Some Serious Questions

I think it's time to take a look at what is happening to our children while we've been distracted by 9-11, war, health care, and the economy.

Something is really wrong. This article on Huffington Post is a must read and should be read out loud to the American people by the President himself. We have an explosion of mental health issues that are being swept under the table as we try and use pharmaceuticals and prisons to contain the problem. But what is deeply concerning is what is happening to our children. Bright, very bright, children are turning into disturbed and violent beings. They terrorize their families, their teachers, their friends, and fellow students. They are often mainstreamed into regular classrooms because most of the time they are good, kind children who are struggling to deal with life and learning with both hands tied behind their back.

The Reagan administration gutted the mental health care system and closed the doors to mental health hospitals. He literally sent these poor people to live in the streets or with families ill-equipped to handle their issues. We can thank him for that. In the aftermath of his destructive policies our prisons filled with the mentally ill. We now house our most vulnerable in an environment of violence and fear. They are left to survive on their own. These same prisons are now for-profit institutions. 

We cannot have this discussion without taking a look at vaccinations. When my grandson was born they wanted to literally give him twice the amount of vaccinations that his mother had when she was born. TWICE THE AMOUNT. I ran a travel immunization program for our local hospital at one point, so I know something about vaccinations, and many of them were not needed for a newborn. The Hep B vaccine they wanted to give him was not given to his mother until she was in junior high school. The Hep A vaccine they wanted to give him AS A NEWBORN is not generally used unless you travel outside of the United States. Our daughters had it when we went to Mexico and they were in high school. I told my daughter to tell them no, he would have them later in life. But they still gave him many more vaccines than they should have, in my opinion. I no longer trust those studies that say all vaccines are safe for newborns.

And then we have to look at the burgeoning business of video games. Violence is epidemic in these games that developing brains are playing over and over and over and over. Like anything we do routinely - it becomes habit. But in developing brains this can have effects that are dangerous. I think we are seeing this now as many shooters are young males - the target audience for these violent, blood-soaked, video games that often involve shooting mass amounts of people.

And what about movies? We've made vampires sexy and super heroes dark, dangerous, and deadly. Graphic violence is the norm for theses movies. On top of that they are fiddling with the frames per second - speeding them up. The new Hobbit movie is making people sick.

We have gutted programs that help families and give passes to bankers that ruin our economy. We put assault weapons in the hands of anyone that can buy them and then we cry when one is used to kill a classroom of kindergartners. We overburden our classrooms and teachers and then blame them for not keeping our country number one in the world. We give tax breaks to multi-billionaires and let our infrastructure crumble. We close our mental health facilities and then step over the mentally ill on our way to work.

It's time to get mad. It's time to take our country back. It's time to hold our politicians accountable to We The People. It's time for our tax dollars to go to us, not black budget military projects that enrich the producers of murder and mayhem all over the world.

ADDENDUM: Fellow blogger Jayne Martin sent a link to this article. It is a must-read if you are trying to understand this most-recent mass murder.

The Adolescent Brain

One of the (many) interesting aspects of adolescents is the developing brain - especially the prefrontal cortex. This portion of our brain regulates all of the seething energy of adolescence, sending impulses to other parts of the brain having to do with motivation and emotion. It encourages delayed gratification, long-term planning, and most of all, impulse control.

New research on the adolescent brain suggests that this area of the brain actually benefits from learning. Not necessarily book-learning, but actual hands-on learning. In the past, young people were taught skills while growing up - cooking, child care, mechanics, etc. They began their internship in childhood as opposed to their late twenties. Today's children go to school, but have very limited opportunities to be able to learn through trial and error within the safe confines of childhood. In other words, the ability to make mistakes, and learn from them, while being watched over by an adult. This has helped create a very long adolescence. Many parents are finding their children still children well into their twenties or early thirties. Why is this? Could it be because the developing brain actually needs to stretch and expand through experience? Researchers believe this to be the case.

They have found that young people respond much more to the reward systems in the brain than do adults, and what they want most of all is social rewards, and the respect of their peers. They also have a more deliberate response when they think other adolescents are watching. This explains why your normally sweet teen goes off the deep end and does something really stupid with their friends.

But beyond that, researchers now believe that the experience of actually delaying gratification affects the prefrontal cortex as much as the prefrontal cortex affects the ability to delay gratification. In other words, it is a symbiotic relationship. The brain develops as it is needed. In years past this portion of the brain was needed much earlier than it is now. People married, started careers and families much earlier in the lifespan. Now we have incredibly bright young adults that appear to be directionless, unable to commit to relationships or career choices.

So what is the bottom line from all of this? Give your children opportunities to learn through experience. Encourage them to cook, clean, fix things, go to summer camp, go to work with you, donate their time to nonprofits that are building homes, cleaning beaches, etc. In other words, allow them the opportunity to fail and learn from their experiences within the protected environment of childhood and adolescence. Their brain will thank you.

Childhood Lost

Recession Drives Surge In Youth Runaways

It is a difficult time to be an adolescent. Not that it has ever been easy. Misunderstood, and often irritating, they can be difficult to be around. The main developmental goal is social, and that doesn't mean their family, who are often first in line for their angst. They can often be easy targets for familial scapegoating, as they make it easy with bad attitudes, laziness, and self preoccupation.

But underneath all that bravado is a child trying desperately to evolve, to become an adult, to be free from the dependence that has been all they've known. Some of these kids come from dysfunctional environments. Homes with anger, hate, substance abuse, and violence. And never more than now.

There is a group that is literally falling through the cracks. Children on the streets as young as twelve years old. Too young to get a job, or even rent a hotel room, they live in packs if they're lucky, sleeping in public bathrooms or foreclosed homes, living next to freeways, or river banks. As our economy struggles, no one struggles more than families on the edge. Armed with very little resources, they are the first to go under. We are seeing a surge in runaways unprecedented in this country. Families that are either throwing their children out on the streets because they can no longer afford them, or not calling the police to file missing persons reports when they run away. It is a serious problem, and growing.

It is estimated 1.6 million kids are kicked out of their homes or are runaways in any one year. Most return within a week, but many are not even entered into the database for missing and exploited children by law officials. Excuses abound. Outdated software, not enough man hours, etc., etc. But the bottom line? We will pay for these kids one way or the other. Either we will help them while they are young and on the streets, or we will pay for them when they enter the criminal justice system. But pay we will.

Am I writing about this because I want to give you one more thing to worry about? One more downer in a world full of them? No. I am bringing this to your attention because you are an intelligent, kind, resourceful group of people. You write blogs, work jobs, have an effect on your world, even if you don't think so. I just want you to remember these children, not to forget they are out there. Talk about them, bring them to the attention of your friends and family. Just please don't forget them. Realize that the 1.5 billion dollars allocated for fighting homelessness is targeted toward families, and not these children out there alone. Help out, or give a few dollars to your local teen outreach. Mentor. Give generously to your local food bank, because these kids are often first in line, knowing exactly when the shelves are restocked.

Just another sign of the times.