Instinct is how parents and babies talk to one another. If we are out of step with Nature, we can not be in step with our instincts. It is therefore impossible to hear what a child is trying to communicate. If emotional and verbal connections are not cultivated in infancy, children and adolescents will harbor an accumulation of uncommunicated, unfavorable feelings toward their parents. Parents who have been de-sensitized from their intuition will not be able to read their children and understand their needs as they grow.
Young people translate the lack of connection and responsiveness from their parents as apathy.
This is exactly why it is possible that the parents of Thomas Soloman, the teenager who shot six students at Heritage High School in Conyers Georgia, were oblivious to his depression. Physically, they lived under the same roof, but emotionally, they were miles apart. The Solomans were surprised and horrified like everyone else, when they learned it was their son brandishing a weapon, sending six students to the hospital. Most recently, I worked as an on-air reporter with ABC News in Los Angeles for 10 years. I was a broken child who grew into a broken person, but I made it a priority to heal my pain because I did not want my child to inherit my negative traits.