Boy Shoots Himself At School

enharmonic

catefrances wrote:

a kid's 'job' is to be a kid. to grow and to learn how it all works. and someone has to guide kids through that. 'to do your best' may not be same in their eyes as it is in the parents or the system. 'you're just not trying hard enough.' is not something a kid wants to hear when he is trying the best he /she knows how. shit a brick anyone would think these kids are being raised by the perfect adults. don't tell your kids they have to do their best and knuckle down when at the same time you deny what a shit time you had at school and how you hated it and how you spent more time smoking cigarettes behind the toilet block than cracking open a book.

A kids job is to do the best they can. Being a kid and screwing off will not put food on the table when it's time to get a job after you graduate (or before in my case). Hell, just toget a job my parents insisted i have good grades.

I'll agree with you...kids should be kids and try to figure out how life works to the best of their ability, provided they have a nurturing/supportive environment. So many kids start on the bubble these days, because adults can't get their shit together. For those kids, I feel a lot of regret, because they deserve better.

My frustration is directed more at kids who are lucky enough to have a relatively stable home life, and the opportunit y to perform, but instead choose to be difficult. Doing your best means getting help if your best isn't cutting it. every school I have ever attended had tutoring. dunno if that holds true anymore, but I have to assume it does.

Unless a child is emotionally/psychologically/physically abused...I see no reason for them to not have time to be both a "kid" and to try as hard as they can for themselves...not their parents...themselves.

Ahnimus

enharmonic wrote:

My frustration is directed more at kids who are lucky enough to have a relatively stable home life, and the opportunit y to perform, but instead choose to be difficult. Doing your best means getting help if your best isn't cutting it. every school I have ever attended had tutoring. dunno if that holds true anymore, but I have to assume it does.

Unless a child is emotionally/psychologically/physically abused...I see no reason for them to not have time to be both a "kid" and to try as hard as they can for themselves...not their parents...themselves.

So, here you say that a person given the perfect environment, should make the right choice, but yet they do not.

Then you say that under certain circumstances are not permitted to do what you feel is required.

So, how is that certain circumstances affect a child, but not all?

Skitch Patterson

Ahnimus wrote:

I say, if you want to punish your kid, take away his right to play video games or something. Never take away his/her right to play sports.

Think of it like this, you can suppress or reinforce your child's activities. Banning them from playing sports suppresses the activity. Reinforce the activity of playing sports always. Or they end up like me. lol.

May I ask if you ever played High School sports?


First of all, i think the pressure to excel in sports is far greater from parents than the pressure to get good grades...

second... If you ever played high school sports, its not a simple matter of an after school activity. The amount of time you need to devote to them definately takes away from your time to get school work done.. and there are people who are incapable of balancing that type of workload.

You dont just go to practice, your weekly game and go home. You practice in the summer. You come in early and leave late. You have to show up on saturdays and sundays to watch film. Some schools make available (ie basically force you) classes as a Gym credit that are essentially mid day practice. You go to team meals and in some cases, do fund raisers....


Just from a purely "hours in the day" perspective there is no question that participation in sports can have a negative impact on your ability to study and get good grades. Your view on this may have some validity from a philosophical standpoint, but is lacking practicality.

is it just my way

its so tragic that anyone feels that suicide is the only way out, and its sad that most people here seem to put blame on the parents, no one knows what goes on in someone else's life, you don't know what these other activities were. The fact is no parent, ever, should have to bury their child, its devastating. My thoughts go out to all his family and friends. :(

Byrnzie

is it just my way wrote:

its so tragic that anyone feels that suicide is the only way out, and its sad that most people here seem to put blame on the parents, no one knows what goes on in someone else's life, you don't know what these other activities were. The fact is no parent, ever, should have to bury their child, its devastating. My thoughts go out to all his family and friends. :(

True. It was more than likely a combination of things that drove him to it.

Ahnimus

Skitch Patterson wrote:

May I ask if you ever played High School sports?


First of all, i think the pressure to excel in sports is far greater from parents than the pressure to get good grades...

second... If you ever played high school sports, its not a simple matter of an after school activity. The amount of time you need to devote to them definately takes away from your time to get school work done.. and there are people who are incapable of balancing that type of workload.

