Youth Violence

Hey Lesleigh,

I was a little worried when we started youth violence. I am a people person to begin with but when it involves children, I get even more concerned. I have always wanted to work with children and I have always hated hearing about children getting hurt or even worse killed. I now realize that it was good for me to hear and participate in something like that. I will most like, one time or another in my career, work with a child that has been abused or seen someone he or she loves abused. I also enjoyed this section because in my service learning, I am working in a children's group for a domestic violence organization. The kids I have worked with have a lot of issues that need to get worked out. They have either been apart or have witnessed some kind of abuse in their family. It is really sad to hear about but on the other hand, these children are some of the best children I have ever worked with. They are eager to learn. I am trying my best to teach them the different kinds of violence and how to handle it. I feel real good when I see that they understand. I know I am running on about my service learning but this section has really helped me with it. I help run a group on Thursday nights and my supervisor is usually not there so I pretty much get to run it. One little boy had a bad day or week and everything that he wrote or drew had to do with violence. He is about nine or ten years old. One of the assignments was to draw the nicest dream you have ever had. He drew him shooting his enemy, his enemy in a grave, and him in jail. After I collected and saw that, it scared me that a boy this age could be thinking about stuff like that. We then had them draw something that they are scared of and he drew him having a caesar. I turned in his papers to the supervisor and she talked to his mother about it but it is amazing that he thinks that way.

I do blame some of the violence that we see on the media and the video games. There are so many video games that have the children shooting other people. There is one game that a child can be a bully at a school. He can pick and fight anyone he sees in the game. I think it was the documentary Tough Guise, that talked about the television and movies and video games. I cannot blame all the problems and violence on the media but they do have an impact on some children's thinking. In Tough Guise, the guy talked about wrestling. There are some kids that think it is real. I was watching Funniest Home Vidoes recently and saw two young boys taping themselves imitating two wrestlers. They were lucky that they did not get hurt. The documentary also talked about masculinity and feminitity. In today's culture, males have the need to feel masculine. If they do not act or feel macho then somehow that does not make them a man. There are things that are considered feminine and will jeopardize their "manhood" if they do it.

I was reading Kids, Guns, and Violence by Sheley and Wright and had mixed feelings about it. I first was surprised to read that youth violence has increased. I really liked and agreed with the statement "...a leading concern voiced by many observers of the contemporary urban scene is that violent behavior has become culturally normative in the context to underclass life". I think that it is a problem with it becomes a norm and is expected. There has to be something we can do about it. I tought that I read somewhere that it has gone down recently and that is why it was a surprise. A lot of the article was how guns are a major problem. I agree that to many teens have guns and it seems easy to get one. I believe that people kill people. A gun cannot aim and shoot it self. I do believe that something should be done but I am not sure what would work at this point. Kleck mentioned finding a way to ban "bad guns" and leave "good guns" but I do not understand what he means. Is he talking literatively or figuratively? I might just not understand that section or what he meant. I do understand what Reiss and Roth are talking about when they "argue for centralized and street-level tactics to disrupt illegal gun sales, like those now used to intervene in illegal durg markets". My only problem with this is that it might work for awhile but teens are going to find another way to get guns if that is what they really want. They have found a way up to this point and they will find a way after.

I feel like I am just rambling on so I am going to take a break and write more tonight. Hope to hear from you soon!