in an attempt to get attention. However, in most cases, teachers do not see this as a cry for help. This behavior is seen as truancy and it results in extreme violent behaviors that could eventually lead to the child committing suicide.
Effect on Child's Physical, Social and Emotional Development
The experiences of a child in his or her earliest years do affect how the child's brain works, how they respond to stress, and their ability to form trusting relationships. In the early growth stages, the brain does undergo its most dramatic growth, which sets the stage for social and emotional development. Basic motor abilities are formed, child's language blossoms, their thinking becomes complex, and they begin to understand their own emotions and feelings together with those of others. The ability of a child to learn new information is mainly influenced by the child's ability to interact appropriately with others and his or her ability to control their immediate impulses. Therefore, when a child experiences psychological abuse when they are young, they will have behavioral problems later on in their life. These problems could escalate to become violence towards other children, that could include participating in school mass shooting. Maltreatment of a child can be devastating to the child. Psychological effects of abuse could include the child having low self-esteem and severe dissociative states. The child or adolescent will have poor peer relations, which might become violent. Psychological abuse of children does have an effect on the child as well as the society they live in.
The worst thing is that the majority of the children who undergo abuse do not show any signs of disturbance. It is not easy to determine if a child who is misbehaving or has low intelligence is due to psychological abuse at home. For instance, low intelligence has been shown to be due to abuse, while at the same time a child who has low intelligence might stimulate the parents to start abusing the child. The consequences of abuse do not come to light until years later. This makes it hard for researchers to pinpoint exactly what has been happening and relating it directly to the abuse the child has been suffering. The one thing that all researchers agree upon is that the mass shootings and violence towards peers is mostly done by children who come from abused homes. However, the best way to be able to mitigate against this would be to identify the symptoms and signs of abuse, which is quite difficult. Adolescents who have suffered abuse will mostly be depressed, anxious, or be socially withdrawn. It is normal for an adolescent who has experienced abuse to tend to run away to an environment that they perceive to be safe. The adolescent will engage in behavior that is risky like drinking, smoking, using drugs, gang violence, and carrying guns. A majority of psychiatric disorders is seen in adolescents who have been abused.
A child who has been psychologically abused is mostly detached from society. This is because the child is not able to make emotional connections with others and they mostly have low self-esteem. Psychological abuse makes a child act out in public and this is mostly misconstrued by the school authorities (Katsiyannis et al., 2018). Most of them believe the child is merely being ill-mannered and they opt to punish the child. However, this only makes the situation worse since the child is suffering inside and no amount of punishment will help in rectifying or healing them. The child will most likely continue misbehaving and he or she might get more violent as time passes by (Briere et al., 2017). This forces the school authorities to expel the child, which gives the child the opportunity they need to participate in even more risky behavior. Mass shootings and bullying are mostly done by adolescents who have experienced psychological abuse at home. The adolescent did not learn how to make emotional connections when he or she was young and they do not understand how they might be hurting others. To them, they seem violence as the best way to make connections since this is how they were brought up. It is most likely that the adolescent might perceive what he or she is doing to be wrong but they do not understand why they feel good about them self after hurting others.
Conclusion
Making the connection between psychological abuse and adolescent risky behaviors is vital to prevent and reduce the number of school mass shootings taking place. Psychological abuse of children has negative consequences that will result in injury to the child and to the society as well. An abused child will definitely act out and they will want to hurt others as they have been hurt too. Since the child's mental development was interfered with, the child will lack the ability to make the necessary emotional connections with others. The child will also have adjustment problems and they will not be happy with changes taking place, which would normally cause them to have anxiety. Therefore, it is vital that psychological abuse is prevented in order to ensure that we can reduce the number of mass shootings taking place in schools. Teachers should be taught on how they can identify children who are at risk of developing mental problems that are as a result of abuse at home. This will ensure that the children do undergo counseling early instead of them being punished for acting out or misbehaving at school.


References
Briere, J., Runtz, M., Eadie, E., Bigras, N., & Godbout, N. (2017). Disengaged parenting: Structural equation modeling with child abuse, insecure attachment, and adult symptomatology. Child abuse & neglect, 67, 260-270.
Dias, A., Sales, L., Hessen, D. J., & Kleber, R. J. (2015). Child maltreatment and psychological symptoms in a Portuguese adult community sample: the harmful effects of emotional abuse. European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 24(7), 767-778.
Katsiyannis, A., Whitford, D. K., & Ennis, R. P. (2018). Historical Examination of United States Intentional Mass School Shootings in the 20 th and 21 st Centuries: Implications for Students, Schools, and Society. Journal of Child and Family Studies, 27(8), 2562-2573.
Paolini, A. (2015). School shootings and student mental health: Role of the school counselor in mitigating violence. Ideas and research you can use: VISTAS 2015.