What parents need to do is to spend quality time with their children to look for signs of emotional problems. It's important to note that most of the school shooters actually told fellow students about their plans in advance. Most people don't explode without some advance warning. Parents and educators need to look at these warning signs and students need to be able to identify warning signs so that they may contact adults when they sense a potential crisis is near. In the past they didn't have the esteem to respond, now they have the confidence to respond.
Self esteem is vital in a child's life.
By that I mean healthy self esteem which includes empathy. I think some schools and some families are doing an exceptional job at nurturing the healthy self esteem of young people. However, we all can see that some children are slipping through the cracks. These children have very poor self esteem or a very distorted sense of self esteem where they feel they are entitled to act out in certain ways at the cost of others. We need to bring parents and educators together starting in early elementary school to nurture children's self esteem which will nurture their ability to become active participants in keeping schools safer.