We know there is a problem with too many guns, too much violence in media, as well as too many uninvolved parents. But we are also failing to use schools to help teens develop safe and effective lifelong skills for reducing and recovering from emotionally distressing experiences . We can teach skills for preventing painful feelings that plague most adolescents, from erupting into anger and violence. As a society, we seem unaware of our potential power to help teens understand and deal with underlying feelings that often lead to behavior destructive to themselves and others . Any normal, emotionally confused adolescent feels insecure about their social and self-acceptability.
Teens often hold a painful, secret sense of shame about their troubling feelings.
A feature article in the current issue of Psychology Today questions if the militant measures being taken by schools will create more teen problems than they prevent. Since 1970, the incidence of both depression and suicide among teens has tripled. Schools also risk further alienating teens from teachers, school administrators, parents and other adults who try to reach out to the adolescent in need of emotional understanding, security and support. We want to violence-proof schools. Educators can be trained to identify and demonstrate healthy ways of acknowledging and expressing typically painful feelings.