What causes a child to react hostile and/or violent?

Maybe some of the bad stuff those kittens manage to find on the Interne...?

Ed

 

Moms are gone from the home, to work and such.
There are very few family meals in a quiet, without TV, atmosphere with discussions between family members.
Kids are involved in multiple, time consuming activities which involve the maximum part of their day and evening.
The family has much less time spent together.
Peers have a great influence on kids decisions about what is right and wrong!
Very little family devotional time with question and prayer together.

Families are fragmented, rarely a close knit group anylonger but subject to constant barrage of interruption of cellphone, TV, intruders of nonsense!
Even in the car moms are constantly on their cellphone talking to who knows who and giving little or no attention to their little passengers.
In the grocery store, same scenario, mom on cell phone, little ones rambling around on their own.
Who knows, who cares about all the millions of kids in families, yet actually left to their own devices!
Our countries kids are at great risk today!
No wonder they grow with covert anger, feeling neglected, shortchanged and later on erupt into some kind of violent behavior!

I think we all know what is needed, but who will risk surrounding their own family in a quiet, loving atmosphere and shutting out the chaos of the world to protect them?
( just to clarify, I am a retired psych nurse and know the troubled youth that come from such homes and how terribly impaired their coping skills are, how totally unable they are to make decent informed decisions about the most simple things in life! They're growing up like Topsy, on their own, raising themselves!)

 

Amen, fathers need to stop playing with kittens and start running the home the way God told them to. Bring mamma home from the factory so she can guide the house, bring the children up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Correct the kids with the rod when they go astray, and the foolishness will be driven far from them. The answer is not to give them lollipops. They should be rewarded when they do right, but they should expect to be rewarded for doing wrong as well.

 

Sin . . . is the biblical answer.

:type:

 

2B, JN, ElG, You've hit the nail right on the head.

When moms and dads take the responsibility to raise their own kids, get involved in their kids lives, and NOT allow the kid's schedules to run their homes, maybe then things will get better.

My wife and I are not perfect parents, but we have 4 well behaved kids. We made the decision when we got married almost 30 years ago that, whatever it takes, mom will stay home and raise the kids, and dad will be home as much as possible. We have done without some "stuff." We drive used cars, live in a modest home, and buy our clothes at Wal Mart. But, we eat dinner together as a family almost every evening, go to church together as a family every Sunday (and Wednesday). It has been worth every sacrifice!

There are far too many homes where, if there is a dad, he doesn't have anything to do with the kids. He leaves all the responsibility to mom. These dads need to be taken to the edge of the city and stoned... well, maybe not stoned, but somehow they need to see the importance of raising kids! I believe that God will hold them responsible.

My herat goes out to single moms and dads. I don't know how they do it.

 

Excellent post, excellent example of what parenting is all about! God bless you, and yours! I so pray your tribe increase and ASAP!

 

Would like to add a little more. We live in a time and a culture which considers violence as a form of entertainment. Of course this will encourage violence.

We live in a time and a culture which is saturated with drugs. This leads to violence. The kids are not blind.

We live in a time and a culture where criminal activity is often blamed on the time and culture instead of holding the individual responsible (talking about adults here). Thus they are 'rehabilitated' and turned loose on the streets again.

Parents certainly have their jobs cut out for them! They must not only come to grips with their own and their children's tendencies to sin, but with a culture which glorifies that sin and encourages it.

One does not have to look at instinctive behavior in kittens to see what we are doing to our children in our culture.

 

They and you are surely blest! You know the answer Man!!

 

The OP is exelent.

The prime time for joining a gang is middle school. The reason it that is when kids start to either feel like part of their society or a reject from their society. Kids who are always (real or preceaved) failures group together with other kids who are considered failures. In this culture they can suceed by failing the bigest. When a kid joins a gang he can be the best the most sucessfull by doing what he thinks he does best failing.

Find ways to let your kids succeed. Kids who play sports, dance, whatever dont generaly join gangs. Make sure your kids know you think they are succeeding in whatever, tell them.

All parents should read the book Gangsta in the House (understanding gang culture) by Mike Knox.

From the book

These kids who have given up on society and its rules then group together with like minded people just like we all like to do. The book is a very insitefull read, and it is directed toward parents. It may keep your kid from joining a gang or becoming the target of gangs. It deals with gangs in general and does not bore with details of individual gangs.

 

Notice the gangs that kids voluntaraly join are very heavy on dicipline and punishment. Kids crave structrue, rules and dicipline. They join a group where every detail of what they do is under gang rules and punishment is harsh.

 

Right but sin has not changed thru generations. The OP is asking why this generation is useing gangs and violence to act on the sin that has been in kids since Adam and Eve.

 

That is very good answer. Kids who have structured familys that they have no doubt care for them and love them will not generaly join gangs.

How ironic that the law enforcement officers protecting you from other gang members do not get paid enough to have their wifes home with their own kids. And it is not a matter of sacrificeing some nice stuff, it is a matter of puting food on the table and making a morgage payment.

 

Observations:

1, People aren't kittens. Careful about stretching an analysis too far.

2, Look at the illegitimacy rate:

'nuff said.
3. "Supplanting punishment with rewards" sounds good on the surface, but punishment will always be necessary for folks that simply don't get it. And do we really want to start a governmental system of rewards for doing what responsible folks ought to do anyway? I wasn't rewarded for staying in school, and not impregnating every female I met...yet I turned out OK.

Sorry, but the undertone of the OP seems to imply, "they can't help it." Sorry...but they can.

 

Punishment and structrue are important but so are rewards. They should come from a parent and can be a little as "good job son". If you only punish and never acknowlege your child acomplishments then you could add to the problem by making your child feel like a reject of society. They then rebel by removing themselfs from society.

I think it is very important for parents to reward good behavior and good work. Daughter I am proud of your grades in school, good job. That is all that is needed. Add that to structure, rules and punishment for breaking rules and you will never have a child that bangs.

 

I did not get that from the OP. Obviously there is something kids are lacking or getting that turns them toward gangs. I see nothing wrong with trying to figure out is there is something we can do as parents that will prevent it from happening. That does not remove responsability from the kid just acknowleges our own responsability.

I bet you were, if nothing else then your parents were happy with you. Or that is the group you fit into. You found your reward in your success.

Kids that join gangs are not good at anything except failure they either never succeed or their successes are never acknowleged. They fit in with other kids who are failures.

 

If you can't throw the underlyng the problems of child or youth deliquency to a negative Parental Role, doesn't that destory the Age of Accountability theory altogether? Well, it may already have been and I've just been asleep....

 

I can't go along with this.

They often join gangs because they have parents that don't offer guidance, discipline, and wisdom.

They join gangs because they idolize idiots that promote that hogwash.

There are myriads of other reasons...

I would turn the statement on its head: many kids join gangs because their wrongdoings are never corrected. Rewards for good things are nice, but punishment for wrongdoing is just as important.

 

Dont get me wrong. I am not saying the parents are responsable for juniors actions. Junior is responsable for everything he does. But the parents may be guilty of not raising junior in a way that he would make different choices.

As for age of accountability that ends once junior realized that actions can be bad or good. Long before we are talking about. Age of accountablity is grace from God nothing to do with parents.