Yesterday in Chardon, Ohio five sets of parents sent their children to school, today three of those sets are visiting mortuaries and the other two are praying over their children because they victims of a shooting spree in their school’s cafeteria. Yesterday, a young man went to school with a weapon instead of his books with intention to kill and terrorize his classmates. I am beyond sadden by all of this. But really just sad by all of the destruction happening every single day! What is happening to this country?
For the last few years we have seen the education system all over the united states take a deep plunge into the toilet. We have our own citizens going to school in war zones draped with bars, metal detectors, books with pages missing, teachers who would rather sleep with them than teach them and drug trafficking. Students walk halls in fear of being taunted and bullied by peers because of the way they are dressed, their sexual orientation, the color of their skin or their intelligence with Adults standing around oblivious because they are focused on how many zero’s are on their checks! Do you really believe that our children believe us when we tell them we care? We use our children’s destruction as examples for own political agendas, but when it comes down to actually fixing the problem we don’t. We are so interested in creating and stopping wars overseas to protect our borders, but what the hell is going on within the border?
Babies are shooting each other on the street because of the color they wear. Babies are humiliating babies on the internet because of sexual orientation. Babies are defending themselves with guns at school instead of their words or fists. It’s gotten out of control! This isn’t normal! It isn’t okay! And why are we letting this happen?? Why are there children going to school with holes in the roofs & bars on the windows? Why are parents receiving texts that the school they just dropped their child off at is on lockdown because of a shooting spree? Why are innocent children being targeted as apart of an initiation into a gang? Why are children being tormented via text, Facebook, Twitter, MySpace simply because they look, think or act different? Why and how has it gotten this far? There has always been teasing. There has always been a slight difference in educational standards in various communities. But this is now just ridiculous! Can really keep blaming the violent video games if we continue to buy them? Can we really blame the school district about these poor teachers if we never take the time to even meet the teachers? Can we really blame the gang members for harassing our children if we don’t even build a safe community with our neighbors? Can we really blame the kids sending harassing texts if we don’t monitor our children’s phone use? Can we really blame the kid who snaps if we don’t talk to our kids about not being rude?
I feel like at some point, we as parents have to start pointing the finger at ourselves. We have to take a stand and be heard for our children! No one can protect your kids better than you! Yes, you can’t prevent every single little incident, but I feel like our kids don’t even have a fighting chance. Kids don’t even know another option except to pick up a gun! We need to take it back to the old school. Get in touch with your children. Talk to them. You don’t have to grill them, but engage them. Let them feel you and know that you are there. Make yourself available for the great stuff and the bad stuff. Get involved! Invest in your children! Investing in your child, could save another child’s life!