You dont just go to practice, your weekly game and go home. You practice in the summer. You come in early and leave late. You have to show up on saturdays and sundays to watch film. Some schools make available (ie basically force you) classes as a Gym credit that are essentially mid day practice. You go to team meals and in some cases, do fund raisers....


Just from a purely "hours in the day" perspective there is no question that participation in sports can have a negative impact on your ability to study and get good grades. Your view on this may have some validity from a philosophical standpoint, but is lacking practicality.

Yea, but if a kid enjoys sports it's best to encourage them. Physical exercise helps the brain as well, it's been directly linked to cognitive abilities. Not to mention the behavioral pattern it sets for a healthy lifestyle. I don't think algebra is as important as that.

Skitch Patterson

Ahnimus wrote:

Yea, but if a kid enjoys sports it's best to encourage them. Physical exercise helps the brain as well, it's been directly linked to cognitive abilities. Not to mention the behavioral pattern it sets for a healthy lifestyle. I don't think algebra is as important as that.

I think it would be equally important to set a behavioral pattern of priorities. The point of school is education, the other things are secondary... And you need to excel in your main goal before you can focus on the extra stuff.

and yes, it is good to encourage a kid to play sports... but if that kid is not capable of handling both properly.. then a choice needs to be made... and your ability to play football is not going to get you a job in 10 years- your grades (and subsequently the college you get into) will. You can go to school and not play high school football.... To continue to play football, you Have to stay in school- and you have to have the grades to be eligable.

But again, in many cases, parents arent removing the kid as a punishment- they are making a difficult situation more manageable for thier kid.

The fact remains that the amount of time it takes to invest into a high school sports can definatly negatively impact the ability of a student to get good grades and gain the knowledge and information that school provides.

Ahnimus

Skitch Patterson wrote:

I think it would be equally important to set a behavioral pattern of priorities. The point of school is education, the other things are secondary... And you need to excel in your main goal before you can focus on the extra stuff.

and yes, it is good to encourage a kid to play sports... but if that kid is not capable of handling both properly.. then a choice needs to be made... and your ability to play football is not going to get you a job in 10 years- your grades (and subsequently the college you get into) will. You can go to school and not play high school football.... To continue to play football, you Have to stay in school- and you have to have the grades to be eligable.

But again, in many cases, parents arent removing the kid as a punishment- they are making a difficult situation more manageable for thier kid.

The fact remains that the amount of time it takes to invest into a high school sports can definatly negatively impact the ability of a student to get good grades and gain the knowledge and information that school provides.

I wasn't involved in high-school sports. Yet, I had extremely poor grades and failed to finish. Subsequently I owned my own business, attended post-grad education and recently had an interview as a developer for the best automotive information provider in the world. Guess, I'm just a freak.

Skitch Patterson

Ahnimus wrote:

I wasn't involved in high-school sports. Yet, I had extremely poor grades and failed to finish. Subsequently I owned my own business, attended post-grad education and recently had an interview as a developer for the best automotive information provider in the world. Guess, I'm just a freak.

No, you exceled through determination. Nothing wrong with that. You managed to figure out your priorities and improved yourself. Good grades dont mean that you will or will not have a "good life"... but it cant hurt.


The fact you werent involved in high school sports gives a lot of insight into your postion.

When i played high school football... the schedule was as such.

Summer Months...

June and July- Weight Training and Passing camps. Very few days off.
August- 2 a day practices...
Monday- Thursday
7:30- Report to school
8:00- In the film room dressed.
9-11:30- Practice
11:30-2- Practice
2:30- Team Meeting
3:00- Get changed go home.

Saturday- Practice and Film 8 am- 12pm.


School starts-
Monday- Thursday:
7 am- Team Meeting
7:40- School Starts
mid day class: Gym/Football Class
2:15 Day ends- to the locker room
2:45- Dressed and in the Film room
3:15-5:30- Practice
5:30-6- Team meeting
6- Get changed and go home.

Friday
School starts-
Monday- Thursday:
7 am- Team Meeting
7:40- School Starts
mid day class: Gym/Football Class
2:15 Day ends- to get food
3:30- Return to school for team meeting
4:30- Get Dressed
5- Get on the bus
Game prep and game ends at 10
return to school at 1030 and go home

saturday-
8am-12 pm- Conditioning and Film.

