We woke up to a world where 20 innocent children, between the ages of 6 and 7, will never get to celebrate Christmas in Newtown, Connecticut. Their parents will never get to hug them anymore, or see them grow up to be who there were supposed to be.
As a mom, it's very hard to imagine what these kids' parents will have to face for the rest of their lives. As a human being, it's difficult to process how someone can do a heartless and brutal thing like that.
Within minutes after the news broke, the issue on gun ownership in America is once again raised. Numbers and statistics are argued upon, proving or disproving the (constitutional) "right to bear arms" in the land of the free.
I won't pretend I know what their laws about guns are in the US, nor get into its long and painful history. There have been plenty of solid arguments, for and against the phrase you've probably heard a lot of since yesterday: "Guns don't kill people. People kill people."
But I think that more than gun ownership and its acquisition, there are far bigger issues to this in that ---- there is a need to change the attitude towards gun ownership and it relates to one's attitute towards aggression. And that change in attitude? It actually begins at home...
- When we teach our children to learn how to handle disapointments, anger and frustration.
- When we teach our children how to relate and understand what these feelings are.
- When we teach our children the consequences of resorting to violence.
- When we acknowledge our children with love and recognition, especially when they are not behaving their best.
Society evolves and so some laws must change. This is why there are people pushing for stricter laws to buying guns, believing that this can help minimize mass killings and deaths.
But the children? With or without these laws set, they will continue to be overwhelming exposed to different types of what's wrong with the world today. They will see violence in the media. They will deal with their own failures and dissatisfaction. They will be confronted with the challenges of life. This goes back to an earlier post I've made on becoming resilient in light of the many disappointments we all encounter. And I believe that the best way to protect our children from getting in harm's way, doing harm and causing harm...is in educating and guiding them.
Without proper rearing especially during childhood, an adult can unpredictably snap and may find himself holding a weapon ---- a gun, a knife or his bare hands --- and committing an act of terror. A study on human behavior outlined something like this, in trying to understand why people end up doing the unfathomable.
This is not to disregard that gun control isn't the problem, because it really is. But this Newtown tragedy is something many parents, like me, can learn from. And the way I see it is that it really comes back to the basic: a parenting issue.
But the children? With or without these laws set, they will continue to be overwhelming exposed to different types of what's wrong with the world today. They will see violence in the media. They will deal with their own failures and dissatisfaction. They will be confronted with the challenges of life. This goes back to an earlier post I've made on becoming resilient in light of the many disappointments we all encounter. And I believe that the best way to protect our children from getting in harm's way, doing harm and causing harm...is in educating and guiding them.
Without proper rearing especially during childhood, an adult can unpredictably snap and may find himself holding a weapon ---- a gun, a knife or his bare hands --- and committing an act of terror. A study on human behavior outlined something like this, in trying to understand why people end up doing the unfathomable.
This is not to disregard that gun control isn't the problem, because it really is. But this Newtown tragedy is something many parents, like me, can learn from. And the way I see it is that it really comes back to the basic: a parenting issue.
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