What's wrong with our youth? Is it a psychosocial disorder? Is it the parents?

[DSTCHAOS]

Originally Posted by cheerfulgreek

This is good. I agree, we are going in circles, but you and a few other members are the only intelligent members who are posting on this thread who can have an intelligent chatting session without calling people names. What you said is really good, but I want to elaborate on the mental illness part.

I was avoiding this thread like the plague but I won't get into why.

I loooove to call names. You just don't deserve it.

Originally Posted by cheerfulgreek

To me, it just seems like people aren't diagnosed until after something harmful happens. In fact few shooters are diagnosed with mental illnesses before their crimes. Yet many are discovered afterward to be mentally ill. Depression and schizophrenia or one of it's variants are particularly common. Only a small minority of these children are under treatment. A lot of us might expect adults who routinely deal with adolecents, such as school personnel, to be able to spot mental illness. I think it turns out to be exceptionally difficult, largely because problems like clinical depression or schizophrenia may be in their early stages, lacking some of the symptoms that manifest themselves later in life. At the onset of the disease, kids are often aware of how different they are from others and, feeling the stigma that comes with this territory, work hard to conceal their troubles. I think mental illness can be a problem if untreated, but given the number of adolescents who are depressed and suicidal, like you said, I totally don't think mental illness can be or should be viewed as a straightforward predictor of school shootings. A lot of times it's these children that are bullied or teased because they may be nerdy or different. Sometimes these kids are sick and no one knows about it, so they snap. Most of the shootings that occured were by kids who were outcasts, teased or just not accepted by their peers.

You're doing it again. If this is a discussion of violence as a general concept, we have to get away from just thinking about school shooters and their mental health issues. That's the whole "this and this and this and then THAT" approach that lacks focus. You need to assess the validity of mental and emotional health as a correlate for overall violence in children, including perceived increases in violence.

I understand why your mind is going where it is because you have a specific type of violence that is on your mind and peaks your interest. It could also have to do with the image of violence that people are most exposed to. Kind of like that old polygamy thread that I resurrected only to misplace the discussion by discussing the FLDS compound instead of really discussing polygamy.