This doesnt count team meals, fundraising and other misc...

doesnt leave a lot of time for homework.

know1

Ahnimus wrote:

I totally disagree with you after having studied child psychology.

Chances are there something happening at school that was affecting his grades, not something happening after school. It could have been a conflict with a teacher or students. Thus why he shot himself at school and not at home.

Studying child psychology did nothing to lead you to that conclusion.

searchlightsoul

enharmonic wrote:

Really? Ever have to deal with a black bear?

Ever lived in Detroit or Baltimore...land of the home invasion?

If I have rocks in my head, the Constitution must be flawed, because it is my Constitutional right to keep an bear arms. There have been guns in the house since I was a kid, and no matter how shitty I thought my life was, I never once got the urge to take one to school and start blasting away...and my childhood was pretty damned depressing.

I'm right fucking tired of this particular debate. It's people making bad decisions. That gun isn't sitting in its cabinet taunting the kid. No one is telling him to grab it and off himself...or take it to school and kill others/himself. That's just a fucked up kid who probably had a shit home life with little discipline or control.

I've never read a story about any of these kids where it was an average joe who decided to do it. It's always some kid who's totally fucked in the head...and that is an institutional problem. Kids with too much energy today aren't even allowed to have gym class. They're labeled as "hyper" or "ADD" and put on meds that fuck up their brain chemistry. And then we wonder why shit goes down?

Give me a break. On second thought...don't. Anyone who is careless enough not to secure their weapons or teach their children about gun safety deserves to have their kid blow their brains out...or worse. The counter to my argument is the BIGGEST part of the problem. Gun control advocates fail to acknowledge the RESPONSIBILITY required of gun ownership...which is why I say fuck 'em. If they can't man up and be responsible enough in their own lives to have control over what amounts to an inanimate object for most of it's usable life...then fuck 'em. They're damaged human beings on a very fundamental level. common sense and resposibility are all it takes to avoid this kind of crap. Oddly enough...two critical traits to being a half-way decent parent, too.

Kids today have it easy because of the access they have to learning. The internet is an unprecedented educational tool, that is more often used to its entertainment value. Being made to feel that you MUSt do your best is nothing new...and, it's not an unrealistic expectation. When you're a kid, the only thing you have to focus on is your grades. You don't have a job (legally), you don't have big bils to pay. Your "job" is to do your best in school, so that you have a shot at a somewhat ok life.

People in this country are getting to lazy and lax about their own personal responsibility and accountability. everyone wants to be a fat fucking lump who lays around and get's spoon-fed their entire life. Well, that's just not how it works. You have to man up, and bust your ass just to survive...and if you're lucky, you'll get ahead in some way or another...if you set your mind to it, and have the talent and responsibility it takes to be successful in any endeavor.

Enough of this blaming the gun horseshit...guns don't make shitty decisions. People do.

But you have no restrictions on who can own a gun which is the major problem and what do you need a fully automatic rifle for when hunting animals or securing your house? Where does this lidicrous arms race end?

You miss the point entirely when you imply that consequences of gun violence only affect the owners when they clearly impact the lives of other people in the community.

Constitutions can be amended.

lalalalaaaaaaaa

I think people are putting way too much emphasis on the parents and what they supposedly did wrong. And there are way too many assumptions flying around about how the parents went about raising this kid. You can't know everything from one little news story.

Let's also not forget the kid was 16, not 6. He was old enough to make this choice all on his own. He chose to bring a gun to school and shoot himself. That is a tragedy, and that's the real story. I can't say I respect his choice, because he put other people in danger. It's interesting how people are very quick to point out how dangerous it was to have the gun available in the home, but not how much more dangerous is was to bring it to a public place. But I'm not going to make some example of him as to why guns should be banned or why you shouldn't be too strict with your kids either.

I agree with 'is it just my way'. This thread shouldn't turn into some debate about how to raise children or gun laws. It should be about suicide. The choice of suicide has little or nothing to do with gun laws or a strict upbringing. I had a very strict upbringing, and I'm still here. There's a reason for that, and there's a reason why many of you who grew up with strict parents (who maybe owned guns) didn't kill yourselves. When people really learn what that reason is, it can probably help out a lot when it's time to raise their own kids.