No way to silence the violence

Why are school fights on the rise?

Originally published in the Moultrie News.

Sources report increased fighting in schools. What do you think is the reason?

Some (not all) of it is perception. There have been big fights in schools forever. Public awareness of those fights, however, has increased due to cellphone video and social media. Traditionally, schools have tried to keep acts of violence under wraps, but now they can’t, so at least part of the rise is a mirage.

For the part of the increase that’s real, social media is again partly to blame. Charleston Post and Courier writer Hillary Flynn reports that some recent fights at South Carolina’s Aiken High School were instigated when “a social media challenge circulated, encouraging students to film fights in school for a week straight.”

Social Media also enables kids to stir up the kind of fight-inducing adolescent drama that was once spread by less reliable means. In fact, inciting drama is probably social media’s biggest contribution to school culture. High schools have always had a cast of “types,” like jocks, nerds and class clowns. Recently, a new character has emerged: the troll. Among other skills, the troll dexterously finesses the sort of digital drama that ends in fisticuffs.

THC is one of the biggest reasons for more fights. The main ingredient in marijuana is stronger and more accessible than in the past. In South Carolina, for example, legal loopholes mean it’s basically legal, and kids can get it from stores just like they used to get beer. It also comes in hard-to-detect and highly-concentrated forms. Kids don’t smoke pot anymore. They chew cannabis candy, eat drug-infused cereal, ingest THC vapor, and drink marijuana punch.

Parents might wonder how a drug that makes you mellow could induce violence. Well, times have changed. THC’s new variants and high concentrations affect the adolescent brain far more insidiously, contributing to violent behavior, lack of empathy, and elevated aggression, according to a range of recent studies. That’s bad news because marijuana is literally everywhere. It’s been a long time since I’ve talked to an adolescent who hasn’t seen it in their high schools.

Some other reasons:

• Today’s high school students have a lot of free time, much of it unsupervised, and high schools pack a lot of kids under one overcrowded roof. Add those together, and you get a tinderbox. Anyone with siblings knows that even a home gets too close for comfort sometimes and physical conflict can result. Imagine the conflict in a house of 3,000 siblings.

• Many schools don’t bother to address lower-level bad behaviors like profanity, cutting or horseplay. That means they’re pushing the standard for acceptable behavior downward, making students more likely to engage in higher-level offenses like assaults. Think about it like this: if physical horseplay is like driving 30 mph and a violent assault is like driving 100, you’ll be a lot more successful at preventing the latter if you keep the speed limit at 25, not 70.

• Fighters are often repeat offenders. Many have special behavior plans for various diagnoses like ADHD or ODD. Federal laws all but prohibit students with those plans from being punished for fighting if it’s determined that their belligerence is related to their diagnosis (and it’s almost always so determined). With little deterrent to curb the aggression, schools essentially foster fighting and other forceful actions. It’s an extreme example, but such claims were made about Parkland High School murderer Nikolas Cruz.

Clearly, there’s plenty of responsibility to go around: the schools that nurture bad behavior, the kids who give into peer pressure, and the adults and politicians who encourage loose drug restrictions — but it’s parents who have the most power.

The hand that rocks the cradle is the hand that rules the world. The rise in fights would drop off a cliff if all parents would just do a few things: Help kids avoid getting caught up in the unnecessary drama and juvenile challenges of social media. Discourage drugs. Encourage them to tell an adult if they hear violence is imminent. And above all, teach them to value kindness over pride.

Read the original column here.